* Grave-Misconduct

These little exchanges between TheYale Daily News posters and myself over racism and elitism, speak for themselves. (Photos are my addition.)

PK

M.Div. '80

Judge dismisses Apache suit against Skull and Bones 

By Nora Caplan-Bricker
Staff Reporter

Montgomery Burns of The Simpsons: the most famous Yale Skull and Bonesman

The Yale Daily News

Geronimo's Grave

Two future U.S. Presidents and a Grave Robber (?)  and wives

Published Monday, August 9, 2010

It looks like the public will not be learning any times soon whether the secret society Skull and Bones keeps an Apache warrior's skull in its tomb.

A District of Columbia judge on July 27 dismissed a case that had been brought against the mysterious society, as well as the University and senior members of the U.S. government, in February 2009. The plaintiffs are 20 descendants of the legendary Native American chieftain Geronimo hoping to reclaim their...

#1 By Long live the lawyer 5:44a.m. on August 10, 2010

Ramsey Clark fought for the Kent State issue 40 years ago and is still going strong. Long live the lawyer!

PK
M.Div.'80

#2 By I know it's summer... 12:24p.m. on August 10, 2010

...but come on:
Slobodan Milošević

#3 By Coit 2:23p.m. on August 10, 2010

Keys has it.

#4 By Pasta Keane 8:58p.m. on August 11, 2010

Ahhhh the long hibernation is over. I look forward to waking up to some nice AntiPasta

#5 By radical civil libertarian? 6:42a.m. on August 13, 2010

shadowpress.org ends a long piece on Ramsey Clark with the following question. (Can they actually believe in a conspiritorial view of history? Maybe he's just a radical civil libertarian.)

PK
M.Div.'80

"What is Ramsey Clark: dupe, kook or spook? Has a well-intentioned but none-too-bright Clark been duped by the WWP cadre? Or has his reasoning become unhinged for reasons of personal psychology? Or, is he a deep-cover spook, whose real Devil's pact is with sinister elements of the US intelligence community, his mission to divide and discredit any resistance to Washington's war moves?

You decide." shadowpress.org

#6 By Y10 6:47p.m. on August 13, 2010

@Coit: says who?

#7 By aaron 10:24p.m. on August 13, 2010

let me get my thoughts together and write my response. never in my life have i felt the need to respond to something as to what i feel. what has happened to this country? being half native american, this is clearly a mistake.

#8 By @6 6:20a.m. on August 15, 2010

Maybe Scroll and Key, another secret society.

#9 By mark albino 11:38a.m. on August 16, 2010

What is wrong with this country! Native American Indian or not he was still an American and a human being. No one has the right to own someones remains. They should be returned to the family for proper burial! I guess because it is Yale and the people there think they are privileged and entitled they can do anything they want. The judge is wrong and should do the right thing and force skull and bones to return Geronimo's remains back to his family! If not, then his family has the same right to desecrate not only the judges family remains but the Bush family and all those involved as well. Maybe after this their feelings of entitlement will change!

#10 By Wag 12:17p.m. on August 16, 2010

Is the judge who made this ruling a member of this "secret" society? Just wondering...

#11 By Grave-Misconduct 9:00p.m. on August 16, 2010

@ #9

The white man's religion hasn't done much better: their own God's body was stolen from its tomb at the Garden at Calvary; grave robbery extends as far down the centuries as Dickens's Jerry Cruncher in A Tale of Two Cities. And grave-misconduct with the remains of the dead has its most shocking example right into this very year of 2010 with the mislabelling and downright loss of thousands of soldiers' bodies at Arlington National Cemetery.

The members of Skull and Bones would treat the remains of Yale's BULLDOG with more respect than they have bragged about treating the skull of Geronimo.

And this is considered to be the legendary(but historical) Yale practical joke of the grandfather of TWO Presidents of the United States!?

We steal the Indian's land; we exterminate his people; we rob his graves; and then we send our children to Yale to learn how to trivialize these events.

Proud to be an American.

PK



#12 By Correction 9:33p.m. on August 16, 2010

PS
I should have said "grandfather and father of TWO Presidents of the United States" not "the grandfather of TWO Presidents of the United States". (Even that correction sounds odd, as if he fathered TWO and grandfathered TWO. Oh well, the limits of language.)
PK

#13 By med '10 3:09a.m. on August 17, 2010

And Yale Medical students used to steal the bodies of New Haven citizens to practice upon. Is PK going to get on his high horse over that? If you hate Yale so much, why do you continually post nonsense here? Really, go bother Harvard or something.


#14 By Ghoulish 1:21p.m. on August 17, 2010

@ Yale Med '10

Many of my relatives, descended from my great grandmother five removed, who was a Pequot squaw, have been buried in New Haven or nearby over the last century, so I am certainly willing to get on my high horse about Yale med students stealing New Haven bodies for research.

Ghoulish.

(Like drinking out of Geronimo's skull).

And BTW, no one FORCES you or anyone else to read my posts. If you and Yale are "bothered" by them, the "bother" is self-imposed.

Just ignore them.

I hope if anyone with my name ever comes under your care -- or knife --that you will be professional and put your "botheredness" aside.

Solzhenitsyn's motto is on the masthead of my blog, The Anti-Yale: ("Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." Proverbs 27:6.)

I don’t hate Yale: I hate Yale’s self-intoxication (much as a son hates not his mother but her alcoholism).

PK
M.Div. ‘80



#15 By Easy 1:43p.m. on August 18, 2010

You know what would get a real investigation done quickly?

Protests here on the campus.


#16 By Invite 5:44p.m. on August 18, 2010

How about inviting the descendants of Geronimo to campus to request the skull in person?

PK


#17 By AC 12:19a.m. on August 19, 2010

There's absolutely no way that any judge is going to rule in favor of the Native Americans. Their case is based on a LEGEND. They don't have any proof whatsoever. The words "innocent until proven guilty" come to mind. Ridiculous.

Ramsey isn't a kook, he's just taking these Apaches for the proverbial ride. I bet he's loving raking in his hefty retainer!

#18 By Pro Bono 6:24a.m. on August 19, 2010

@ 17

Stop speculating and paste this url into your browser search window and watch Ramsey Clark speak about the case himself on this Youtube clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x94KVMAFWEY

You don't understand civil libertarians if you think he's getting a big fat fee. Just type in a google search for "ramsey clark pro bono" and see what comes up.

PK

#19 By Y2010 7:44a.m. on August 19, 2010

I would be upset by this ruling if I believed Skull and Bones actually had the skull.

They don't have it.


#20 By What was going on at Yale 100 years ago! 12:38p.m. on August 20,
2010

Let me get this straight.

In the same list of contents for this YDS on-line edition I see that on the hundredth anniversary of Geronimo's death (Feb. 17, 2009) a Yale secret society is being sued for recovery of Geronimo's grave-robbed skull; and on the hundredth
anniversary of Yale Professor Bingham's discovery of the treasures at Machu Picchu Yale itself is being sued for recovery of those Inca artifacts.

What was going on at Yale 100 years ago that made Yalies (both undergraduate and faculty) think it was OK to steal?

Could it be that people of red and brown skin were not seen as human and therefore not embraced by the long WHITE Judeo-Christian arm of the Ten Commandments?

Ironic since the authors of the Decalogue ( the Ten Commandments) had browner skin than Obama.

Give the skull back. Give the artifacts back. And maybe Yale should give whatever buildings were built by slaves back. (But to whom?)

In any of these three instances, has any spokesperson thought of simply offering a sincere apology?

Oh, an apology suggests guilt.

Can't do that.

PK

#21 By Y10 12:36p.m. on August 21, 2010

There are actually a lot of bones in Skull and Bones. Maybe they just can't keep track, you know.

Scroll and Key's not that big on bones-- they're much more into intellectually ethereal stuff, so I doubt they have it.

#22 By Yalie 4:19p.m. on August 21, 2010

@ PK

Take a bit of your own advice and stop speculating yourself. You're wasting your time crying for the return of items which have not even been shown to be stolen in the first place.

Maybe you should start asking Santa to give back all of those milk and cookies while you're at it?

#23 By Santa under oath 5:12p.m. on August 21, 2010

The point of Ramsey Clark's suit is to compel testimony under oath. Then the speculating stops. Even Santa tells the truth under oath: No, Virginia.

PK


#24 By Yalie 3:05p.m. on August 23, 2010

Oh yes! I've heard that even O.J. Simpson tells the truth under oath.

#25 By Cross-examined 6:23a.m. on August 24, 2010

@ 24

CROSS-EXAMINED under oath.

PK

* Back from the Dead?

The Living End

(They tend to, anyway.)

Staring Death in the Face

 My honorary son, Joe, gave me a great gift a few weeks ago: a story to tell.

He put me in the ranks with Mark Twain, who , upon reading his own obituary in a newspaper, sent word that "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."


On his vacation as a Marine Sargent, Joe and his fiancée were up from the flatlands visiting in Vermont for a few days and went to pay their respects at Joe's mother's grave. 

Little did they know that I had bought a plot and installed a tombstone a hundred feet away.  On his way out of the cemetery he saw the stone which has my first and last name on the front, and he did a double-take.  "No". 

There is only a birth year on it; maybe they haven't got around to putting the final year on it yet. Wonder if . . .


The next day he and his fiancée were having supper INSIDE a Dartmouth hang-out where I always eat on Tuesday night.  I sit at a cafe table on the sidewalk in good weather and the people inside don't see the people eating outside. Two different worlds.


Get the picture?


As they leave the restaurant and see me happily munching my burger at the sidewalk table, Joe does a triple-take, definitely not expecting to see me after yesterday.


"You gave me a scare yesterday. I went to the cemetery.  I thought you were dead!"


.

It was worth the price of the tombstone just to have this story to tell.

As a friend  of mine said, "That was pretty expensive practical joke!"


Thanks for the story Joe.


PS:

If you look at the photo of my stone above you can see the flash from the camera reflected in the black granite.  If you look closely, you can also see me on my knees, taking the photo: Staring Death in the Face as my friend Alan said.

*The Pequot Blood in My Veins (Check-out those Cheekbones!)

My Great Grandmother and Grandfather, Christina and Charles Nugent
Her Great Grandmother was a Pequot squaw.
(Note Gramma Nugent's Pequot high cheekbones and rugged features.)

My Grandmother (note the Pequot high cheekbones)
Alice Nugent Ward

My Mother (note the Pequot high cheekbones)
Barbara Ward Keane

Paul Keane
(Pequot high cheekbones hidden by glasses)

* In Google We Trust: The Digital Divine

Felix Mendelssohn and The Cloud

 

A revival of interest in Bach's music occurred in the mid-19th century. The German composer Felix Mendelssohn arranged a performance of the Passion of St. Matthew in 1829, which did much to awaken popular interest in Bach. The Bach Gesellschaft, formed in 1850, devoted itself assiduously to finding, editing, and publishing Bach's works.

Denton Bach Society

Send in the Clouds

For eighty years after his death, Bach's works were ignored and fell into disarray. Some perhaps have been lost.

It was due to the 1829 staging by Felix Mendelssohn of Bach's St. Mathhew's Passion that Bach was saved from the anonymous dissolving influences of history.

Could such a dismal fate befall any musician or writer or artist today?

Ask The Cloud.

* And the winner is . . . Nipohc

Bach

Beethoven

Chopin

Dvorak

St. Saens

For about five years now, I have had this thought whenever I hear a favorite piece of classical music:  Who is the one composer whose music, if I had to choose, I could not live without? (Not just one piece, but the entire corpus.)

It always boils down to these five composers: Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Dvorak and St. Saens.

And the winner is:  Nipohc

* Shacking-up with the Trinity

From The Shack:
(Jesus to Mack)
"But I can give you freedom to overcome
any system of power in which you find yourself, be it religious, economic, social or political." (kindle, large text, 2888)



NYTimes.com.Arts, Briefly
Publisher Has Court Date In Dispute Over ‘Shack’
By JULIE BOSMAN; Compiled by DANIEL J. WAKIN
Published: July 13, 2010

A federal judge is expected to hear arguments next month in the legal skirmish that has broken out over the novel “The Shack,” a story of redemption and loss with Christian themes that has sold more than 12 million copies, The Los Angeles Times reported. William Paul Young, the book’s author, sued his former partners at Windblown Media and his marketer and distributer, Hachette Book Group, in a California state court in November, arguing that he had been deprived of more than $8 million in lost royalties from sales of the book, The Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday. In March Windblown Media countersued for $5 million in federal court, calling Mr. Young’s lawsuit “ridiculous.” Hachette jumped in with its own motion on July 2, saying the case belonged in federal court. Judge John F. Walter of the United States District Court in Los Angeles is expected to hear arguments on Hachette’s motion in August.

Upping the "Primacy Problem*" a Notch

*(Christianity's assertion that ONLY through Christ can one come to God)

(Warning: Parts of this review may be hard trudging for those not familiar with theological gobbledygook. It's worth the trudge, though.)

I was going to post this under the heading "Redemption?"  a heading which I created below as a title for my reaction to the last third of the book.  Instead I am placing it here, at the beginning.

Credit Where Credit is Due

 First,  let's acknowledge that The Shack belongs to  a genre: Christian literature.  As such it is entitled, indeed expected, to have Jesus and the Trinity function as a deus ex machina in the plot.  And indeed they do.

I do not find their answer to the abduction and murder of Mack's six year old daughter, satisfactory; but,  I am sure many readers of Christian literature will find it so.

However, let's give credit where credit is due: despite  falling into the age-old trap of "exclusiveness" (see below) the book does some surprisingly  controversial things in the service of shocking American Christians out of their ethnocentric cocoons: God is a black female named Papa; the Holy Spirit is an Asian woman named Sarayu; Jesus is a modern carpenter in bluejeans who is facially "ugly".

One  unintentionally surprising thing which the book does is reserve until its final pages a  'springing'  which  may unsettle  even readers of Christian literature. 

Hear these words from Papa (aka God). God has the murdered six year old daughter of Mack appear from the dead and later God describes  to Mack how she [Missy] "has already forgiven him [the murderer]."  God is about to ask Mack to do so also.

" She has [?]. . . How could she," says Mack.

God answers: "Because of my presence in her. That's the only way true forgiveness is ever possible." (my emphasis)  (kindle, large text, 3618-22)

I suspect that springing this word "ever" would be news even to readers of Christian literature.

Does it mean that  the non-trinitarian gods of other religions do not provide their followers the "possibility" of  "ever" experiencing "true" forgiveness?

And is the forgiveness  second-best or invalid when offered to others by those who do not believe in a trinitarian god  ?

This seems like upping the "Primacy" assertion of Christianity even a notch higher. 

Now, it is not only necessary to experience the Father by way of the Son, but true forgiveness cannot ever be possible unless the presence of the trinitarian god resides in the would-be forgiver.

Offputting.

But then, Christian literature was meant for those who accept such exclusiveness.

Such a pity to alienate so many people this way.

Mine  is not an opinion which Christian readerships are hungering to proclaim.

And here is another ethnocentrically jolting sentence: At one point the author has Jesus tell Mack "Who said anything about being a Christian. I'm not a Christian."  (kindle, large text, 2897)

This is factually true. If there was a "historical" Jesus (see Albert Schweitzer's In Quest of the Historical Jesus) then his name was Joshua ben Joseph---- not Jesus or Christ----and he was Jewish from the day he was born to the moment he was crucified. Christianity was created 70 to 90 years after his death.

Many readers of Christian literature either do not know this, or prefer to deny it.  So it is surprising and refreshing to have the author tweak their self-imposed  ignorance here with this assertion from the Master's own "ugly" lips.

But if Jesus is not a "Christian" why the insistence on the Trinity as the access code to the Father (through the Son)? 

At one point in Mack's weekend with the Trinity, Mack  is introduced to Sophia who, once upon a time,  was the Goddess of Wisdom in ancient Greek mythology.

It looks for a moment as if the Trinity is about to get a "fourth" person, and a female one at that. 

(Jung says Sophia already was incorporated into the Christian godhead with Pope Pius XII’s 1950 encyclical making the physical assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven a Church doctrine. See: Carl Jung, The Answer to Job)

Rather than challenge the 1700-year-old Nicene Creed (which solved the political problem of "many gods vs. one god" by creating the Trinity--THREE persons in ONE God) , the author leaves the Trinity intact with this adjustment : Sophia is "the personification of Papa's wisdom," not a goddess herself, just an attribute in God's personality.

 Whew.

Wouldn't want to make all those fourth century Fathers turn in their Nicaean graves! (After all, 1700 years is an admirably long time for a political settlement to last---let's stick with a winner!)

Finally, a quote from Papa "herself" : "Papa again interrupted, 'You see, Mackenzie, I don't just want a piece of you and a piece of your life. Even if you were able, which you are not, to give me the biggest piece, that is not what I want. I want all of you and all of every part of you and your day.'" (my emphasis) (kindle, large text, 3308)


I do not know why anyone would find this attractive. It sounds creepily voyeuristic and obsessively micro-managerial to me, Divine Love or not.

Similarly, Papa "herself" tells Mack that his ("her") locus is in "DNA, your metabolic uniquesness, the quantum stuff that is going on at the subatomic level, where only I am the always-present observer."  (my emphais) (kindle, large text, 1475)

The exclusiveness problem aside, (Is Papa present at the sub-atomic level in Jews, Muslims, atheists?) it seems a bit unkind to fetuses with spina bifida that an "always-present" observer powerful enough to have created the entire universe, observes the DNA as it is translating the code for "interior spine" erroneously into an "exterior spine" in a fetus; yet this all powerful being does NOT intervene to correct it. 

Papa later claims that he (or she) doesn't manipulate human beings, that they must come to him (her) on their own 'free will' and that although he could have prevented the murderer from killing Mack's daughter, Missy, he "did  not" do so. 

Free will was the rationale for not intervening with post-partum human beings like Missy's murderer;  but, a fetus does not have free will so why not intervene on the subatomic level without anyone knowing it to correct the error?

Seems cruel.

I, for one, have always preferred non-anthropomorphic descriptions of deity.


For  three decades I have said that if you changed all the words "Jesus" and Christ" in the bible to the word "Forgiveness" (with a capital "F") Christianity would make complete sense, without the problem of having a "person-god".


Heresy. 

Sublime Emersonian heresy.

My reaction to the first third of the book:
 

I am reading on my kindle  The Shack  by Paul Young. It has been on the NY Times best seller list for a long time.  I'm only half way through it, so I really shouldn't write this post.  But I got curious and read a few reviews of the book midway through it, one of which was a devastating lambasting of the guy as a poor writer.

I feel a need to come to his defense.

He says he wrote the book for his children and I believe him.


The fact that it has been on the bestseller list for so long doesn't surprise me, for we all are children in our knowledge of theology; even I am, and I went to divinity school.

We're perfect clients for this literary approach.


Let's give the guy credit.  He tries to make the Trinity understandable to children : Us.


And that ain't easy.


He surrenders to a lot of the canned phrases from the Bible ("I am that I am", etc.) and even a phrase or two from Paul Tillich "the ground of my being". 

And he falls into the trap of country-club exclusiveness (Jesus says he is "the best" way to understand his "Papa" ---- who in this book, btw, is a black woman --- and  also to understand the third part of the godhead, the spirit part--- which is portrayed as an Asian woman in this book). 

Exclusiveness is always a way to make Jews, Muslims and other non-Christians feel second best and arouse their ire.


But so far, exclusiveness aside,  he hasn't made the Trinity intelligible to me at all.


Someone once said that there are only three people in the world who understand Einstein's Theory of Relativity. 

I'd say the same thing about the Trinity. 

I recall in div-school studying Theodore of Mopsuestia and homooosion and homoouision (terms about  divine substance: three persons, one susbtance /one person, three susbtances) and the Nicene Creed, the final compromise at the Council of Nicaea in  325 CE  solving the polytheism vs. monotheism battles by making many gods (polytheism) one substance (monotheism) in this political compromise called the Trinity.

Perhaps it's ponotheism or mollytheism.

Paul Young leaves me baffled.  No idea.

The Trinity remains  a remote theological construction.


So give the guy credit and cut him some slack:  He's trying to make an idea many people think is critically important to their faith, intelligible to the ordinary Joe and Joan.


I'm reserving judgment till I finish the book; but, I wanted to get this off my chest . . .





The Primacy Flaw (second third of the book):

I am now 2/3 of the way through the book and have 14 pages of highlights from it on my kindle.

One of those highlights I repeat here for it is a completely unsatisfactory answer to the problem presented in the opening chapters of Mack's six-year-old daughter's kidnapping and murder.

Jesus (at the shack) gives Mack this reassurance (after his morning-long experience with "Sophia," the "personification of Papa's wisdom" NOT a fourth person in the Trinity) :

You dont need to know "all the details [of the murder]. I'm sure they won't help you. But I can tell you there was not a moment that we were not with her.  She knew my peace, and you would have been proud of her.  She was so brave!" (kindle, large text, 2753)

This simply doesn't wash. A six year old girl forcibly abducted from her father's campsite and murdered "is brave" and "knows peace" through it all?!

Sorry.

Ask Charles Lindbergh?  Or the absolved Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey, Jon Benet's parents?  Or the thousands of parents of children slaughtered or mutilated in African wars?

Divine accompaniment of these innocents on their way to being murdered is not enough comfort for me: It does not wash.

Nor does the "relationship" model of the Trinity satisfy. 

Here, a completely modern,  New Age, pop-psychology phenomenon (the turning of "Relationship"  with a capital "R" into an answer for everything and the highest form of human developmental experience) is offered by Young as  a definition of a concept arrived at in 325 CE at the Council of Nicaea to  prevent a theological war from breaking out between polytheists and monotheists: The Trinity
(monotheism and polytheism amalgamated : ONE God/ THREE persons).

These fourth century theological  intellectual combatants would find  Paul Young's 21st Century  explanation laughable if not irrelevant: the Trinity as an archetypal example for perfect "Relationship"? 

Theodore of Mopsuestia might say, "So what?"

Doesn't work, especially if women are considered a part of that "Relationship" which they definitely were NOT in the fourth century.

It (The Shack's beatification of "Relationship" as the behavior being modelled in the Trinity) may help modern Americans make sense of their own cultural idols ("Relationship" being one of them) but it does not make sense of the Trinity.

And it does not encourage non-Christians to feel included when 'Relationship' depends on the Christian Holy Ghost (the Asian female character named "Sarayu" in The Shack ) for "all true power and authority":

"We [the Trinity: Papa, Jesus and Sarayu] want male and female to be counterparts, face-to-face equals, each unique and different, distinctive in gender but complementary, and each empowered uniquely by Sarayu from whom all true power and authority originates"  (my emphasis)(kindle, large text, 2334).

Don't get me wrong. 

The book is a compelling read.  But it has the "Primacy" flaw: without Christianity (and the Trinity) the full sweetness, the full peace,  the full complexity, of God cannot be experienced.

Offputting to Jews, Muslims and other religious folk, to say nothing of doubters and unbelievers.

And , irony of ironies,  "Primacy" is the very problem which The Shack says alienates man from God: "Men [the gender], in general, find it very hard to turn from the works of their hands, their own quests for power and security and significance, and return to me [Jesus]." (kindle, large text 2325). "This legacy of brokenness goes all the way back to Adam . . ." (kindle, large text, 2538)

 Please note the NY Times article in yellow text above stating that Young is suing his publisher for millions of dollars: A "quest for power" if I ever saw one.

Isn't the exclusiveness of the fourth century compromise called "The Trinity" precisely that which Young's God disparages in the preceding quote: a "quest for power and security and significance" on the part of the Nicene fathers?



Exclusiveness excludes !

Papa to Mack:
      "Like I said, everything is about him. Creation and history are all about Jesus. He is the very center of our purpose and in him we are now fully human, so our purpose and your destiny are forever linked." (kindle, large text, 3069-72)



Redemption? (Final third of the book):

I have one third of the book to go, so we'll see if he can "redeem" this Primacy Flaw.

* My Lie or Mi Lai?

Mr. James Wright, President Emeritus
Dartmouth College


Dear Mr. Wright:


      I just viewed on our  local public access Channel 10 your interview on Conversations with History by a Berkeley announcer the day after you delivered your Jefferson Lecture (which I have not read) .
      I was struck by your puzzlement over why Viet Nam veterans were treated poorly on their return to America. Shunned might be a better word, or, more accurately, ignored.
     They were simply absorbed back into society invisibly, with no fanfare, given no preferential treatment, no honorable mentions.
     I was struck too in your interview by several common threads in our backgrounds: I am 65, grew up ten miles from Yale, was the first to finish college in my family. My grandmother lived two blocks from Yale in a New Haven ghetto apartment, a third floor walk-up with no hot water.
     Unlike you, I did not enter the service. I went to school - - -and then the Draft ended.
     This summer I received a copy of a paper from my home town, Hamden, Connecticut, The Hamden Almanac. Inside was a close-up photo of Hamden's Veteran's Memorial, a huge bronzed wall of names in an outdoor setting.
     The close-up photograph showed six names in alphabetical order: Two of them were brothers who grew up five houses from me and were the my age and my brother's age. They both had been killed, apparently in Viet Nam. They had been dead for decades and I only discovered it , accidentally, when that close-up photograph randomly focused on their names on that plaque.
     My first reaction was survivor's guilt: that could have been my brother and myself.
     My second reaction was cultural guilt: Those kids weren't raised to see college as affordable or as an option, and so the service was their fate.
     My third reaction was disgust at the elitism of my high school which divided kids into college-bound and non-college bound, a fateful division for Eddie and Bobby H--------- (You can read my post on this on my blog at
http://theantiyale.blogspot.com/2010/08/where-have-all-flowers-gone-long-time_03.html )
     And so I am mystified at your puzzlement over the invisibility of veterans when they returned from the war.
     You suggested that it went further than invisibility, that "we blamed the soldiers for the war."


     I think it's slightly different.


     We blamed the soldiers for shattering our fantasy, fed by propaganda, that America is right, that war is noble, that THIS particular war was necessary, and that our soldiers behaved properly. That shattering forced us to THINK about war, and about atrocities, and about minor matters (which I thought you trivialized) such as the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, a pretext for war, and the absence of any declaration of war since WW II.
     Those returning veterans were a mirror of our own denial about the true nature of American politics, egalitarianism, patriotism, and warrior nobility.       
     How could we do anything but look away from them when they returned, lest we have to confront our true selves?
     On yesterday's ABC This Week, a clip of an American soldier fighting in our current war was shown . In the clip the soldier said "the high you get from killing is better than any drug."


Sincerely,


Paul D. Keane
M.A., M.Div., M. Ed.


PS
On May 4, 1970 I was a graduate student at Kent State University and witnessed the shootings. I was struck by how no one --including my own parents --wanted to talk about the shootings after they occurred. It was the same "invisibility phenomenon", the same denial, which greeted Viet Nam veterans returning home. In fact, Kent State was the first homeland massacre of the Viet Nam War, a battle transported home 7,000 miles to Ohio for us to see firsthand, never acknowledged as such.




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Thank you Mr. Wright for your kind reply.

I thought what was trivialized was the fact that no wars had been officially declared since WW II.

It seemed the way you expressed this was a bit euphemistic, almost to suggest it was a minor matter. In my opinion it is a crime to send soldiers to their deaths without an Official Declaration of War.

Yes you seemed puzzled that we "blamed" the soldiers for the war, but my point was that "blame" was simply a mask for our denial. We couldn't face our own complicity-by-silence in the atrocities of the Vietnamese and the slaughter of our own soldiers, just as we had to deny that we killed our own
children at Kent State at the hands of uniformed soldiers who were acting out society's (my parents' generation's) anger at long haired anti-establishment protestors.

I enjoyed your interview and especially enjoyed learning about your humble origins.

Sincerely,

Paul Keane