I don’t want to talk about Ehren Watada again. You all remember him, don’t you? The man who enlisted in the military the same year American soldiers were being sent to Iraq, who was ordered to be deployed two years later, and then suddenly had the epiphany that the war frayed his moral fibers, and he wanted no part in it. He chose not to be deployed with his troup—and now he’s on television and in the papers trying to defend his choice.
When I wrote him about him the first time, as angry and spiteful as I was, he was nothing more than a pussy who had woven himself an ugly, raggedy blanket of lies to cover himself from the critical eyes of the American public. And critical most of us were—how can we not be when someone tries to justify cowardice by feeding the media vague, scripted, unresearched excuses in the hopes that we are stupid enough to believe them as truth?
But I suppose what I said before wasn’t enough to stamp out my disdain for this “man,” for here I am again, spending time trying to articulate my disgust–disgust that was triggered when the local news broadcasted a story of Watada’s showing up at a rally put together by his supporters.
Supporters? Supporters? Did those attendees realize what they were supporting? What they were advocating for? They were proponents of anti-Patriotism, laziness, hypocrisy. Call it what you want, but Watada does not stand for anything else.
When I flew home from LA, I was sitting next to a woman who looked like a typical sorority girl: blond, attractive, Valley-accented, gabbing on a cell phone about how she got wasted at a party a few nights ago. I didn’t pay much attention to her until she held up a large box of See’s chocolates she had bought at the airport.
“Do you want one?” she asked me. “I wanted to treat myself to chocolate before I go to Iraq, and for some reason M&M’s just wouldn’t do.”
I looked at her: blond, attractive, Valley-accented, party girl. “You’re going to Iraq?” I asked?
She nodded as if it was no big deal. “Yeah, next week. I’m in the military.”
And that was it. I slept through most of the flight, but when I woke up I noticed that the woman was crying quietly to herself, glass of champagne in one hand, cell phone in the other. She was looking at pictures of a baby boy–her baby, from I remember her telling someone on the phone. It was sad, but fascinating at the same time: what was she thinking as she looked at the pictures? Did she wonder if she was going to get shot? Did she wonder if she was going to die? Did she wonder if she was going to watch people die, by her hand or someone else’s? What? I wanted to ask her…
The plane landed, and I went to get my suitcase. I saw the woman again at baggage claim–she was picking up her green army backpack, the only thing she brougt with her from California. A week later she would be in Iraq.
Did Watada stop and consider the men and women who found themselves in his exact position, who realized they would have to leave their friends and family, who realized that they might not come back alive, who took their army backpacks and boxes of chocolate to fight in a war they may not have believed in? Did he?
In law, culpability is measured according to levels of forseeability: the more foreseeable an outcome, the more culpable a person may be. I think it works the same way for Watada and any other individual who chooses to enlist in the military. It was foreseeable that he would be deployed to Iraq, and that foreseeability prevents him from coming up with excuses to alleviate his level of responsibility. Of culpability.
But the honorable, truly Patriotic Americans who are deployed go without complaint, despite their own personal reservations. And why? Why?
Because they fight for their families, for their friends, for their children.
They fight for us, so that we don’t have to.
absolutangel64 