I grew up soaked in stories - especially those of heroes. Fictional or otherwise, myth or history, anywhere in our world or outside of it; if there was a battle between good and evil I wanted to be there. Beside my racecar bed my father would read to me from Bulfinch's Mythology, Le Morte d'Arthur, Lord of the Rings, Redwall, and many others.
My favorites were always the knights. Something about an objectively honorable and capable individual on a grand quest to vanquish unredeemable evil had a powerful call behind it for me. In addition to the stories, the various codes of honor spoke to me - from Bushido to Chivalry I ate that shit up. The concept of objective right and wrong has always found fertile soil in my heart - for better and worse.
Bolstering this early education in the Classics and Medieval Romanticism I was at the same time being raised in the Church. At first a small, eccentric, Reformed Episcopalian outfit was the loving village it took to raise me. This gave way to an elementary through high school education with what may be called an evangelical worldview. Others would use the term "Christofascist".
I provide this context so that my readers understand why, when the towers fell just two months shy of my 9th birthday, I responded the way I did.
I have gauzy memories of the day - in contrast to what they often say about remembering exactly where you were. I do believe my teachers missed the memo that they were supposed to roll in the CRT TV and subject their pupils to the live footage. I remember seeing it while getting ready for school that day but those iconic images could have very well been self-implanted. Memory as we know is subjective and oft inadmissible. Regardless, I have snippets of what feel like true experiences and, more importantly, highly meaningful fictions.
Whatever I actually experienced, I remember a certain degree of fear, confusion, and contradiction. I found clarity in that world of certitudes and definites provided by my books, teachers, and clergy. I took comfort in what my history teacher at the time described as, "A moment of national unity unmatched in our lifetimes."
In those tender years I received a message and made a decision.The message: The world is fundamentally unsafe, it is made so by deeply evil people, and the only proper response by good people is a unified effort to exact withering physical violence. The decision: I would join the US Army. Bonus points if I achieved my personal goal of being the specific person to kill this Bin Laden guy. In the half baked logic of my youth I figured that’d solve the problem. I was actually disappointed when he was killed a full year before my enlistment. Oh how easy it was for the robust and aggressive propaganda machine pointed at the (mostly male) youths of my generation to take root.
To fully explain the early years of my service I need to make one thing very clear: I was a True Believer. One of the many things Hollywood gets wrong about the military is the nicknames. No one gets a cool one. There are no Shadows, Ghosts, Snakes, or Mavericks (there might be a Goose or two). When you get a nickname (importantly different from a callsign) you are undoubtedly being mocked. I served alongside Teabag, McLovin', and Gump. My nickname? Captain America. Such was my optimistic enthusiasm, my fervent patriotism, my irritating true belief in the cause that I earned that sneering moniker. I embraced it. I bought a patch of Cap's first shield and put it on my armor. I was proud to be named after the righteous hero and actionable threat to evil from one of my early life stories.
For a long time I was on a grand adventure. In my mind was tangibly contributing to worldwide democracy and liberation. Very truly I believed in the hero-country America and I was thrilled to be a part of that story. The doing hard things, experiencing the world, shooting big guns, hard work, and discipline were icing on the cake.
As the story goes the quest looked a bit different than I expected but I did get very lucky. I became a medic, went no further out of town than Korea, killed no one, and achieved the only accolade from that time that still matters to me: every single soldier entrusted to my care made it home. I left with some good stories, one friend, the GI Bill, and a bitterness that would eventually erode to reveal a much more peace filled outlook. All in all, it was a very silly time, despite my leadership's best efforts I survived, and it laid the foundation for some amount of stability in my 30s.
Over time the facts of things - the crusades were bad, the propaganda machine that taught about allies against the axes of evil had lied, the world is far more complex than a child’s fearful and simple interpretations - tarnished the sheen of the story I thought I was being written. In 2019, as my second (and final) enlistment was ending, an NCO quipped to me that the poor bastards born the year the towers fell were now landing at their basic training locations. Another told me he preferred dumb soldiers because smart ones can think themselves out of bravery and obedience. I looked around me and realized I didn’t know one single senior enlisted soldier on their first marriage and/or without a crippling addiction.
In my final training mission with the Army was pretend-killed (“notionally” as our terminology went) because my real lieutenant got into a real childish and loud argument with our first sergeant thus giving away our position and delaying our unit’s response to pretend-enemy advance. In this particular training they gave you a timer when you were mortally wounded. If a medic responded to you before the timer ran out you had a chance of survival. I remember sitting, back propped against the wheel of our HMMWV, and thinking, “I thought I would die charging a Nazi bunker but it appears these folks are guna kill me in a much dumber way.”
Much has changed since I earned my DD214 and yet I am struck by how much is the same.
Today and now, our nation and others exchange bombs and fuel or engage in proxy wars. My old friends are getting whispers and rumors of deployment or, in some cases, actual deployments… to American cities. The webs of alliance and division grow complex. The ingroup of empire shrinks and those in the imperial core are beginning to feel the squeeze. As we here lose wiggle room, elsewhere schools, homes, and hospitals are leveled. I wonder if the children of those facing deployment today will again see the same sands and streets as their parents.
The American people are asked to believe the same, recycled - albeit more aggressive and on the nose - lies that I was given prior to having the tools to critically analyze it. Consent is manufactured, real and damaging violations are obfuscated by fingers pointing overseas, bread & circuses numb us, wage slavery busies us, and so the wheel continues to turn.
The war in Iran is simply the latest rotation of a wheel that has been turning long before I was born. It is a wheel I helped rotate and today it continues its work of grinding the foreign (and increasingly domestic) outgroup. It is imperative that this wheel be stopped. We are at a critical and historic time to live in line with our truest selves and highest values. Whether or not we choose to rise to this will have a material effect on what kind of world we build for ourselves and posterity. While it is easy to feel powerless and overwhelmed, let me lend some experience, wisdom, and actionable steps.
As a youth I did not have the historical, linguistic, political, or social education to adequately understand the decades to centuries old context of those early childhood experiences. Remember, no one will provide you with the education to liberate yourself from them - even if they love you very much. Even now, there are far more qualified voices speaking to the particulars of foreign geopolitics.
What I do have is a growing understanding of global human and working class solidarity, the wisdom gained from growing beyond my worst self, the witness of my eyes and conviction of my heart, and the uniquely heavy and light lens of fatherhood. I cannot deny these things and here I will speak to them.
The last ten years have brought about an interesting experience for me. I have had the opportunity to watch as the folks that raised me increasingly abandon the poor, brown man they espouse in favor of empire. I myself have come alive to the incredible harm done - at the expense of the powerless and at the will of the powerful - by the lazy theology and half baked hermeneutics of that particular brand of Christianity. The damage caused to the queer community, women, BIPOC folks, poor and working class folks and countless others. In retrospect it is no wonder my community of origin has fumbled countless opportunities for love, mercy, stewardship, solidarity, grace etc.
Here’s the thing with the right wing, christofascist worldview: it’s incredibly fragile. It is almost a requirement that people born into that world marry into that world, go to higher education in that world, and work in that world. Too long outside that world, eventually the first lie is uncovered and the glass begins to crack. In early 2020, I was fresh out of the military and COVID was a new thing we were learning about together. I distinctly remember thinking, “We know so little but what we do know is this: this will harm poor and oppressed identities far more than it will harm people that look like me. Fortunately, with mild inconveniences people with privilege can tangibly improve the material situation of their neighbors. The Christians are going to nail this!” Dear readers, we did not…. My people did not nail this. I watched as the people that thanked me for enduring countless inconveniences in my “service” refused to consider their neighbors. I watched as those that taught me about sacrificial love gave in to deep selfishness. Eventually, the folks from my youth dropped the mask as they chose power and safety. The rest will one day be history. For me, the glass shattered and I was left naked and sputtering. The compassion and reception of those people with whom I had formed community received me in this time.
It may be easy for some to write these folks off but consider that they truly did raise me with compassion, care, and support. Many of these trusted adults were the strong towers I clung to in the storms of adolescence. They taught me the sacrifice, bravery, love, and virtue that sent me overseas. Imagine my grief and sorrow as they allow fear and greed and ignorance to rob them of their love for green and growing things, their recognition of Christ in their fellow man, and their ability to attend to the convictions found in their holy books and personal virtue.
I do not mean in the least to justify or soften this groups many sins to their children, neighbors, and the world. But here's the rub dear readers, two things are true: There but by the Grace of God and the skin of my teeth go I.... and I am also proof that one can leave and turn away at any time. The path out of our fear and hatred is a shattering and painful experience, especially if it means stepping away from your community. It can - and must - be done. If you're in that group I challenge you to step away. If you’re outside I challenge you to receive those that step away. We go where the love is.
Toward the end of my military adventure I had begun to doubt the Cause. It was a trickle at first as the ingredients for radical change began to accumulate in my life. I began to attend a liberal college and learn the things neglected in my earlier education. I developed powerful relationships with people unlike me. I stepped outside my world and began to volunteer at a syringe exchange. I asked questions and thought. Critically, not only did I reach out but I was received. The people I sat next to in class or packed “hit kits” with met me where I was at and graciously and gently guided me through their experiences. They likely did work that was mine to do. I am forever grateful.
Nothing has driven home the historical moment I find myself in more than fatherhood. My cognitive, philosophical, and political rejection of imperialism, heteronormativity, patriarchy, and all other forms of oppression has life breathed into it when I watch my girls play in the park, snuggle in for their bedtime stories (they too will hear of brave knights and heroic courage), or dance in the living room to their favorite music. They are growing into entire humans with relationships, opinions, dreams, intersectional identities, preferences etc. More and more I see my daughters everywhere. My coworker's baby is getting her first teeth just like my oldest did. The barista near my house smiles just like my youngest. When a kid scrapes their knee in the park I feel the collective pull as all the present parents turn towards the familiar sound of crying.
I wonder if my fellow parents feel that same solidarity and tug when they process the photos of parents pulling their mangled young ones from the rubble. How could they not? Mine just got a pair of those exact same shoes. I pray the Boomerang does not find mine. A sinking of guilt follows immediately after.
Fatherhood to me means that everything I do during the hours in which my eyes are open is done within the context of wanting the best for my girls. The powerful fatherly urge to want the best for them means that I want a better world for them. Being able to see the thread that binds us all means that wanting the best for mine must be wanting the best for their's. I see my daughters in all daughters. A wound to one is a wound to all.
I want a better world for our daughters. I want better stories for our daughters. I will tell them those stories and perhaps, one day, they will write their own. I often think on the day my kids, learning about this moment in history, ask me what I was up to. It is imperative to me that I have an answer that aligns with my values. It is crucial that I am able to explain exactly, precisely how I resisted the machine. How I pulled on that thread.
When describing the process of deconstruction and reconstruction that is growing beyond your old and worst self I often use the analogy of a cozy but poorly constructed sweater. At first it is warm, safe, and you grow attached to it. But over time it frays and becomes itchy. It shrinks as you grow and it becomes a prison. Until one day you notice a loose thread. You pull that thread and more loosen and spring forth into your vision. You now stand at a crossroad. If you continue to pull the threads this familiar sweater will rapidly fall apart. If you don't you will remain constricted and trapped. The great thing with this analogy is that you can beat it to death. Once you've fully unraveled your itchy, hot sweater you now have yarn. And with that yarn you can learn how to build something else. As I grieve the loss of this first community I have been invited into a new, loving, intimate, and powerful community. On the other side of the nakedness and vulnerability is the truest freedom I know.
As I age I am increasingly convinced that community and solidarity is the only way through. I no longer believe in the safety through strength philosophy that once united the world around me. I believe in something more than safety. I believe in life. Abundant life found in foregoing power, security, and control in favor of care, justice, and liberation. In developing deep, powerful, enduring relationships with your neighbors. In mutually and materially blessing each other’s lives. In bodily care through food and medicine (my particular niche). And please understand, I am very bad at this. True freedom is having the permission - in good faith - to fuck up, be held accountable by your internal convictions or your loving community, and grow.
We are the people that future generations will interrogate. Not only historians but our children and their children will ask and argue and ponder what it must have been like to be us and what we did and why. We stand at a flashpoint in history. Dorothy Day is credited with saying that, “Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.” I have experienced her to be right through proving the negative of her sentiment. The more I shrug off the fetters given to me in my childhood, reject the systems I once served, and build new ways of being the more free and true I am.
I cannot directly cease the human crushing imperial machine overseas but I can feed people here. I can teach people how to be able to physically care for themselves and others in crisis and in calm. I can join the work of the heroes building new ways of operating within the world. Charitably it can be argued that my impulse to join the Army came from nobility, honor, and virtue. Perhaps even I was able to eek out some good in how I cared for my soldiers. It is my hope and belief that this new Way I am walking in the world is a more realized, true iteration of the same. I posit that I am living the values I was taught as a youth in a far more real way. It is my hope and belief that this Way of being will build a better world for my daughters and teach them how to one day walk it further than myself.
As the clouds of half-cocked war roll in and vapid, shallow vultures circle our nation looking to feed on a chunk of the dying old world. I urge you to interrogate the narratives, resist the lies, get to know your neighbors, materially and spiritually give and receive care, realize new ways of being by building the local interdependence that stands a chance. Perhaps once the sweater falls apart and the wheels are disassembled there will be something better we created waiting in the wings. In this current moment and for future moments, indeed it is the only way.