Simone:
Thanks and thanks again.
This monumental and disturbing piece is among the most important studies to
come out of the war, and I use a book by its co-author, Chris Hedges, in
many of my classes. The book is "War is a Force That Gives Us
Meaning."
This is really
worth a read. Part journalism, part social science, part oral history. All
anguish.
The story is less a
surprise than a jolt. Because there really has not been any war of consequence
in which atrocities against civilians have not occurred. And those who have
taken my spring class know that there is an enormous literature arguing that the
perpetrators of such horrors are not atypical, deviant monsters but -- sadly --
human beings in many of the same ways we all are. What does distinguish the
piece is the willingness of many of the soldiers to go on record.
I attach a representative
quote one of the soldiers who came forward on the
record, for this story, a young medic from Brooklyn. It
captures some of what you will go through if you take a deep breath and choose
to read this:
"I go out to the
scene and [there was] this little, you know, pudgy little 2-year-old child with
the cute little pudgy legs, and I look and she has a bullet through her leg....
An IED [improvised explosive device] went off, the gun-happy soldiers just
started shooting anywhere and the baby got hit. And this baby looked at me,
wasn't crying, wasn't anything, it just looked at me like--I know she couldn't
speak. It might sound crazy, but she was like asking me why. You know, Why do I
have a bullet in my leg?... I was just like, This is--this is it. This is
ridiculous."
Steve
Just in case you guys haven't read this:
paz,
Si
*****************
Simone Delgado
917 623 1659
718 609 1411
skype: simdelgado