Hello again, all.
It has been difficult to rejoin this conversation, for a variety of reasons,
not the least of which has been the animus that (to me) appears to remain in
the residual ascriptions and attributions about my motives, morals, and
meanings in my reference to (US) Memorial Day lo these several days past.
I think this post provides an appropriate forum by which to endeavor to
reply, even though my thoughts--and, truthfully, my emotions--are, mostly,
still pretty inchoate around this issue.
I'm not really a very linear thinker, but I would like to go back to the
"offending" text for a moment, if I may, in an effort to defend (is that the
right modality?) myself in my own words against what I think is the most
spurious claims/implicaturew offered by some commentators: that I acted with
some special, ehtnic or cultural malice in addressing Naoki in particular.
That position is not supported by reference to the text of my message. I
wrote in reply to one of Naoki's posts, certainly; but the (imo) clear tenor
of my remarks, it seems to me (of course), was that of addressing the
collectivity. I asked, right from the first, and without specifying to whom
I was addressing the question: "Has anyone ..."
Now, as to the sentiment that inspired my appendix in the first place, I
must appeal to those on the list who know me already, if only to verify that
I am someone who chooses his words with fair care and precision. I offer
this, of course, to dispute the imputation that I was enjoining anyone to
"enjoy" anything. I wrote bidding my readers to have "a reflective" day, not
a "happy" one, or an "enjoyable" one, or a pleasant, or a relaxing, or a
peaceful, or a holy, or a painful, or any other kind of day. Just a
"reflective" one which, in the discourses in which the conversations in
which this group interacts are composed, appears to have been precisely what
happened, though not in the way I might have imagined. But I said
"reflective" and I meant "reflective."
Because the day, here, where I am--and this is where Olga's post resonates--
the day isn't about celebrating war, it is about reflecting on the costs of
war: the dead. The dead are as dead by gunshot as by gas as by infection, as
by bomb, &c... My remark was intended to convey my ambivalence. Some on the
fields of Shiloh (an American Civil War battle) died of attacks by wild hogs
which, drawn to the field by the stench of carrion, began to feed after dark
on the dead and the wounded who were too weak to fend them off. Memorial Day
in the US (should be) a day of reflection, of memoriam.
Some have remarked on what I take to be their repugnance to my articulation
of my positionality (ahem) as a (US) veteran calling attention to that fact
as a context in which my remarks might be understood... As if, by such an
admission, I was somehow disqualified from commending reflection. I am a
veteran, indeed.
But by what right of ascription does someone who doesn't know me condemn me
for my status as a historically constructed personhood, and suggest that I
must now still endorse the actions in which I participated, in relative
innocence 30 years ago, and in reaction to which I formed a large segment of
the voice I now use to resist such oppression.
I speak from lived experience, to which I at times return unbidden, when I
yield to no one in the ferocity and fervor with which I am critical of the
US Imperium, and of my own role in it. But I cannot escape it. It formed me
then, and it continues to influence my thinking now.
A touch of autobiography? Anyone care?
In 1964, age 18, just after the Gulf of Tonkin incident (which we now know,
but which I learned 25 years earlier than most of you, was contrived
precisely to expand the reasons for US imperialism in SE Asia, and which
knowledge was the proximate cause of my radicalization), I joined the US Air
Force. A privileged scion of a very conservative, aggressively "white"
bourgeois family, son of a WWII Navy Officer, I was then (naively--but had
also been carefully) prepared to go forth and kill commies for God and
Country. Especially Commies. Godless, Socialist, Free-riders!!!!
At the time, I was also a practicing & practiced (hence, naturally,
unreflective) racist/sexist/jingoist/ablist xenophobe. I was only allowed
(!) to go out with a latino girl (Bertha Trujillo, daughter of a neighbor)
because she asked me to her prom--noblesse oblige... I couldn't have asked
her to mine. "It just wasn't done," my mother told me. It was akin to what
would be called in the military, fraternization; the mixing of classes. A
BAD IDEA, as would be known if it has been known. I come from a long line of
assholes; convivial, intelligent, well-mannered assholes, but assholes
nonetheless.
[Anyone wishing to totally embarrass me could refer to the "morgue" of my
home-town paper for a letter I wrote, as a concerned youth in that period,
castigating war protesters as cowards, and proclaiming my undying allegiance
to truth, justice and the 'Murkin Way.' Had I been eligible to vote in 1968,
I would undoubtedly have cast my ballot for Barry Goldwater: Extremism in
the cause of justice is no vice, &c, or something; whatever...just for baseline]
[Know the difference between a war story and a fairy tale?
Fairy tales begin "Once upon a time; war stories start off 'This ain't no
shit..."] {Why can't he be serious, just this once?????}
Being (at the time, I thought) no fool, however, I opted for service that I
thought might offer the possibility of avoiding outright combat.
Nevertheless, even AF bootcamp in those days was still designed to instill,
if not the Marine's 'spirit of the bayonet,' at least the spirit of the
semi-automatic/automatic carbine. I won a marksmanship ribbon with the .30
caliber M-1. I went to tech school, and I went overseas--safely, I thought--
to Germany in intelligence. Two-and-a-half years there: April 65-Nov. 67.
Then the unit I was with was closed (presidential unit citation). I was too
'short' to reassign in europe; but as my enlistment expired in August, 68,
so I was too 'long' for an early-out. By now a Sergeant, I was reassigned to
a TAC unit Stateside. But...The long and short was we were sent temporary
duty to SE Asia to support a wing of the last f-105s (called 'thuds' cause
they were about as air-worthy as a bus)--it was common knowledge that these
aircraft were expendable and the equipment, if not the personnel, weren't
expected to be shipped home--and I went along for the ride. We (a target-
mapping detachment) arrived in-country in early January, 1968 and returned
to Langley in late March.
Beginning even before I was released (honorably) from duty in 1968, I had
begun my opposition to US military intervention. In college, in the period
1968-1972, I was active in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. I was a
medic/marshal in the demonstrations at UNM following the bombing of Cambodia
in '70, applying a tourniquet to the stanch the femoral artery in the leg of
a fellow demonstrator and high school buddy who had been stabbed by a
guardsman's bayonet during a confrontation in May of that year. I have
steadfastly opposed such recent US interventions as Grenada, Panama,
Nicaragua, Lebannon, even the Persian Gulf. Yes, I am a veteran, and as such
I am perhaps more ambivalent than many about the wages of war.
[One thing I learned:
If you think you're having a bad day, just add a sniper. Ask the folks in
Beirut, Kosovo, Belfast, &c.]
About that time, too, I began to recover from my socio-culturally congential
"assholism." I began to reflect. And the rest, as they say, is history.
So, when I (i thought, politely) invited the group to reflect on Memorial
Day, and to remember, I did so with no animus towards anyone in particular,
and with no particular pride in the event or the occasion. I was not calling
attention to "Murika's" victories, or for the celebration of some kind of
"victory" day--though it is often constructed as one. I thought a group
devoted to the study of mind culture and activity would pick up those
themes. I do not apologize, except that in being perhaps too cryptic I
caused upset--though to be honest I have a reservation, there, too.
This is perhaps too much about too little. I don't know where to start or
where to stop. I don't expect expiation. I recall the scene in Monty Python
and the Holy Grail (is this, too, to locally cultural?) where the royal
party encounters the ducking of the alleged witch:
Peasant: "She's a witch! She's a witch!"
King: "How do you know she's a witch?"
P: "She turned me into a newt!"
K: "You don't LOOK like a newt."
P: "Well...I got BETTER!"
Please, I'm neither a Newt nor a Bill. I got (or am still getting) better.
regards
konopak
PS: I recently learned theat my patronym is related etymologically to the
eastern european word for "cannabis." Imagine my surprise and delight.
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"Man may smile and smile but he is not an investigating animal.
He loves the obvious. He shrinks from explanations." --Jos. Conrad
___ _ _
| | \ | / John Konopak, Ph.D. +----------------------+
| | ) | / EDUC/ILAC Rm 122 | You can lead a horse |
| |___/ |_/ University of Oklahoma | to water; but you |
| | | \ Norman OK 73019 | can't make him surf! |
/ | | \ jkonopak who-is-at ou.edu +----------------------+
(__/ * ! * | \* Ph: 405-325-1498||FX: 405-325-4061
"People know what they do; and sometimes they know why they do it.
But what they don't know is what what they do does." -- M. Foucault
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| [Standard Disclaimer: Irremediable intertextuality, |
| and/or consequent and/or collateral intersubjectivity |
| notwithstanding, opinions here are as much "my own" |
| as I can make them. Still, I wish I'd said: |
| "Those who can, do; those who know, teach."] |
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