I was fresh off the boat during my Vietnam tour and could have feigned ignorance of regulations if I were caught giving away food to local inhabitants.
But in truth, I knew—albeit disagreed with—the rule forbidding us from giving away rations, including table scraps which we were ordered to shovel into drums when we finished eating in the mess tent.
Yet after observing malnourished Vietnamese fighting over our scraps, my Christian upbringing overwhelmed me and I decided to risk disciplinary action to sneak food to one of the most desperate.
The day before I watched him being beaten into the ground while trying to grab a handful of scraps which may or may not have once been potatoes and hamburger meat.
The scenario may sound surreal to those of us in the ‘land of plenty,’ but for those proletariats, scraps represented life and death.
My chosen recipient and I forged a relationship of sorts and I soon found myself sneaking him food every day.
Our friendship was forged with his tears of appreciation, as he explained in broken English how he took the ‘scraps’ back to his family, who considered the mushy substance a gourmet meal.
Over the course of the next few weeks, the poor farmer taught me a great deal about his life as a victim caught between two warring elephants.
Like civilians around the globe, Vietnamese citizens were nothing more than the glass underneath the elephant’s feet. If they didn’t starve, they opened their eyes each day wondering if they would be trampled upon.
It was a precarious existence to be sure.
One of his most profound revelations was my Vietnamese ‘friend’s’ confession that several years prior his family decided to have one of his sons fight for North Vietnam and the other with the South (which ultimately collapsed).
His rationale was that his family would be on the winning side, regardless of the outcome.
That’s if they survived.
Either way, he explained, his lot in life would remain the same. He was a poor farmer barely surviving before the war, and would be a poor farmer barely surviving after it ended.
In essence, political systems change, as do their leaders. But the lives of the people on the bottom are rarely altered.
I’ve carried that reality with me since the ‘war,’ applying it to various scenarios, particularly politics.
I sometimes wonder if the Vietnamese peasant and his family survived the war. Or its aftermath which included the reported extermination of American collaborators (and ‘AmerAsian’ children).
And that is the cruelest of jokes—four times as many poor farmers were stomped by the elephants than soldiers, diplomats, or politicians.
If statistics rang true, historically nearly 85% of war victims are innocent bystanders with nothing to lose or gain from their respective conflicts.
According to one report I was reading recently–appropriately on Veteran’s Day–there have been nearly five million civilian victims of war since 2001.
That’s millions! Men, women, children, and the elderly. Real people, human beings, with hopes, desires, and dreams.
Another study revealed there have been over 400,000 civilians killed (collateral damage they call it), by the United States and its Allies since 911.
The Watson Institute for International Public Affairs reveals that 940,000 bystanders have been killed by war violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan in unrelated wars since 911.
And those statistics are conservative estimates, representing a small sample of civilian deaths around the globe.
Millions have died in conflicts in Africa, Europe, and Asia even if they haven’t made the six o’clock evening news.
The current war between the terrorist group Hamas and Israel has drawn international attention to that horrifying paradox. Thousands of ‘bystanders’ have been killed by guns allocated by leaders who use God (or ‘self-defense’) to justify their actions.
American politicians, on both sides of the aisle, have used their political pulpit to both justify the killing of innocent victims and express empathy at the same time.
Hamas threw the first punch, committing acts of terrorism under the guise of religion.
Seemingly propelled by the appeals of peace advocates, some American politicians have joined the cry for a cease-fire, although it would at best provide a short window for ‘some’ victims to escape; those with the resources or connections to do so.
The rest will be treated as expendable chattel, whose fate is ordained, just as countless citizens over the centuries.
That’s the historical asterisk that few want to acknowledge.
A day has not passed since Cain killed Able that the earth has not been stained by the blood of innocent victims of conflict. And most we’ve justified, or initiated, based on false religious interpretations.
One reason I have a problem accepting a literal interpretation of the bible is that I don’t believe my loving God—Nyame—who views (wo)mankind as His/Her children would order Joshua and his troops to murder every man, woman, child and animal in Jericho.
The Crusaders murdered hundreds of thousands in the name of God. As did the Muslims, both in defense and through their creed to expand the vision of the Holy Prophet.
According to the Encyclopedia of Wars, there have been a minimum of 123 religious wars. And that does not include the prayers of priests, Buddhists, and Christians who asked God to support their cause.
European settlers killed over 50 million indigenous people over the last century in South, Central, and North America.
And while it is disguised under the banner of Manifest Destiny, America murdered over four million Native Americans, which does not include Mexicans who stood in the way of expansionism.
Those conspirators who use Critical Race Theory as their disingenuous rallying cry, don’t want our children to know of America’s racist past. Or the millions of lives stolen by bigotry and false interpretations of Christianity.
They want to exclude from their His-story books their genocidal agenda to murder millions of native residents.
Several of the founding fathers supported that goal, with a special place in His-story for Andrew Jackson, who not only murdered thousands, but also spent years tracking down escaped slaves (he was also a slave owner).
Likewise, the great emancipator, President Abe Lincoln, continued the country’s genocidal war against Native Americans, even as he maintained a list of civilian deaths during the Civil War.
Apologists-including clergy who justified slavery—didn’t say a word during the war against Africa, which resulted in tens of millions of bones on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
And, oh yeah, like Joshua, Americans justified their acts based on scripture.
Before you think this is a White American atrocity, the Buffalo Soldiers were tasked with ‘cleansing’ the West for White settlers.
Black complicity in the deaths of civilians is not new, nor has it ended. I have to point a finger at myself, although my role was no less sinful than those who paid for the conflict, or turned their backs on the tragedy.
Based on my arithmetic, 111 civilians have perished worldwide since you started readingthis article.
In this case, ignorance is ablessing. Since you don’t knowspecifically—or can envision thefaces of the children in plasticbags—it is easy to hide your headin the sand. Just be sure it’spointed in the right direction because it could be shot off by astray bullet.
Or, if it makes you feel ‘better’—or empathic–there are currentlyseven million children dying frommalnutrition around the globe.
I made note of that sad reality afew years ago and was shockedwhen someone remarked starvation was worse than a quick deathfrom a bomb.
Shocked?
Probably not, because eitheryou are like the impotent Vietnamese farmer or are blinded byapathy and ignorance. But let itbe known, that there are currently32 wars taking place as of thismoment.
And if historical trends continue, that means thousands of innocent civilians will not see 2024.The only question is whether youwill reach that milestone feedingthe elephant or stomping out thegrass. —Hotep.