Caveats and emptors, yeah. As long as they aren't suicide bombers, sure, and as long as they're not on the wrong side and as long as they're not assassins and as long as they are only willing to sacrifice themselves and not anyone or anything else and as long as.... Yeah, we can get into this whole ops versus black ops stuff, but you know what I was thinking. I sort of make those assumptions in my own mind. It's a pretty clear us and them maybe from there, and the nutcakes aren't in the us camp. And I count the "just following orders" nuts (just like they had in Nazi Germany) as part of the Freaking Nutcake Brigade.
Is it a fine line, a tightrope, sometimes? Especially when you talk about ops? Yep, I think probably so. Not easy, and it probably takes a lot to hold onto the vision that you went in there with and not lose it along the way. To add to it all, you had to watch out for the lure of the MKULTRA - (that's minus) ULTRA stuff. Not to say whose side it would come from...could come from any and all, really. Tough. Really tough. At its worst, it could probably be enough to put even the strongest mind to the test.
Some of the more entertaining little stories that haven't been told yet have to do with a young kid finding out just how screwed up the real system and the real world really are. Pretty screwed up. Yep. I ate lunch one day with Nathan Hale. It was either that or eat in an area of a place I didn't want to eat at because I was so pissed at some particular people, and I didn't particularly want to run into a few of them over a Caesar salad. Et tu, Brute? I could just see it. If only I could have pulled live, bare electrical wires out of that salad as Brutus walked by. See how you like being electrocuted, you sick pervert.
So I bought some dried out, overpriced sandwich and a cup of coffee and headed outside. Spring and the cherry blossoms. And not a soul in sight (not even a sold one) except Nathan and me. He stood there not moving, cold as stone, and I sat at his feet. He only inscribed, "I only regret that I have but one life to give to my country" as I mumbled something unintelligible about what the hell I was doing there and how I had ever gotten myself twisted up in such a strange circumstance. And I mumbled it in Arabic. Let them translate it. Disillusionment set in bit by bit. The cynical idealist was taking shape, growing into fine form under the falling pink petals of spring somewhere north of Washington. And all before I could legally buy beer in most states.
It's really sad to see how you grow up in such a hurry sometimes. How your eyes actually change, how you learn so much about how things are, how you realize that things just aren't the way they're supposed to be at all. And how sometimes the worst wars are between those who are supposed to be friends.
As I left Nathan that afternoon, hundreds of delicate pink petals were smashed into the rough concrete as I walked. I wiped their remains onto the carpet before my heels touched the polished marble entry.
I looked back. Other people, people with hard eyes, walked around the fallen petals at Nathan's feet. I smiled for no apparent reason.
No comments:
Post a Comment