I really enjoyed last week's 60 Minutes (airing Sunday, May 6). I had taped
it and forgot to watch it until this Saturday morning… darn! Missed another
meeting for field service!!
The segment, "TV Network With a Big Mouth" was about the first 24-hour
news channel in the Arab world. The network is bankrolled by the Amir of
Qatar, Sheik Hammed Al Fani. His goal in creating the network was "to
provide knowledge and new ideas to the Arab world." He saw the need for
it to be an independent entity beyond the control of the State and so one
of the first things he did when assuming power was to disband the government's
official Ministry of Information (a likely misnomer).
With 50 correspondents in 30 countries, including the U.S., it discusses
subjects that have been taboo in the Arab world. While it broadcasts sports,
weather and cultural programming, its emphasis is on news -- current events,
investigative reports, interviews with Arab leaders, documentaries.
The network is a revolution in progress. In every other Arab nation, the
news is dispensed and controlled by the gov't. Therefore it's not surprising
that Arab governments view the network with deep hatred since they can no
longer control the flow of information and tell people only what they want
them to hear. In the past, Arabs who wanted the whole story would have to
turn to Western media outlets. Now, for the first time, Palestinian people
hear the news and news events, often live, from Palestinians. The network is
not above pointing the finger at their own people as being responsible for
wrongs that are committed. Leaders of Arab countries have bitterly
complained about and to the network, some even recalling their
ambassadors and closing down its news bureaus.
It seems that having the dispensing of the whole story usurped by an upstart
is not something that is appreciated anyplace. For some reason, I thought
about the governing body.
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Right after that story was the re-airing of "Back to My Lai" about two
American soldiers who were present in March, 1968, when nearly two
hundred Vietnamese civilians were marched to a nearby ditch and
summarily gunned down by a platoon of American troops. It reported how
these two soldiers -- men of extraordinary conscience -- bucked the system,
resisted all of their military training as well as the orders of their leaders by
having the bold audacity to see eleven Vietnamese women and children as
more than just "the enemy" but as people, as fellow human beings, with
basic human rights.
From the air Larry Colburn and Hugh Thompson, the pilot, saw the
massacre of My Lai, and took it upon themselves to rescue as many as they
could from the hands of their American brothers who were set to murder the
civilians. "Back to My Lai" was about their apprehensive return to the
village to see what had become of the place, to answer questions asked of
them by the people, to meet old friends. More than once Thompson broke
down emotionally as forty-year-old memories came back to vivid life.
In 1969, an American soldier who was involved in the killing was asked
about his part in it:
-- Private "M": "I might've killed about, uh, ten… fifteen of 'em.
-- Question: Men, women and children?
-- Private "M": Men women and children.
-- Question: And babies?
-- Private "M": And babies.
-- Question: Why did you do it?
-- Private "M": 'Cause I felt like I was ordered to do it. At the time, I felt like
I was doin' the right thing, I really did. [A day after the massacre the
Private lost a foot in a mine explosion, punishment, he figured, for his
personal role in the killing of as many as fifteen people (one foot for the
lives of fifteen humans… sounds about right to me.)]
After affirming that he was married with two little ones of his own, he was
asked how a married father with two small children of his own could shoot
babies. "I don't know -- it's just one of them (sic) things."
The segment cut to the men on the helicopter who, from the air, viewed the
horror of the massacre. The pilot of the chopper, Thompson, was told by his
crew chief that there was a young one moving in the ditch, now a bloody
pool, where the people had been gunned down. Being the father of a young
son of his own, the pilot landed the machine immediately, and without
hesitation the crew chief jumped from the chopper and waded through the
bloody pool over the dead and the dying to reach the small but living little
boy.
While in painful mid-recollection, a 73 year old woman came from the
village, an elderly woman who forty years previous had her life spared by
the action of these two men before her now. She thanked him for his "great
help" that he gave her that day. Thompson also expressed thanks that he was
able to help her then, but deep sorrow for those that he didn't. She asked
what it was that made them so different from all the others who'd done the
killing. "I thought about my own family," he said. "I was taught not to
murder."
Lt. William Calley was shown leaving the military courtroom where he was
convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison for his part. Light
applause greeted him as he got into the car that whisked him away to the
stockade and later many around the U.S. treated him as a great American
hero. Another of the commanders on the ground at My Lai, highly
decorated Capt. Ernest Medina, was questioned at trial if he himself saw
any killing of old men, women or children. "No, I did not." Colburn and
Thompson testified that, after calling for help in behalf of a young girl,
personally saw Medina walk over, nudge her and taking a step back, blew her
away.
I tried but was not able to watch the segment with dry eyes.
The purpose of this post is not for me to comment on how these two men
are likely to be viewed by the average red-blooded gung-ho American --
betrayers, anti-American Commies, punks, and crybaby wussies -- or the
rightness or wrongness of America's involvement in SE Asia, or whether or
not the Calleys and Medinas and Kerreys of the world should immediately
face a firing squad ala McVeigh.
What I wondered is what the elderly Vietnamese woman wondered, the one
who asked what made Thompson and Colburn different from all the others.
Why, as people from the same "in god we trust" American soil and having
likely received the same "You Must Not Murder" religious instruction, why
or how is it that people can be moved to act so differently by the same
circumstances, especially when another person's life and happiness is
at stake.
How can one elder, or many elders, or most elders know the Watchtower
policy dealing with pedophiles and simply follow orders with out a second
thought, while others, rooted in the same soil, see the evil that's inherent
and feel forced to make a stand? What is it that makes us so different?
I think it's a question well worth finding the answer to.
Two stories that on their surface are totally unrelated. One about a forty-
year-old episode of an armed conflict half a world away and the other about
a news network in modern-day Arabia. Yet I saw a common thread within
each of them. Both stories were about THE TRUTH, the whole truth, and
how distasteful it's discovery can be -- both to those not wanting it known, and
to those who do.
peace to all, and have a mah-velous weekend…
todd