Four years after
9/11, I was standing beside New York City’s ‘Ground Zero’, reading the
hoardings hung on the wire fences around the site of the attack.
One of them
declared: “In memory of all those great American Heroes.”
Turning to my friend, I observed
“It’s strange the
way the word ‘hero’ is used these days.”
I was about to
explain how they were innocent victims rather than heroes, but I never got the
chance.
A hand grasped my
shoulder.
I was spun around to face a grey-haired man in an anorak and
spectacles.
“Hey! Show some
goddam respect!” he hissed at me.
Had I shouted I might have understood this man’s rage. But I'd whispered. The
scene before my eyes had filled me with sadness, and my voice had dropped, as if
we were in a church.
I was showing
respect. I wanted to explain to this man what
I meant, but I could see the pain behind his eyes; the loss; the anger; so I
dipped my chin and simply said
“Sorry!”
walking away with my tail between my
legs.
Who knows who he
loved in the Towers?
As much as my heart broke for all those lives lost and
broken, my sadness spreads far wider, to the hundreds of thousands of
innocent victims in Iraq who died, as a result of that attack.
Members of the
public killed for no good reason.
The powers that be have long referred to
civilian deaths during wartime as ‘collateral damage’.
It’s a hellish
long way from ‘hero’ to ‘collateral damage’ but they are one and the same
person.
Very sad.
Whenever
particular wars flare up, foreign populations become especially agitated,
seeing one ousted overpowered people as more important than others.
I cannot. I just
see a human life, each as vital as all the others.
Now, enveloped as we are
in a new crisis in a very old war, my heart bleeds fiercely, as it always does
when I contemplate such horrendous debacles.
There is no way to
wage war tidily. Even the crisp technology of remote-controlled drone warfare
kills innocent victims aplenty.
Far from being
disrespectful, I am honouring all the dead; their sacrifice. There are always so many innocent
victims.
Of course there are heroes. Incredible daring and courage is displayed on a regular
basis. When it's employed to save lives rather than destroy them, it's
particularly heroic.
I’m not saying
that all killing is bad. Give me a gun and I’d shoot a Nazi stormtrooper, no
problem.
My heroes, however, tend
to be those who dare to save their troops. Give me Shackleton over Scott every
day.
Scott was an amazing man, brave and honourable to the core. Yet in the
same way that the English celebrate Dunkirk as a victory, they worship a man
who came second and perished with his comrades.
Shackleton’s
expedition failed spectacularly, yet he didn’t lose a single man. I have
read his own account of the Endurance expedition, the ensuing landing on
Elephant Island, the incredible journey in the James Caird and the epic
crossing of South Georgia.
These were tough men, hard and steely in a way so
far beyond our sofas, iPads and cappuccinos, I suspect it no longer
exists.
Despite his strong
ambition and a desire for glory, Shackleton made every decision based upon his
greatest chance of keeping everyone alive.
That’s my kind of
hero.
Together we pray now, for Shalom peace.
©Charlie Adley
24.02.2022
No comments:
Post a Comment