EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 VIOLENCE

The first time I ever saw a dead body that wasn’t a victim of old age, it made an impression on me. It was that of a Vietnamese man of maybe his late thirties. He had been found by a Marine patrol on a routine mission. He hung from a tree on Monkey Mountain in Vietnam on the South China sea. It was an area which I, myself, had covered on patrol.

The noose still hung around his neck as his body rested in a pickup truck bed on our Navy base. It was located next to an enlisted men’s club, so the drunks had a good time commenting as they passed it by.

Our leaders used it as a lesson for caution and strict obedience.

The village next to our base was especially quiet for the next few days.

What caused this death? Who knows?

Was it a warning as to who controlled this barren spot of real estate outside the City of Da Nang?

Was it punishment for a failure of courage?

Was it a warning to other villagers whose loyalties might waver?

Or was it, as I tend to think, simply the remains of a poor being who tired of living in a country that had been at war off and on for over 300 years?

Violence has its collateral costs.

It also always has its adherents.

Today in America, we read of violence again.

Political parties will “make hay” of it.

Special interest groups will frolic in unilateral explanations.

The media will know it has fuel for another week.

All of this will occur, though, while families mourn and America bows her head in shame.