Our Hearts

Armies bleed Gaza

My generation resisted the Viet Nam war. Living through the mass murders of entire peoples. Enraged by blatant bigotry. Hundreds of thousands around the globe marched. That day Martin Luther King was murdered; there were riots at my High School the next week. New Orleans schools were being integrated. Fist fights in the cafeteria. Fist fights after school. I went awol from the last months of my senior year. Registered for the draft. Skipped school and rode a Honda to the sea wall at Pontchartrain beach. Sun bathing on slabs of concrete, smoking Kools and gagging on warm beer. I did not burn my draft card. I lost it. Over a hundred thousand went to Washington to demonstrate against the war. “The Armies of the Night”; an historical novel by Norman Mailer describes the event. He attended the rallies and became part of the unfolding conflict between the military and our rights. Imagine a hundred thousand facing the soldiers called out to control this massive expression of resistance. Fifty thousand or so broke off the main group and marched to surround the pentagon. Surrounding this concrete structure that has been part of U.S. imperialism since the end of WWII The thought was to join minds and using the force of sheer will to levitate this factory of death. Part of my personal path to awareness was to see how this act of protest.

This judging of my country by my people did not raise the building an inch;. But it changed me. It changed my heart. My mind followed.