Loud Lincoln #1

When I was marching with 20,000 people it’s easy to follow others.

Hold this cross-- “okay”

Walk this way—okay

Yell this slogan--okay.

Get angry--okay.

Enjoy your time here--Okay.

I found myself shouting Spanish slogans, and I had no idea what they meant.

It was a weekend of protest at Fort. Benning, GA. Social Justice Workers, Catholics, Students, Musicians, and Hell Raisers had come to protest the School of the Americas. (My friend was one of the Hell Raisers) It’s now called Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation or WHINSEC changed name, same game. It is a school that is set up by the United States government to teach Latin American Military counter insurgent methods. These military professionals then use their knowledge to commit human rights abuses, or become American-trained guns for hire. It’s wrong and we gotta fix it.

That’s about my complexity of my knowledge and thought about the subject. Basically the friends who took me there pre-car pool told me it was a cool party to be at and we were going to “make a difference.”

So here I am marching and walking and becoming indignant. I hear speakers talk about their experiences. It’s November, so I brought my winter coat. Georgian winters are nothing like the ones up north, and I can get away with a hoodie. A huge mass of people are with me, listening to some Father speak about Catholic Social teachings. The faces are rapt, hanging on the Father’s word, with every fiber of their being. I’m just the dumb clueless kid who is looking around. Then we start moving again, and someone hands me a cross. “Raul Augusto Castillo”. This poor guy has no idea, that my heart’s not in it. I’ll probably even forget his name next week. We are getting closer to the Ft. Benning campus. Tall fences with spiral barbed wire, surround big square buildings. You can see individual soldiers vaguely in the distance. Military March music is playing from the speakers. The person beside me giggles: “They used that with Noriega too!” I have no idea who Noriega is.

I finally see the situation clearly. I shouldn’t be here. I really don’t know what this is about. This isn’t a party. I can’t know what these people feel, I don’t know what they know, I haven’t read what these people read. Hearts and minds together—the person on the right looks like she’s having a transcendental experience. Me? I’m just slightly cold.

I finally do feel something-scared shitless. I do not want to be here. These are not my people. I don't get what they believe. I try and move them aside, but they are indifferent to my plight. They keep shouting and watching the yell leader for the next chant. The people only face one way, with their head tilted slightly up to see the leader. Very few even look at me as a shove by, trying not to panic. The way the crowd is set up, I’m moving more to the side than out. Toward a group of people not looking at the yell leader, which is weird. They are hugging a person in his mid-fifties. He’s got John Lennon glasses, and streaks of gray in his beard.

Then, suddenly, he scales up the fence. Slowly, ruffly. Part of his beard gets caught in the barbed wire. There is a flash, and a photo is taken, as he falls inside the complex and lands on is butt with a “Oof!”. A soldier approaches and takes him away. The crazy shit is smiling as he turns around and waves to his friends.

I finally push my way out of the crowd, and hours later find the car. I wait and wait alone for my friends. I spent the night alone wrapped up in the emergency blanket. I’m simply not going back there.

My friends finally bring back the local paper. It’s John Lennon again. Arms akimbo-like a falling Jesus Christ. My friends say something about “federal prison”- “three to six months”. I look at his goofy grin, seen clearly through the fence’s mesh. His experience was so different from my own. I’m starting to figure out why.

I keep the picture in my pocket, like the other’s rosary beads. The first real belief for a consummate non-believer is hard, and it helps as a reminder.