“I am a Vietnamese man!” exclaimed Mike, an earnest,frizzy-haired, caucasian, Vietnam War veteran; “if you come into my village and attack my family, I will kill you; if you drop napalm or agent orange on me or my family; I will kill you; if you massacre my people I…will… kill YOU!”

 

The question and answer session that Conor and I take after we share our about our inward transformations and the contextual histories we both went through to get to where we are now usually consist of queries about the distance we’ve travelled, our relationships with our families and military friends, or how to best help soldiers returning from war. But Mike was living a war within himself, and like the vortex he was in, inhaled all the energy in this candlelit room in residential Portland to his inner-conflict.But his pain, at first, seemed like an affront on Conor and myself; “if you had been through the shit that I have… I wish I could be peaceful and compassionate and you need to realize it’s a gift”

 

Mike articulated every word he uttered lingered, his stare was locked in a location that was far from Portland, OR and the effort he put into saying each word was as if he had to physically transport them from where he was in his mind thousands of miles and into the room of bewildered listeners. Then, shaking his fist, he constructed a statement with his frustrated energy and delivered it to the room “Gandhi did not have all the answers! If Gandhi was in charge instead of Ho Chi Min, there would be Burger Kings all over Vietnam right now, but I am treated like a traitor and judged for saying this…” and he continued with the announcement that he was a Vietnamese man and the list of who he would kill and when.

Portland... or is it?

I wanted to be compassionate to this man who was obviously in so much pain, but I also could not accept the proposition he presented that I would automatically live in hatred and desperation if only I had seen things as horrible as Mike had. So, in an attempt to neither concede hopelessness, nor judge or look down on where Mike was coming from, I responded by saying “you are right, I have not been through what you have. But I have seen my share of inhumanity, I’ve seen innocent people slaughtered and I’ve sunk into so much despair that my hands shook and my eye twitched, but we are never without hope. Again, you are right though that I haven’t been what you’ve been through; I have a family who listened to me and even if some think I’m misguided, they support me as a person and I definitely realize that that is a rare gift. But I also know that to kill because we feel threatened has motivated many people who I know, myself included, to fight these wars to begin with and that as long as we cling to that justification, nothing will ever change”.

Mike didn’t want a treatise on war though; gritted teeth and yelling turned to sobs as he brought to life the war that was still raging inside of him that the history books state ended over 35 years ago. He wanted to say it wasn’t over; and it isn’t. One of the most aggravating claims I hear people make is that driving in a car is more dangerous than going to war and that the death counts aren’t that bad. As if the effects of war can be measured by a digit! Anyone who compares the danger of war to the danger of driving a car has never taken the time to listen to the countless veterans like Mike; you can lose your life from both, but only one sabotages your soul and your entire sense of meaning. Cars don’t “roll grenades into huts filled with women and children” as Mike described; SUV drivers might harm people in accidents, but not with the cold intention that it takes to suffocate a prisoner of war until he passes out, kicking his genitals to shock him back to awareness, and repeating the process over and over again. Veteran drivers don’t commit suicide in droves because they did do what the road signs told them to do. And the soul staining atrocities from Vietnam, from Iraq, from every war in history pile higher and inflict far more anguish than the ticker at the bottom of your cable news that states: US casualties (the “bad guys” don’t count) ever could.

The wars rage on long after the negotiations that declare them over; and though they rage, anger is not the final form of a beast that refuses to die. Talk of war was on the lips of two others directly and indirectly affected by it whom we encountered in Portland, it’s vividness still flickered in their weathered eyes.

Portland

Brian, another Vietnam veteran, a captain whose life had been under threat by members of his own army as he began to speak out about the injustices of the war while deployed, welcomed us into his home nestled amidst a sprawling permaculture garden. Entering his home, moving past shelves and stacks of books, he met a younger man poised and ready to help share our stories, Randy. Randy’s brother had worked closely with General Tommy Franks; “He didn’t talk much about what he did, I think he realized pretty quickly not to ask questions” Randy began to explain, “but once when I asked him how work was going, he said ‘I don’t even know what is going on; one day we’re in these obscure countries killing people, and the next, trying to be their friends so we can get what we want. It finally overwhelmed him and he killed himself”.

Both men had experienced deep pain, but pain does not equal hopelessness (though that may be an important step in the process). Shining forth a positive transformation, they began to explain Portland Bright Neighbors, a networking program where locals could post events, carpool information, tools to lend out, and lists of other ways to connect their community.  http://www.brightneighbor.com/ War was an ongoing experience that neither of them wanted others to go through–on either side of the gun–and they labored to address it’s roots. If we fight over resources, let’s make the best use of what we already have so that we don’t have to take other people’s. Through sharing, gardening, simplifying, and educating, tangible alternatives to consumerism and it’s costs were brightening up the neighborhoods of Portland.

Portland's bright neighborhoods

Einstein said “problems cannot be solved with the same consciousness that created them”. We got a taste of Mike’s pain as he felt so disgraced by the way he and his fellow soldiers had acted, that he viewed himself as a countryman of the nation he harmed. We tasted it, but the premise that pain must equals rage couldn’t digest for me. I haven’t sought to let love guide my life simply because I haven’t experienced enough horrors. The horrors are the products of greed, fear, and hatred and love is not the absence of pain, but a new way of life. When no man is my enemy, I have no need to kill. When I am inwardly satisfied, if it comes to being killed, I can be killed in peace. When my own army is the enemy, as Mike had described, love asks what is causing the injustice? How can my friends and my country commit these acts or ignore their realities when they are exposed? In a sense, when we hear about these injustices, if we live with love, the stories that Mike told, that Brian, Randy, Conor, or myself, and many others can tell, should be all we need to hear to want to change. But the apathy and dismissal Mike and almost every other veteran who has opened up and shared these painful experiences have been met with only reinforces the negative outlook that these injustices produce.

War still exists, but we don’t want to understand. War still exists whether we want to acknowledge it or not. War still exists, but we are not hopeless. War still exists and if we return hatred and apathy with more of the same it always will. War still exists, but if we live in a different consciousness than the powers that created it then the ghosts of the past will transform the heartbeat of the future, and heartbeat that you are aware of now.