James Smith is a very nice guy, and he’s also a Democrat in the post-Vietnam era. These undeniable facts lead to a sense of dissonance sometimes when he talks like a soldier. I’ve noticed this several times in the couple of years since he joined the infantry.
I noticed it again yesterday during his address to Rotary. Now that I’m writing about it, I forget exactly who said the words that kicked off this train of thought, although I remember the context. Maybe James said it, or maybe it was said by one of his comrades during a video clip he showed us. No matter. It was part of his presentation, and I know I have heard James say the same thing at other times.
Anyway, the context had to do with fighting alongside Afghan allies. These are a people bred to unbelievably (by Western standards) harsh deprivation ever since Alexander the Great was there. The dry, stark landscape is practically lunar, and the person you speak with today could get his head cut off and his body left in the dust of the road (there is only one paved road running through the entire province, and you stay off of it because a beaten path invites IEDs) as a warning, just because he spoke to you.
James speaks warmly of the bonds between his men and the Afghan police they work with. He repeatedly says any one of them would have taken a bullet for him. At one point in the presentation, either James or the guy on video, speaking of those allies, mentioned this thing that binds them: They "kill Taliban" together.
Normally, James speaks of the bond in terms that wouldn’t make delicate civilians — especially peace-minded fellow Democrats — wince, such as mutual self-sacrifice (that willingness to take a bullet) or the way the children of the country inspire him to believe in its future. But one gets the impression that among soldiers (and national police), the "kill Taliban together" thing is either said often, or is so understood that it doesn’t have to be said.
When it came up Monday, I immediately thought of Dune. Similar landscape, and the bond that the Atreides sought with the Fremen (too late to save the Atreides, unfortunately) was so very much like this one. There is the passage in which a small band of surviving Atreides form an ad hoc alliance with some Fremen, and the key affirmation that they are now allies goes like this:
"We will kill Harkonnens," the Fremen said. He grinned.
A Rotary meeting is about as far as you can get from the surface of Arrakis. But I get the impression that Afghanistan is not.
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Of course, you had to flip from reality to some movie you saw.
News flash! Life is not imitating art.
I find it a bit disturbing that the so-called “pro-life” crowd is so fixated on death, just so long as it is done within the confines of a military operation. Come on Brad, do we really need another story about how much fun it is to kill people?
So Dune is “some movie” now? I don’t even know what to say.
Actually, Wally, “Dune” was a virtually unreadable book that became an unwatchable movie. Faulkner was an easy read compared to Frank Herbert.
No wonder, thus, the war in Iraq is unpopular. Sand without water ain’t the beach.
You had me at “Harkonnen.” Big Dune fan, and I love the analogy.
“You had me at ‘Harkonnen'” — what a wonderful line! And from a chick! Bless you, Susanna. You are, no doubt, Bene Gesserit… It’s for people like you that I do what I do (“We exist only to serve”) — the ones who get it. I’m guessing there are a few Mentats out there — like Wally — who got it, too.
Anyway, I am DEFINITELY referring only to the book here. Sorry, Wally, but while I agree with you that “Dune” was not just “some movie,” I think that because I believe it was possibly the worst movie ever made, and certainly the most disappointing.
p.m.’s wrong to lump the book in with the movie. Unless he’s talking about the sequels. They were awful, too. But the original book was iconic.
I was mostly shocked that anyone would think first of the movie when thinking of Dune (which I’ll gladly trust your opinion on as the only time I tried to watch it I couldn’t bring myself to watch more than half an hour).
The military is fixated on life, preserving American lives by exterminating our enemies.