Death and Dishonor

by Dianna Katherine Dearborn

Ever since our "swift victory" against the Iraqi Army and our slow-motion disgrace of prisoner abuse, I've been thinking about a friend of mine, a friend from high school. Let me tell you a little story about him so that his memory is never lost.

His name was Allan — or did he spell it "Allen"? My memories are getting ever fuzzier. We were in the Class of 1963 at Campbell High School, Campbell, California — a suburb of San Jose.

Allan and I were friends, fast friends briefly in passing, probably for the simple reason that we were each social suicide in school. Two outcasts cancel each other out and we became friends. Few of my other acquaintances liked him. We didn't know much about each other or share much in common, we just understood each other. My father called Allan the "Little Redheaded Bastard" (Allan was small for his size). There could never have been a better recommendation in my book.

Allan, an only child, was the archetypal quick-witted and -talking high school bad-boy pool shark, the do-anything startles-everyone rebel. His parents were divorced and not entirely interested in Allan's welfare. He spent much of his time unattended, alone and on his own. Unfortunately, my parents were not divorced and I stayed away from home as much as possible. We had time to kick around together after school.

I was the bookish nerd unsuccessfully trying to not stand out so glaringly (I purposely marked test questions wrong trying not to make scores too high, etc.). My minor popularity in the nether regions of high school society was directly traceable to being a teenager with my own car — a yellow 1950 Chevrolet convertible with black top. Allan and I were a natural match who found each other at that particular space-time coordinate — er, place and time.

My shining role model of a father didn't like Allan because Allan had "a chip on his shoulder." And, Allan did. He dared anyone to pick a fight. No, not anyone, he hated just authority figures and, as he called them, "assholes." Allan was a scrapper. He already had a strong sense of himself at 17. Allan turned his anger outward and I turned mine inward. Maybe I liked Allan because he was everything that I wasn't.

One story frames Allan at that time. Allan would have been called a kleptomaniac had he been driven by impulse to steal things from stores. I didn't realize it at first until one day in the garage at his mother-and-her-new-husband's house in the countryside of Santa Clara County, near Saratoga. It was a new development in a low-density area that is now a thriving suburban community with all its ills.

Allan showed me two underwater water pumps for artificial backyard waterfalls and ponds. He revealed that he had stolen them just to watch me react to his badness. I think I sucked in my breath and probably felt a shot of adrenaline race through me. But, I held my tongue and didn't freak out. Now I realize I was being tested.

I asked, "What do you plan to do with them?"

Allan got a big grin on his face and said, "I want to build a waterfall in the backyard." He grabbed a magazine and showed me picture after picture of ponds with waterfalls. "It will be so cool to have parties in the backyard around one of those. Think about it, we could put up colored lights and bring my record player outside..." Allan went on selling me on his project as only Allan could do.

My father was a carpenter of exceptional skill — his talents ended there — and I was raised on the dumb end of a table saw. I knew how to mix concrete and build rock walls and the like. Allan couldn't, and knew he needed my help and my father's tools, so he poured on the persuasion. Then he ended with, "Will you help me build the pond?"

Finally, I think I said something lame in the lingo of the day like, "Cool. Okay." I had suddenly become an accessory after the fact of his petty theft. However, I insisted that he pay for everything else. He agreed.

A day at the beach got a trunkload of sand for the mortar. The river rocks were gathered near his home and a small bag of cement was cheap then as was the mortar coloring, water proofing, electrical boxes and wires and all the rest of the materials we needed came to over $40. I only had $10 and Allan only had $3 — and Allan agreed not to steal.

Allan talked me out of my ten and we drove to a pool hall on San Carlos Street in San Jose. We went in and, three hours later, left with $100 in Allan's winnings. I got my investment back plus $20 for gas and his project was funded — as well as the party to follow.

About the pool sharking, Allan's advantage was that his prey thought he was just a smart-mouthed, know-nothing kid wet behind the ears, which he was. Except that he had talent. And he used it.

By the end of the week the pool was done and we waited impatiently for the mortar to dry. We put a coat of blue paint on the underwater areas and waited another day. The day had come to fill the fountain and Allan called me up early to come over so we could fill the pool together. I did and we did.

Allan made his mother-and-her-new-husband not look until we were done. They had also promised to go out from the house on that Friday, party night, until midnight. The moment of reveal had come and mother-and-her-new-husband were called out into the backyard.

Mother was ecstatic to see in the corner the beautiful waterfall that cascaded thrice into a rather large pool with river rock, pond flora and goldfish that looked eerily natural in the artificial mosaic of a new housing development. Mother's-new-husband said something that I'm sure Allan never heard.

At that moment, I realized that the real reason for Allan stealing those water pumps and hustling pool, the days of scavenging and a week worth of work was all for that one moment of gratitude and recognition of his mother.

It was a heady time as we got ready for the party. I had never been part of a party before and this was fun. Allan invited a dozen kids to come, though I didn't know hardly a one. The neighbors were warned and as the sun went down the music came up and the kids starting showing up for the party.

As the kids danced to the music, Allan grabbed my arm and said to me, "Stay out here right now, okay?" I agreed and he ushered all the kids into the house and talked to them. They went on dancing and Allan came back outside.

"Follow me," Allan ordered with a whisper and a jerk of his head. I obeyed.

We walked to the other side of the house, near the garage. There was a ladder there. Allan climbed up the ladder and I followed.

Once on our perch, Allan said, "Do you see anyone?

I looked carefully, feeling the tenseness of the moment. "No," I said.

"Tell me if you see any cars or anybody come out of their houses," he said. Allan then rolled over onto his stomach an took a bolt-action .22 rifle out from under a blanket on the roof that I hadn't noticed until then.

Pop. Plink. Tinkle and one street light was out. Before I could even say anything, he turned and shot out a second streetlight. Pop. Plink. Tinkle. I was dumbfounded. I knew we were going to jail — maybe not, but to hell for sure. My eyes darted from house to house and street to street to see if the noise had aroused anyone's interests. No, the rock and roll music covered up my growing criminal record.

Allan rotated to the other pitch of the roof and shot out a third streetlamp. Three shots and three hits, no one got hurt by stray bullets. He was as good with a .22 rifle as I was, maybe better. But still, we were so lucky. Allan had grabbed each shell as it ejected and put it into his pocket. Done with his dirty deed, he grabbed the blanket and ran for the ladder and was down in a flash. I followed and by the time I was on the ground, the gun, shells and blanket had disappeared.

"Why did you do that?!" I demanded to know.

"Those streetlights were ruining the party. They were shining right into the backyard. We worked too hard not to have the night be perfect." His explanation did little to put me at ease.

The kids were called back into the yard and I again tried to be cooler than I really was.

Allan continued to ramp up his misbehavior until one day he went into a Mayfair Market not far from that pool hall. He filled up a shopping cart full of meat and expensive goods and pushed it right out the door without going through checkout. Of course, he was caught immediately by store employees and the cops were called.

Allan was quoted as saying, "I did it to piss off my parents." I never saw him again after that.

After Allan got out of Juvenile Hall, he took his parole officer's advice and joined the Army. I volunteered for the Navy after high school. It surprised me to find out he became a medic during the early days of the Vietnam War. Allan was flying in helicopters into firefights to fly out the injured and dead. He charged into the bullets armed only with a med kit.

Stories got back to me how Allan had finally found his calling in life. He was saving life and that saved his own. He was reported to have said that he finally felt that he was making a positive difference and that he was doing important work. Allan finally did something that made him feel proud of himself.

When I got out of the Navy, after doing my turn in theater, I tried to find Allan and remake friendships. I was told that Allan had re-enlisted after doing his first four years and requested to go back to his old unit — after he took several months R&R at home. When he got back in country, on his first rescue, he was killed.

Fate allowed him one tour of war and not one rescue flight more.

After we, the US, left Vietnam in shame with our tails between our legs and people hanging out of helicopters, I quit thinking about Allan because those memories were just too painful to think about.

The same war that gave Allan a reason to live also took his short life. The irony is not lost on me. And for what gain, exactly?

Allan died in vain in a vain war run by vain men. The greed of the killing kind was that of self-importance. Old men wage wars, young men (and women) die in them. That I didn't die was my good fortune, but I wasn't charging into firefights on purpose without a gun.

The old white men who ran the Vietnam war shamed America, sullied our name and besmirched our reputations in the world. They embarrassed us.

We veterans believe in our country — or did. We take things like patriotism and duty and honor seriously. But we also respect justice and fairness and honesty.

Allan died for no good reason. After all the lies were told, the bodies buried and the dollars burned, in the sum total of all that happened, in the reality versus the propaganda, Allan died for no good reason at all.

And here we are again.

Now, especially after our first-strike attack on another country has inevitably lead to the reprehensible prisoner abuse scandal, I feel shame heaped on humiliation piled on top of mortification for my country.

The present administration of this country has piled uncounted shames upon the heads of all of us who have ever gone to war or who have prepared to defend our country at the risk of our own lives.

Like the pyramids of naked prisoners the shames are piled so high that I can barely take a breath from their weight. Every new disclosure and photograph is like another dagger stabbed into me. I cry for the shame of it all.

And the beheading and the nearly routine firing of missiles into civilians and death and dying and maiming. I am so sick of the violence that I cannot watch anything else on TV except the Science Channel. The unending blood makes me retch from the depths of my soul.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft — and Card and Rice — have disgraced our country beyond the pale, because not one of them has served in a war. While Allan was facing hostile fire as he bandaged wounds, Bush was missing roll call in the National Guard. (Boy, has Bush ever ruined his old war dodge for generations of rich kids to come?) When Allan was dying, Cheney was getting another deferment.

If any of them had gone to war, they wouldn't have been so eager to wage war.

If it were in my power, I would apologize to the world for our leaders and the atrocities done in our name. Bush, et al, has created enough brand new terrorists in the Muslim world — which is larger than the Christian world — that we are assured that blood will flow for generations and generations to come.

I want to tell the world that the Bush administration is an aberration that we Americans are not like this. But look at the polls, we are like this.

Most people bought the first-strike lie. Just like all the villains in history, we preemptively attacked another country for convoluted "self-defense" rationales. The administration continues to justify the Iraq war by the ouster of Saddam, which is justifying the means by the ends it achieved.

America has lost all moral authority on the international stage for generations to come.

Shame on us.

If ever there was a Pandora's Box, its name is Iraq and Bush opened it. How many more people will die in vain in this vain war?

If Iraq is not like Vietnam then why do memories of Allan keep coming back, as well as of the others I've known? To me, this feels every bit like Vietnam with sex, torture and mutilation thrown in.