conversation with a soldier

This isn’t an actual conversation I had, although it’s inspired by a lot of things I’ve been thinking about, the conversations some volunteers have found themselves in and includes pieces from a few different conversations I’ve shared with other people. 

Consumed with alcohol he slurs to me, “you’re all the same—all you good-hearted people. You’re only good because you can afford to be good.”

I look at him contemplating his words without any response

He continues.  “you rich kids.  You grow up in your suburban homes and daddy pays for college then you get to say, ‘I’m going to do something good for the world.  I’m going to move to another country for a few years and save the world with all my knowledge and skill.’  Why do you do this?”

Without time for my interjection, not that I had an interjection to contribute, he answers his question.

“it’s because you don’t live in the real world.  You’re not indebted to the banks and medical bills.  Your trust funds cover those.  You aren’t good because you’re good, you’re good because you have the luxury to be good.  You’re just a bunch of privileged kids who will never know reality.  You want some praise for your good deeds? Try living life, then I’ll give you some praise.  Oh what a good person you are, sacrificing a few years to live on an island.  You’re life is soooooo hard.  You gave up sooooooo much. What a saint you are.”

Not sure what to say, but feeling I should recognize his words were heard and his words will be replayed over and over as my mind tries to reconcile my position in the societal ladder of race, class, and nationality, I just looked at him as sincerely as I knew how.  Trying to read his story, his life, I looked at him in the hopes I would see him.

He sat down seemingly perplexed by my silence and confused as to why I didn’t storm away in anger.

“Well?” he said as if he was a fisherman dangling a worm in front of a fish, just waiting for it to bite.

“Well what?”

“Aren’t you going to tell me I’m a drunken asshole who knows nothing about you?  aren’t you going to try to prove me wrong? Aren’t you going to defend yourself? Put up a fight of any sort?  What do you have to say about me and the military? I bet you protest. You probably are one of those protesters who marches against guys like me and the lives we sacrifice for people like you.”

“I have nothing to argue. You know part of me, and that part is true.  Why argue truth?” I said as a solemn humility fell over me. 

He was right. I lived my life, he lived his life.  they were two different lives.  They’d always be two different lives.  I’d never know his life, or anyone else’s life for that matter. I can read books about other people and live beside people different than me, but at the end of the day I’m a privileged white American girl.  Already struggling in my attempt to figure out what I have to offer anyone, or who I think I am to offer “help” to anyone, all I could do was accept the truth. But, I can’t just sit still. I never can.

“You’re right I’ll never know. What do you want form me? Do you want me to do nothing? Stay where I was born?”

“I don’t want anything from you. I don’t want anything from anyone,” he confidently shares with a tinge of pride.

“ok”

There are a few seconds of silence.  We both are able to drown out the loud voices of the drunken men and the high-pitched giggles from the young girls sitting on their laps.  The band’s music is tuned out.  All I see is the ocean in the distance.  All I hear is confusion. 

“What do you want?” he gruffly but somewhat curiously asks.

“I want a lot.”

“Of course you do.  Your kind of people always do.”

“I want poverty, disease, racism, war, sexism, and fear to disappear.  I want to feel alive.  I want to dance with the pygmies in the middle of a protected jungle…just us and the rain…and I want to run with the wind.  I want to learn from the medicine men of the desert who are able to speak with fate and I want to laugh with children who know no neglect.  I want hope. I want freedom. I want truth.  I want to feel life and I want to be blend and be every person.  Every person.  From every lifestyle, skin color, religion and place.”

He smirked and replied, “Good luck. It’s never going to happen.” His face suggested he was glad he didn’t waste thousands of dollars on a college education if that’s all you get from it.  Some fantasy talk about things that will never be.

“I know, but we can dream,” I desperately pleaded. I wanted to believe my statement, but I’m not sure I was convinced. 

“Wrong.  You can dream.”

“Why can’t you dream?”

“Because it will only taunt me.  I’m never going to be rich.  There is no American dream and I’m no genius even if there was.  I’m always going to have a crack addicted mother, a dad behind bars, a dead brother, and a sister who won’t be able to go to college.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want your pity.”

“I don’t want your pity.”

“I don’t give pity.”

“That’s what you think.  Are you here because you love people, or because you feel guilty for the state of the world?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.  Maybe.”

Everything blurs back to silence. 

Probably picking up on the wave of sadness that had now consumed me he broke the silence.  “So the typhoon is going to be brutal.”

“Yebo.”

“What’s yebo?”

“Yeah. Nevermind.”

Semi-jokingly he asked, “Are you going to save some people after the storm.” 

“No. I can’t think of anyway I could.  Are you?”

“We might be called to help with some rescues up north depending on how bad she gets.”