This young Marine lost his soul in Bush's Hell

[unhappycamper]

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From monthly Veterans For Peace newletter
by Joe Howard Crews

The trials of Pendleton Marines for atrocities in Hamdania and other parts of Iraq have headlined local papers for months now. I have been a peripheral reader of these reports, shutting out most of them as too painful and distressing to digest. Finally, a headline in last Friday's North County Times shocked me. A 21 year old Marine on trial, Lance Cpl Robert Pennington, committed an act which clearly demonstrated how he had been transformed into an sadistic monster. I read the story and cried.

I went back, researched many articles on Pennington and the atrocity at Hamdania last April. I wanted to know how this happened to him. I tried to place myself in his shoes. I was drawn into his uniform and his soul. I reached this conclusion: This normal, all-American boy had been transformed into a monster by Mr. Bush's War. This young man lost his soul in Bush's Hell. Many other young men have also.

Soldiers who lose their arms, legs, faces and body parts are considered heroes, until the memory of that war and its glory fade away. But soldiers and Marines who lose their souls in war, as did Cpl Robert Pennington, suffer most. A young man who loses his core being, his soul, has lost far more than a body part. No body part is worth the sacredness of the soul. Bodies die; souls do not. Souls remain part of universal consciousness for eternity, and shape destiny. The shattered souls of these men are shaping America's destiny.

The little guy takes the fall for his commander in chief, who created the war. He is judged a murderer, while the commander, responsible for the death of a million, goes free. The Marine faces an eternity of pain, while those who profited retire in comfort and esteem.

All wars are evil; almost none are necessary. They are generally instigated by men who have not seen combat and do not understand the demonic nature of war. Initially wars are popular, especially with the gullible and patriotic jingoists, the profiteering military industrialists and the unscrupulous demagogic politicians, who maneuver in every war. It is these racketeers who collude to blame "the few rotten apples at the bottom of the barrel" to deflect the eye of justice from their own far greater crimes. The truth is, most of the criminal actions by those in the lower ranks are never exposed. More tragically, almost none of those in the highest echelons are brought to justice unless they lose the war ignominiously. This war is about to be lost, and this is making the White House conspirators very nervous.

Nothing is served by the imprisonment of Cpl. Pennington, except to deflect from the sins of the unscrupulous men who created this war. If Pennington deserves eight years in prison, the evil men who marketed and contrived this criminal war deserve a punishment so demonic that no civilized society would deign to mete it.

What Pennington does deserve is the best psychiatric care and rehabilitation, no matter what the cost. He did not start this war. He entered this war a good kid, was sucked into Hell, engaged it and used its forces to bring retribution and justice as he saw his duty. In hell we are not the masters of our fate. War is a moral black hole where the laws of moral gravity are inoperative. Judges outside the event horizon really cannot comprehend this.. Pennington could have had a bright future. were it not for the Bush War, and were it not for the military which instilled into him the glory of war and the esprit de corps to seek revenge for the killing ofhis buddies. This is what the military is about, of course. And that may be acceptable in a necessary war. This is not a necessary war, however. It is a war for the benefit of the powerful, the greedy and the vainglorious. The ignobility of leaders transcends exponentially into the turgid bowels of their wars.

I no longer reject the concept of hell, having come to understand that hell is not an after-life concept, but a real, monstrous place created b) men. War is the worst abyss of Hell, and our leaders have created an abyss as bad as it gets. War is not like hell - war is Hell. Pennington has been there. Our nation's leaders have not though some may deserve its delights. Why do we suffer fools, who know so little about war. to become our leaders in war?

Mr. Bush vainly tries to distance himself from the atrocities of his war. He disclaims responsibility. The truth is, Mr. Bush is directl~ responsible in creating this war, and America has been cowardly complicit. I agree with the words of Andrews Sullivan: "Fundamentalist Christianity can enable evil by promoting the lie that some humans have been saved from it. It misses the deeper Christian truth that even good people can do bad things. It forgets that what is noble about America is not that Americans are somehow morally better than anyone else." Potentially, all of us are Nazis. Within each of us there is the potential to commit monstrous acts of evil. A plunge into Bush's Hell is proving that.

We as Americans are complicit in transforming the youth of our nation into murderous m0nsters unless we act aggressively to stop the atrocities of our leaders. We must demand defunding of the Bush War. We must berate and annoy the hell out of congressmen. We must refuse to support this criminal war in any way.

If our leaders had any grain of honor they would resign. If our nation had any modicum of courage, it would remove them.

We must not only speak out, we must look inward into our own souls and seek Love, Peace and compassion. I struggle mightily with this because it is so difficult for me not to hate Mr. Bush and his rogues after entering the shattered shell of Robert Pennington's soul. Yet I know that giving room for hate in my life cripples me and serves the forces of Evil.

[wildrice]

1. Young Marine Lost His Soul

Thank you for posting this eloquent discussion of one of the many horrors of this war, the institutional corruption and subsequent punishment of soldiers who are following their immoral leaders.