Like most people around this country,
we are shocked once again by a school
shooting.
This time it occurred in Roseburg, Oregon,
a town that is located about 180 miles south
of Portland, where I currently live.
13 students were murdered, and 20 injured.
The death toll could certainly go higher.
39 years ago I applied to the nursing program
at Umpaqua Community College, where the
shootings occurred.
I went to the campus to fill out an application form.
I was later accepted to a nursing school in Portland.
Roseburg is a town I have been to many times over
the years since I moved to Oregon in 1972.
Shortly before I found out about the shootings,
I had just finished reading an article in The New
York Times about 13 American soldiers who
committed suicide from the same unit that
was deployed to Afghanistan in 2008.
When they came back from war, they simply
could no longer take the emotional trauma.
Their own sense of betrayal by their own
government was the hidden catalyst that
collectively put the gun to their own heads.
It is what I call, Political Incest.
" It is the great truth that has great silence."
Everything is interconnected, as we connect
the dots to what just happened in Roseburg.
The picture I chose to attach to this email was
taken in 1992 at a Veterans Day Parade in
Albany, Oregon. The First Gulf War had just
ended, and the American public was cheering
about this great victory.
The photo was taken of a group of boys who
were on a long flatbed truck along the parade
route. Most of the boys were around 12 years
old, as they pointed their plastic guns at people
along the route of the parade.
I simply kept my mouth shut, as I took many
photos of the boys acting out their bravado.
This is one of the things that antiwar activists
are so capable of doing-- we connect the dots.
We connect the insanity.
We connect the " Why " question.
We connect the ramifications of living in an
obedient society, so American corporations
can make a killing off of war.
The school shootings are all interwoven into
the very fabric of the American Empire.
Mike Hastie
Army Medic Vietnam
October 1, 2015