Those are two of my favorite sentences in American Literature, which is a wonderful oxymoron, right up there compassionate conservative, religious tolerance, vegetarian meatballs, and the Central Intelligence Agency.
These words appear in Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. — who is currently as active as a Monty Python Parrot.
As a member of The Greatest Generation survived the liberating collateral damage of Dresden, Germany, a city of 135,000 whose major employer was a baby food factory. Before Vonnegut died, he actually got to hear the first black Secretary of State, Colon Powell, defend the bombing of another baby food factory in Iraq, another country liberated through collateral damage by the NOMF. Many scumbags in the NOMF still deny that the bombing of Dresden ever took place because it was the kind of thing that only monsters would do.
I wonder what was so great about the Greatest Generation. That many of the youngest and bravest and foolish of them died for nothing in foreign wars? That the survivors of the lunacy that consumed so much of the 20th century and continues to nibble around the edges of what remains of civilized behavior today established a legacy of proud ignorance and arrogant xenophobia that makes the NOMF so loved and cherished by the objects of our liberating affection? Beats the hell out of me.
The complete alternative title for Slaughterhouse Five was The Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death. Maybe that's what the Greatest Generation did better than any other. Maybe that's what Tom Brokaw meant when he bestowed the title on the millions of children sent to kill each other in support of various lies told by their governments, churches, friends, families, and owners.
The original Children's Crusade, as Vonnegut mentions in his book, was a 13th century mission where upwards of 30,000 children were convinced by another deluded child in Germany or France that Jesus had told him to go to Jerusalem to convert all the Muslims to Christianity. We all know how that worked out. This boy was convinced that when his peaceful army of missionaries reached the sea, it would part and they would be able to walk all the way to the Holy Land. I'm sure you can guess where this is all heading, so enough said.
The lines in Slaughterhouse Five that I find so entertaining and enlightening were put into the mouth of hobo soldier with no name who argues that he can be comfortable anywhere while on a boxcar crammed with other G.I.s heading for a concentration camp. Among those onboard are Billy Pilgrim — the hero of the book, Paul Lazarro — who has already killed Billy in the future and is cradling the head of a dying Roland Weary, whose approaching death he blames on Billy.
In the book, the hobo soldier continues to interject his two simple statements into the ongoing conversation while heading toward extermination until he freezes to death. In the script version, Vonnegut shows some mercy on the hobo and allows a couple of compassionately conservative Germans to remove him from the crowded cattle car, take him into the woods, and put a bullet in him.
These are the kinds of thoughts that always bring me comfort during the annual retail shopping season, particularly when people die, and pets get sick, and I can’t fucking walk for another couple of months, while scooting through the mall, I hear the Muzak playing:
"It's beginning to look a lot like Auschwitz
Everywhere we go."
But then again, this ain’t so bad. You think this is bad? You could be living in the frontier regions of Afghanistan or Pakistan, trying to eke a living while the NOMF continues pondering what to do in response to 9/11 simply because we have to do something.
Merry doorbuster savings to all, and to all a good knight.