On the worker's paradise
There is an eMail I recently received from a friend. It contained a link to the Babalublog about someone who was waxing philosophic about the greatness that is the worker's paradise known as Cuba. I had something to say right away, but I held off for a few dasy in order to take care of some other things, and get a few minutes set aside to write about Cuba.
First, unlike about 99.99% of the population in America, I have actually been to Cuba. I didn't go there as part of some bullshit potemkin village tour, or to betray the US by deliberately badmouthing these United States like Noam Chomsky.
No, I was there for other reasons. I was a sentry on the fenceline which seperates the US Naval Base at Guantanamo bay from Communist Cuba. I loved the character of Col. Nathan Jessup in "A few good men," btw.
Now, I am a medical student, and I worked for a while as an EMT on an ambulance. One question I get sometimes from those who do not work in medicine is the dreaded "So, what's the worst thing you have ever seen?"
btw, We generally hate that question. The bad stuff we have seen has broken our hearts, and asking us about it is like asking us about an ex-girlfriend who ripped our heart out and did a Mexican hat dance on it. It's something we would prefer not to remember, but we cannot forget.
Anyway, they ask me what the worst thing I have ever seen is. I have a fair selection to choose from. I have seen soccer moms torn apart in MVAs. I have seen children who had fallen out the window of a moving vehicle. I have seen 15 year old girls in labor. I have seen the second of premature twins desperately trying to live against all odds gasping for air like a golddfish out of water, while his dead brother is beside him. I have seen a lot of stuff which I really could have lived for the rest of my life without seeing, and I wouldn't miss it.
But the worst thing I ever saw was in Cuba.
There was, at the time of this, the policy of the Clinton administration to deny access to the US Naval base by refugees. One day, while I was serving as part of a reactionary force, a group of refugees were spotted heading towards the base. As the reactionary force, it was our duty to react to whatever came up. We did so in this case as well.
UPDATE: There seems to be some confusion. Since the transpiration of these events over a decade ago, I am of the understanding that US policy towards Cuban refugees has changed.
We deployed in the vicinity of the fenceline. We met the refugees as they approached, and with weapns in hand, denied them entry to the base. They had managed to traverse a kilometer deep minefield covered by towers with machine guns to get to this point. They had left everything they had ever known in order to get out of there. And we stopped them. We had orders. We had our orders, so we followed them. After enough shouting and threatening, the refugees eventualy gave up and headed back. Back into Cuba. While I was sweating my balls off under the hot sun, these refugees made a mistake. They had gotten through the minefield the first time, but they had not followed in their own footsteps going back. While I was thinking to myself how I wish these people would hurry up and go back so that I could head back to someplace with air-conditioning, one of them stepped on a landmine.
That explosion touched my world.
Then, I witnessed the worst thing I ever saw in my life.
As the dust cloud wafted away from those refugees, nobody ran. Nobody screamed. Nobody said anything.
They just laid down to die in the middle of a minefield that was the sun's anvil.
Think of how badly you would not want to die like that. Think about that real hard. Think about slowly dying of exposure in a minefield. Think about what would make you risk such an outcome. Think about it real hard, and then remember that as bad as that was, it was better than going back.
Despair was once described to me by a college english professor as "the death throes of hope." That day in the minefield was despair incarnate, and it was the worst thing I have ever seen with mine own eyes.
Make a fucking documentary of that.
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