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WHAT TIM McVEIGH AND I HAD IN COMMON
By Sam Smith
TIMOTHY MCVEIGH AND I had something in common: we both memorized William Ernest Henley's poem "Invictus." I don't why McVeigh did it, but I did it as part of a grim Sunday lunch ritual during which my siblings and I were expected to demonstrate our mnemonic skills to my father's satisfaction. One of the examples was "Invictus" which went like this:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
It was written by William Ernest Henley, an English editor, writer, playwright and poet who by 1877 had proved himself so unmarketable that he had to "addict" himself to journalism for the next ten years. He died in 1903, 98 years to the day that TimothyMcVeigh was executed.
Learning "Invictus" was about the only thing that Timothy McVeigh and I had in common. I went to a Quaker school and later entered the Coast Guard where I learned how to save people. McVeigh went into the U.S. Army and where he learned how to kill people. He became so proficient that his military colleagues admired him and the U.S. government gave him a medal. The war in which he fought continues silently, with many people still dying because of the embargo and the toxics we left behind. We don't call it terrorism, however, because a government did it and not an individual.
Iraq was a good place for an American to learn how to kill large numbers of innocent people and then dismiss it as "collateral damage." That phrase wasn't from a poem; McVeigh may have picked it up from a White House press statement.
After I left the Coast Guard I got a job. After Timothy McVeigh left the Army, he didn't. This was not unusual. In fact, the unemployment rate of veterans 20-24 years old is twice that of those who have not had the benefit of Army training.
McVeigh has been made to take responsibility for his part in creating the Oklahoma City disaster. When does America take responsibility for its part in creating Timothy McVeigh? |
