Forrest, Forrest Gump
Jun. 21st, 2004 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xaaraYes, just finished watching Forrest Gump. I'd forgotten exactly how much I loved that movie, but revisiting the scenes - a young Elvis, a pre-"Imagine" John Lennon, and of course the bumper sticker salesman whose "Shit Happens" is now an American catchphrase - was a lovely experience.
I've always had a warm place in my heart for Lt. Dan. He reminds me of a lot of the war veterans I know (and being a Navy brat, I've met far too many.) Some of them are the most die-hard atheists, but underneath they always have a lingering question of the meaning of their lives. There's something immeasurably sad about an eighteen-year-old who can't live for a single moment without being tugged back into memories of a war he didn't start and doesn't feel particularly inclined to continue.
I spent hours last summer talking to a young man who had just returned from Iraq and was serving restriction (the Navy equivalent of punishment for a crime) for being visibly drunk in uniform. He was on trash and cleaning duty; I was on customer service duty; we had both exhausted our patience with staring at the blank wall fifteen minutes after office hours began. Since I couldn't generate trash simply by willing it to appear, and he had already scrubbed the entirety of my minuscule office, we sat next to each other for a while, exchanging strangers-on-the-bus glances. Finally, I held out my hand, told him I wanted him to act like a normal person instead of shuffling around like some sort of servant, and introduced myself.
After that, we started conversing as equals instead of as overseer and worker, and I eventually asked him why he'd been drunk in uniform. He shrugged, blushed, and muttered something about how it hadn't seemed to matter at the time. He just wanted to be drunk and he didn't care that he was wearing a uniform. This didn't really answer my question, so I asked him again a few weeks later, and this time he told me that he had been so relieved to be in a place where he didn't have to fear for his life that he had taken advantage of it immediately by sacrificing his ability to think clearly. I suppose that could've been a complete lie, but the drinking age in Italy is eighteen, he was nineteen, and he sounded just enough humiliated about the entire experience that I didn't ask further questions. Just told him not to do it again and spent the rest of the day playing "Go Fish," having pen-clicking contests, and avoiding LT, who would've found work for us.
By the end of the day, I saw what a lot of other people had forgotten about him: he was a kid, straight out of high school, only a handful of years older than I was. He laughed at my stupid jokes, still remembered his teachers' names, and sent letters to his mother once a week. He'd never been out of the US before he was sent to Iraq. I wanted to march over to the CO of the base and scream at him, yell "Look what you're doing, you bull-headed idiot!" But the CO's not really responsible, and I would've lost my job over an irrelevant argument. So I settled for listening to a young man whose ability to feel safe had been forever stolen from him.
War is fucking pointless.
When I told him I write, he joked that I was a "wise woman." Actually, four or five years ago I wrote a little almost-poem that I rediscovered this afternoon. It sums up my feelings quite nicely:
Yeah, I'm a writer
Meaning of life? Not a clue.
Am I really supposed to be wise beyond my years?
No one's ever called me wise
Smart, sure
Smart, intelligent, witty, sharp
A wise-ass
But wise? Never
Wisdom comes with experience
And me? I'm a kid still
Or at least that's what people tell me
I'm "living my childhood"
Storing up the memories for the day I graduate
And someone hands me a plaque that says
"Congratulations, you're wise"
Because I sure as hell won't know on my own
I've always had a warm place in my heart for Lt. Dan. He reminds me of a lot of the war veterans I know (and being a Navy brat, I've met far too many.) Some of them are the most die-hard atheists, but underneath they always have a lingering question of the meaning of their lives. There's something immeasurably sad about an eighteen-year-old who can't live for a single moment without being tugged back into memories of a war he didn't start and doesn't feel particularly inclined to continue.
I spent hours last summer talking to a young man who had just returned from Iraq and was serving restriction (the Navy equivalent of punishment for a crime) for being visibly drunk in uniform. He was on trash and cleaning duty; I was on customer service duty; we had both exhausted our patience with staring at the blank wall fifteen minutes after office hours began. Since I couldn't generate trash simply by willing it to appear, and he had already scrubbed the entirety of my minuscule office, we sat next to each other for a while, exchanging strangers-on-the-bus glances. Finally, I held out my hand, told him I wanted him to act like a normal person instead of shuffling around like some sort of servant, and introduced myself.
After that, we started conversing as equals instead of as overseer and worker, and I eventually asked him why he'd been drunk in uniform. He shrugged, blushed, and muttered something about how it hadn't seemed to matter at the time. He just wanted to be drunk and he didn't care that he was wearing a uniform. This didn't really answer my question, so I asked him again a few weeks later, and this time he told me that he had been so relieved to be in a place where he didn't have to fear for his life that he had taken advantage of it immediately by sacrificing his ability to think clearly. I suppose that could've been a complete lie, but the drinking age in Italy is eighteen, he was nineteen, and he sounded just enough humiliated about the entire experience that I didn't ask further questions. Just told him not to do it again and spent the rest of the day playing "Go Fish," having pen-clicking contests, and avoiding LT, who would've found work for us.
By the end of the day, I saw what a lot of other people had forgotten about him: he was a kid, straight out of high school, only a handful of years older than I was. He laughed at my stupid jokes, still remembered his teachers' names, and sent letters to his mother once a week. He'd never been out of the US before he was sent to Iraq. I wanted to march over to the CO of the base and scream at him, yell "Look what you're doing, you bull-headed idiot!" But the CO's not really responsible, and I would've lost my job over an irrelevant argument. So I settled for listening to a young man whose ability to feel safe had been forever stolen from him.
War is fucking pointless.
When I told him I write, he joked that I was a "wise woman." Actually, four or five years ago I wrote a little almost-poem that I rediscovered this afternoon. It sums up my feelings quite nicely:
Yeah, I'm a writer
Meaning of life? Not a clue.
Am I really supposed to be wise beyond my years?
No one's ever called me wise
Smart, sure
Smart, intelligent, witty, sharp
A wise-ass
But wise? Never
Wisdom comes with experience
And me? I'm a kid still
Or at least that's what people tell me
I'm "living my childhood"
Storing up the memories for the day I graduate
And someone hands me a plaque that says
"Congratulations, you're wise"
Because I sure as hell won't know on my own
