War's wake rips the heart

By Harry Beckwith

My cousin Adrian Stump was killed in the mountains of Afghanistan a few months ago. We grew up together. We were going to share our first legal drink when he came home for Christmas.

He didn't show. The helicopter he piloted was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade launched by one of the "terrorists" we often hear about, the ones who hate freedom. It took the military three weeks to gather his body ripped apart by the impact of a grenade into his helicopter.

Christmas was depressing. My aunt and uncle had lost their first-born baby; I lost a great cousin and even better friend.

I tuned the world out. After my mother called and told me to forget about seeing my cousin again, I didn't come out of my room for three days except to make attempts at eating. I drank more than usual. I smoked more than usual because the numbing effect made Adrian's passing slightly tolerable.

I gave up on the news because every time I turned it on, a slide show of my life with Adrian would reel inside my head and I would cry until my body became limp from exhaustion.

I almost cried during the recent State of the Union when Bush asked us to never forget the families who have lost a loved one in this war of aggression. I thought of what my family has been through these past months. I was told that neighbors could hear my aunt's scream blocks away when the government vehicle arrived and uniformed officers told her that she would never see her boy again.

Human brains are not wired to handle the emotion that floods a mother's body at the moment her son's heart no longer beats. The brain cracks and the body collapses. My aunt's eyes are empty now; I have a hard time looking into them because I don't see her pain, I feel it, and it's at that moment that I realize I'm experiencing only a fraction of what's coursing through her body.

As I watched President Bush, I heard him say that freedom is on the march and wondered, is it? I thought it odd that freedom is the bastard offspring of military intervention and mass murder. I thought it odd that in a world so large, a single man has the power to kill thousands of people without answering legitimate questions from the people he is supposed to be serving.

My friends and family went out for drinks on the day we had planned. Adrian didn't make it because his body was blown into pieces, cremated, then spread in the Blue Mountains in Oregon.

Now my world is back on its axis, attempting to regain its calm rotation. I sit through my classes and wonder if the material truly arouses my passions, or if the discussions we have are even worth the mental energy. Are we talking about the meaning of life? No. Are we talking about how to realistically arrive at a better world? Or is it simply liberal fantasy? Probably the latter.

I don't like being alone because there's too much time to think about how sad and angry I am that a National Guardsman is dead because the soldiers that were in Afghanistan were relocated to Iraq and replaced with National Guard units -- who were supposed to stay national and respond to local catastrophes.

Everyone told me that my cousin's death was not in vain. I look into their eyes and know they are lying to me and to themselves. I know they are trying to make me feel better; I nod my head. There are people -- good people -- who honestly believe that Adrian's death wasn't in vain. And to them, I shake my head, but say nothing.

Our existence on this planet is not very significant. The world keeps spinning when we die. People move on. However, when the world loses someone like Adrian, it should stop, if only for a moment. Rains should pour. Our collective self should pause and reflect: Are we acting as pawns while the powers that be distract us from what truly matters in our life: family, friends, ourselves and all living beings? Are we doing what we truly love in our lives?

If you aren't, you are living a lost life.

Religious or not, it is a miracle that we are here. We don't have much time, though. Time eventually catches up and runs its course on our bodies. My cousin's death called me back to the nucleus of my life: family, friends and myself. So much had distracted me for so long. Don't let anything pull you away from your life's nucleus.

I didn't attempt to explain what a great person my cousin Adrian Bovee Stump was because words do not apply. Emotions do. You listen to him with your eyes and your heart because words lack substance. They cannot describe Adrian or people like Adrian.

After Adrian's death, I envisioned myself on my deathbed, staring blankly out a window and asking, "What was it all about?"

If your life isn't on the path you would like it to be, begin a new one. The clock is running.

Harry Beckwith is a senior political science major.