I made a Kiowa diary entry for english class, its lokey peak
Oct 30, 1970
Thursday
5:24 PM
Dear Diary,
After we left the church I thought about how foolish my words were, the crap about “protecting the sanctity of the church” or whatever I was spouting. The Vietnamese were majority catholic and I have no doubt in my mind that I had indirectly killed a believer. I was killing my brothers and sisters in Christ, in a war defined by how money should be distributed. It reminds me of all the ways I lie. It reminds me of the day my brother died. I don’t remember what I was doing, I was 17 years old, not the brightest in the room, and didn’t have any talents that would make me special, the only thing I could really do was lie. I never call them lies, I call them carefully edited truths; I grew up in a deeply religious household, were lying was the scariest sin you could commit. At least if you killed someone, the all forgiving man upstairs could save you. If you lied on the other hand, you would have to tell a member of the most unforgiving species on the planet, another lie. You were sorry. However, don't be mistaken, in my household… my environment really, lying was still all over the place, but as long as the lie was pretty enough, or had enough of the truth, it could be overlooked. So when I opened the door, and looked into the eyes of the CAO, I knew that I was going to hear a truly beautiful lie. The man was a true scriptwriter, unlike me he was fine with telling the glamorous stories that I had shied away from. He created the setting, taking place in Operation Attleboro in the evening, the plot was obvious, the tragedy befalling an 18 year old boy and his family, and the main character himself, Dakota Locklear, being displayed as the American hero he died to be. He talked about how the strong young man, separated from his pack, had died in a firefight with the VC. He went on to put in all the good words that his fellow platoonsmen had left behind for the family of this hero. I immediately knew the man was lying. I had heard stories of what CAO’s said to the families of heroes, an unemotional sentence of absolute fact followed by a quick, glancing look of pity, and a nod before they left. This man had spent the last 10 minutes giving me a fantasy, when I looked into his eyes I caught a glimpse of satisfaction, he tried to mask it by giving me the same look of pity he must have given 100 times at this point, still there was too much emotion left in his eyes. That day stayed at the back of my mind, until by a series of coincidences I found out the fact of my brother's death. An 18 year old boy was separated from his platoon, quickly became lost, and when he saw movement in nearby foliage he started firing. He shot and killed Jake Ramsey, before he himself was shot and killed by his platoon. Paul Ramsey then delivered the news to both his family and the family of the late Dakota Locklear. I no longer resent the CAO, at least he didn’t lie to himself. He hated the boy who killed his brother, he hated the boy’s brother, and he could not bring himself to be a good person and give the family a shred of true sympathy. He could have simply skipped the family, and left them with the burden of not knowing whether their boy was dead or alive. But that wouldn’t be a true revenge, He needed to look them in the eye, and tell them a spectacular story, a movie in and of itself. I can only imagine the feeling he had telling the story of the children of the forest, the pure emotion he had felt from the retelling. I think I'll look back 10 years from now on the war, look at all the stories told. I think I might find some facts, History will talk of the children who went into a forest and never returned, they might even speak of the things we carried, but there will be too many lies for it to matter. I just hope that before I die, someone will tell a story without being restricted by fact, but without being glorified by the beautiful lies.
Discord