Before heading out Iwo Jima to
commemorate the annual “Reunion of Honor” between former enemies of different
ethnic groups, religions, cultures and beliefs but now good friends, for the
72nd anniversary of the World War II battle that killed 6,821 Americans,
wounded another 19,000 and killed about 21,000 Japanese, I want to respond to
the comments I received about a recent Voices column: “Remedy for gangs that
can’t shoot straight?”
Somebody asked me if I
was serious about putting gang members—or anybody who can’t hit their intended
target and instead kill children and other innocent people—in the military and
teaching them to shoot straight, to learn discipline and to fight with enemies
who shoot back with equal skill. See http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/guest-commentary/2017-03-05/ray-elliottvoices-remedy-gangs-cant-shoot-straight.html
for the specifics.
Well yes, I was
serious. But then no, I wasn’t serious because I know it’d never happen. Would
it have an effect? Of course, it would. When Japan and Germany surrendered at
the end of WWII after both sides had attacked each other without mercy, the
United States and the Allied countries helped rebuild the economies of their former
enemies and established a lasting friendship that has continued for more than
70 years.
The people killing
innocent children and others here in Champaign-Urbana and Chicago and around
the United States are not all gang members and are mostly all citizens of this
country, not members of a foreign country with which we are at war. These
people are at war with each other, with many of the same ethnic groups,
religions, cultures and beliefs or family members who resort to senseless violence
that take the lives of innocent people and their own as well.
But to the reactions I
received to my proposal of putting these people who can’t shoot straight into the
military to teach them how to shoot, drill them with well-trained forces of men
and women and then send them to trouble spots around the world where our
military is deployed and let them shoot at people who shoot back to help remedy
the situation.
The first response I
got was from a man I consider to be one of the wisest, most reasonable and
considerate in the area. “You have an interesting concept in today’s
News-Gazette,” he said.
While I wasn’t sure of
his meaning, others followed with similarly ambiguous points of view. Which
sort of surprised me, initially. I’d tried to make the column a satire but
didn’t manage. My thoughts were along the lines of some words in a Kris
Kristofferson song: “partly truth and partly fiction.” Partly truth and partly
satire, I guess.
Then I received an
email from Arnold Shapiro, the Oscar- and Emmy-winning director and producer of
the effective Scared Straight series
that took juvenile offenders into maximum-security prison to meet with hardcore
inmates who gave the youths a sample of what they could expect if they came to
prison—a sort of Marine Corps boot camp with the inmates to help the youths go
straight as the drill instructors did with recruits to make Marines out of them.
Shapiro, who wrote the
words for the “Reunion of Honor” monument on Iwo Jima, raised the money for it
and produced three documentaries about the battle—the last (From Combat to Comrades) which aired on
the PBS last fall—emailed, “A very thoughtful, interesting and substantive
article that should be discussed with those who make laws and deal with wayward
youth.”
The words Shapiro
wrote for the Iwo Jima monument that was dedicated on the 40th anniversary of
the battle in 1985 gives the hope of peace between those who were once enemies:
“On the 40th
anniversary of the battle of Iwo Jima, American and Japanese veterans meet
again on these same sands, this time in peace and friendship. We commemorate
our comrades, living and dead, who fought here with bravery and honor, and we
pray together that our sacrifices on Iwo Jima will always be remembered and
never be repeated.”
These few words are
inscribed on both sides of the monument just above the landing beaches, one in
each language; the English side faces the ocean where the Americans landed, the
Japanese side faces inland.
Of course, it’s not
that simple. But if it’s possible for enemies who take the lives of many more
innocent people and combatants in our wars through the centuries to join
together in peace and friendship, maybe it’s not such a stretch to believe that
it’s possible to stop all the killing by these “wayward youths” by teaching
them discipline and how to shoot straight.
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