I’ll say this for them, though: JFK, LBJ, and RMN were bornrnin these United States of America and at some point in theirrnlives, each of them met actual Americans. Reagan and Clinton,rntoo. (Bush may have seen a few Connecticut laborers throughrnthe tinted glass of his limousine’s window, but that doesn’trncount.) The brain trusts that advise our Presidents whom tornbomb and where to ship our myrmidons became, over thernpostrepublic years, less and less American, infiltrated by emigresrnboth unintelligible (Brzezinski, Kissinger) and polishedrn(Albright, Shalikashvili). Indeed, authentic Americans withinrnthe Clinton foreign policy apparat are as rare as white kids on arnPBS children’s show. These newcomers, by and large Russophobicrn(for good—but non-American—reasons), broughtrnwith them exotic habits: Edward Teller pestered us to adoptrnthe metric system lest we be “overtaken by Russia”; of NobelrnLaureate Kissinger, Pat Moynihan liked to say, “Henry doesrnnot lie because it is in his interest; he lies because it is in hisrnnature.”rnThese aliens have no real connection to Americans: the wardeathrnof a boy from Youngstown means no more to them thanrnthe war-death of a boy from Prague. They see it as an even (ifrnnot lopsided) trade. Like General Grant, they can do crimsonrncalculus; it’s easier for them, lacking, as they do, ties of kinshiprnor neighborliness within our country. (Roscoe Conkling poetizedrnGrant’s rootlessness—sorry, Galena—at the 1880 Republicanrnconvention: “When asked what state he hails from / Ourrnsole reply shall be— / ‘He hails from Appomattox / With itsrnfamous apple tree.'”)rnDo you really think Henry Kissinger gave a damn how manyrnJoe Doakses and LeRoy Washingtons he inscribed on the VietnamrnWall? He didn’t know these men; he couldn’t imaginernthem. They hadn’t even the reality of a planchet on a Riskrnboard. The same with Madeleine Albright: indeed, Praguernmeans more to her than Youngstown ever could. If your son’srncorpse and those of his ten best friends can pry open a foreignrnmarket or break a turbaned renegade to the U.N./U.S. will, thenrnunzip the body bags and grab that shovel, sexton.rnI will give you my solution, though it is no more “practical”rnthan a Dorothy Day prayer or a Henry Thoreau spade. Nornstatesman’s coercive power should ever extend over people herndoes not know. If Madeleine and the Democracy Geeks of MrnStreet want to pull their Brads and Joshuas out of Choate andrnship them overseas to kill ragheads and bohunks and niggersrnand chinks—the inscrutables are our new enemy; the yellowrnperil rides again!—to make the world safe for Nike, then so bernit, but she has no claim upon my kin or my neighbors (or yours).rnWe are useful to them only insofar as we follow orders, dornnot make trouble, and die on cue. The literary critic PaulrnFussell, whose back and right thigh were ripped by shrapnelrnfrom a German shell in March 1945, explained, “It wasn’t longrnbefore I could articulate for myself the message that war wasrnsending the infantry soldier: ‘You are expendable. Don’t imaginernthat your family’s good opinion of you will cut any ice here.rnYou are just another body to be used. Since all can’t be damagedrnor destroyed as they are fed into the machinery, some mayrnsurvive, but that’s not my fault. Most must be chewed up, andrnyou’ll probably be one of them. This is regrettable, but nothingrncan be done about it.'”rnWell, one thing can be done about it. Don’t go. Stay withrnyour family. Confirm their good opinion of you. Don’t feedrnthe war machine. You are not expendable, in your family’s eyesrnor in God’s. The 30-piece whores of Washington who writerntheir little pamphlets proving that whatever slaughter our governmentrnis currently engaged in is a “just war” should bernlaughed back to the seminaries they quit. Thou shalt not killrnmeans us, too. rnThe Pallbearersrnby Tim MurphyrnAt the prairie cemeteryrnwhere the river meets a roadrnand Murphys come to buryrnlove in the loam we’ve sowedrnmy brother lets me carryrnthe light end of the load.rn16/CHRONICLESrnrnrn