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"An Accidental Soldier" is a hard book to read. It will challenge your ideas about race, identity, war, and the human condition. It will anger you at times, it may cause you to
become defensive, and you may ultimately dismiss it as "unpatriotic" and the ramblings of a cynic and malcontent. I don't know Manny Garcia, a Utah criminal defense attorney,
but I sense that this memoir is above all else, honest, and is worth reading just for that.
The memoir begins with Garcia's youth in Colorado and Utah. Of Mexican and Spanish
descent, his family joined the Mormon church in Utah, Garcia graduated from the Mormon high school seminary program, and became an Eagle Scout. There is a sense early on that Garcia is,
if confused about his identity, at least malleable. He graduated from high school, got busted for drunk driving, got a job as a janitor, and joined the Army at the height of the Vietnam
conflict.
Here, for me, the really gripping story begins - Garcia's experiences as an Army Ranger. It reads like an adventure story, but we know the outcome: the war is at best a
stalemate, and our hero comes home alive. We learn a lot about Garcia, about war and about the human condition in the meantime.
There are images I can't get out of my head -
cruelties perpetrated by both sides. "Evil" - whatever that is - is not just inflicted on Americans; we have the propensity to be the inflictors, too:
"On this
occasion our squad had waited in ambush for most of the day. It had been uncommonly quiet with no action at the tables. It was getting late. We were getting hungry. There was nothing like
a can of food to cap off a full day. Our night perimeter location was more than half an hour away. We didn't want to arrive back home too late. We called in and advised that we were going
to dismantle our ambush and come in. Just then we got a signal from the right flank. Someone was coming. What bad luck! This was a bad time to set off an ambush. . . . I decided not to
expose our position, nor neglect our duty, nor miss our supper. . . . From my silent detached observation position just behind and slightly above my head, I saw my body straighten and
slide around the tree. Everything happened in slow motion. . . . He stood five and a half feet tall. My right hand came up over his right shoulder and wrapped itself over his mouth. I
jerked his head back forcefully. At the same time, the razor-sharp knife in my left hand came up and deftly sliced open his throat, from right ear to left ear. He dropped his rifle. His
hands came up and grabbed his throat and my arm. His life gushed from the gaping wound in streams of crimson. He jerked violently and kicked his right leg out. I let go of his face.
Spluttering noises came from his severed throat. He began to turn around to see what happened but then he slumped and crumbled to the ground. I picked up his carbine and placed our
business card in his mouth."
Garcia's is a reflective memoir. He is not simply telling stories of the cruelty of war, he is asking questions about it: "Where does
gratuitous cruelty originate. Do we learn it as children? Is it inherent in our nature? As a young teen, I remember laughing as frogs exploded from the firecrackers we shoved down their
throats. We tried to catch lizards just to pull their tails off. I shot jackrabbits and speared carp knowing I wasn't going to eat them. I knew there was something wrong with that, though
I never articulated it."
These were questions postponed, of necessity, during the war. You cannot question the cruelty, he suggests, and survive it. He writes:
"My
soul was dispatched into exile. My higher self went underground. I disconnected myself from all feelings and higher thoughts. I was determined to protect my spirit. . . . I acquired and
freely exercised the ability to suspend all judgment and just act upon my environment. I found I was able to kill without conscience, without hesitation, without question. My senses were
never turned inward. I simply responded to what was happening all around me . . . .War was not conducive to growth and flowering of the mind and spirit, nor was it a road to
enlightenment. War was pure waste, devastation, and death."
If someone asked me one of my favorite movies of all time, I would pick "Apocalypse Now," for the truth
about war that it expressed so forcefully. There are no rules, though those of us outside war try to impose them; there is only, as Colonel Kurtz says: "The horror . . . the
horror." Garcia captures the insanity, the horror, and the contradictions:
"It felt like the planet had spun off its axis. I saw contradictions co-exist. I saw men at
their very best and at their very worst at the same time. I saw men risk their lives and kill other men in order to save the life of a wounded comrade, just another man. That was man at
his very best. How much more can a man sacrifice or risk than to give his own life to save the life of another? Man at his very worst - what is worse than killing another man, for any
reason? I saw small men with enormous power and large men with very little. I saw wise, strong men cry and dumb addled men laugh. I saw fear paralyze bodies and minds. I saw anger kill
compassion. I saw mistakes bury innocent people. I saw rage destroy faith. I got a good look at the failing, perhaps even the downfall, of men."
Ultimately, Garcia has to come
to terms with the war, and does so in an act that may disturb many of us. He has accumulated various medals during the war (something akin to the badges he accumulated in becoming an
Eagle scout). He drives to Washington, D.C., and "in a graceful left-handed motion I tossed the tangled handful of medals, citations, wings and patches over the tall wrought iron
fence. They landed on the immaculate White House lawn but in my mind they had landed at the feet of the nation. It was done. I made my protest and with a kiss of eloquence. My last
mission was accomplished."
It almost feels, throughout this memoir, as if Garcia is challenging us to judge him at the same time that he is saying, "how dare you judge
me." And, indeed, how dare we? He more than paid his dues for his opinions (just read the book). He challenges our unearned self-righteousness - and at a time in our nation's history
when self-righteousness is perhaps our greatest weakness.
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