Whenever we look through a family album of old photographs, most of us ask "Who is this?" not "Who was this?" Photographs are always present tense, and so are all the elements of life the enrich us. This blog considers music, film, books and other communications that call out to me always in the present tense.
A song that echoed through my life
Hearing the NPR piece this week about Canadian Cree Buffy Sainte-Marie reminded me of her importance in my life. Yes, she was Billboard’s Best New Artist in 1964. Yes, she is the only indigenous person to win an Oscar (consider that for a moment!). But for me, one song she wrote affected me for life: “Universal Soldier.”
My country has been at war my whole life: Korea (how’d that work out? Got a peace treaty yet?), Vietnam (that made us safer, right?), Serbia (gave the NATO generals some wood at least), and just about everywhere in the Middle East. Does anyone even care that we’re still killing Afghans? Is it just for sport, or for profit?
Obviously, the war profiteers like General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin and the careerist generals who receive promotions for losing are propelling these pointless horrors, but every word of Sainte-Marie’s lyrics have been burned in my memory for 50 years.
It opened my eyes about supporting our troops. As she wrote, they really are to blame.
UNIVERSAL SOLDIER
He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years
He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an athiest, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you
And he's fighting for Canada,
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA,
and he's fighting for the Russians
and he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way
And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls
But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on
He's the universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war
