Study War No More

This weekend I joined thousands of persons from all over the US and Latin America in the 25th anniversary of struggle to close the School of Americas (SOA), the Army, military training base for training terrorist in Latin America. It was also the 25th anniversary of the massacre of six Jesuit scholars/priests, their housekeeper and her daughter that took place during the Salvadoran Civil War on November 16, 1989, at the campus of Universidad Centroamericana “José Simeón Cañas” (UCA) in San Salvador, El Salvador. It was this massacre by SOA training military that first awoke large number of people to this terrorist training camp in the USA. The killing goes on all over in Latin American so we honor all those killed by USA supported terrorist attacks, babies to the elderly. The coup in 2009, of SOA graduated of a democratically chosen president of Honduras was led by a SOA graduate and has led to a country of repression and violence, the murder capital o the world. The terrorist base has changed its name to the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Corporation but terrorist training and support continues in the USA.

During our SOAWatch to close the School of Americas there was an inclusive Eucharistic celebration during which the Franciscan priest who I was accompanying spoke. My friend and friend of many there mentioned my helping him with his walker which has really slowed him down. He loving and jokingly spoke of my helping him get up from falling, which he has not done in my presence, saying I was a “man without shame.”

Thinking of that remark I have come to like it, if a “man without shame” means someone who not afraid to speak up in resistance to violence and injustice. “A Man Without Shame” if it means someone not afraid to “speak truth to power” even when it brings rejections and silence. I am not saying I am this kind of person but a “man without shame” is something I would Like to be. As the Army says in propaganda “Be All You Can Be.” I would like to be a “Man without shame.”

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