About that four-letter word

Over 500 of you wrote in with responses to “Why Do You Carry A Gun?” If you missed it, or need a refresher, it’s linked here. We’ll wait. Done? Good. I carried Little Lizzie and her mom, Miss Maine, around in my head and heart for several years, waiting for the right audience to share them with. I guess I found it.

Numbers-geeks who study these things tell me that 500 write-ins means your feelings were shared by somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 readers. That article has spread to chat rooms, BLOGs, gun forums, lunchrooms and bulletin boards, with copies scattered in some very unusual places across the country. I was overwhelmed with its impact — and struck with some unsettling themes in your responses. First, the ferocity and determination you expressed were stunning.

Virtually every one of you spoke of your willingness to kill or die to protect Little Lizzie — any “Little Lizzie.” Second, so many of you were confused or surprised with the depth of your own reactions, saying you had never really examined — not deep in your guts — this very primal and central dynamic, which drives all of your more intellectual and super-conscious reasons for being armed, for asserting your right to self-defense, and to intervene to protect the lives of others. Third, those of you who have not been tested under fire wondered — How would I do? Could I cut it? — if you had to stand and deliver, atgrave risk, as a human barrier between “the bad men” and a Little Lizzie. Folks, we need to talk.

So Let's Talk

These are three same-and-separate issues, as tangled and twisted as human emotions can be. I can only try to answer them in an equally tangled way, using slices of my past.

When I was a small boy, a great-uncle, a 48-year British Army veteran, told me about our family history, laying out that long, unbroken line of lifelong warriors. “We fight, boy,” he growled. “We lose and die sometimes, yes, but we always fight.” I asked him, “Why do we fight, sir?” He laughed, harshly, and pointed to the puppies rolling in the yard. “Why do they hunt, boy? Why do those dogs point? Born to it, bred for it, they are, same’s us. And because we will not be trod on.” I accepted that explanation for a long time. Later I learned he had it half-right, and nine-tenths wrong.

There had been some ugly incidents involving other teams. Men, some living and some dead, had been left behind, both due to “combat circumstances,” and to orders. We could not live with that. Before each mission, my teammates and I began joining hands and swearing that we would never leave each other behind; the mission, pain and fear and wounds be damned, orders be double-damned; if it came down to it, we would all go down together. Together.

On a pitchy night in another world, five good men and I violated orders. We ferried nine small children across a murky, shallow river because other men wanted them dead. It took a twelve-eternity hour to cover 100 meters of dark water into darker trees, and we fought for every child and every meter. Two of my mates and one of the kids didn’t make it. I remember that night with a piercing sweet sadness — and an immense, soul-filling, self-defining pride. I never knew those children’s names, and I never saw them again.

There is no bloodline so thick with history, so red with ancient battles, as to render anyone into an unfaltering warrior by birthright. There must be something more. There is no acceptance of duty; no oaths, no allegiances ever sworn so binding that they have not been thereafter cast aside and forgotten under fire — when men had nothing more to hold them than the memory of those pledges. I’ve seen it. There must be something more.

You have not armed and oriented yourself for fighting, in defense of yourself and others, just because you are fearful of attack by predators, have you? No. Because you are blessed with natural bravery and it’s just the “right thing to do?” No. There must be something more. And there is.

90 Percent

Without knowing what you’ll kill or die for, how can you know what you really live for? In the end, it’s about love — and in the end, love is all you have, and all you ever really had to begin with. And as for whether or not you’ll stand and deliver if and when the time comes? Ten percent will depend on how you’ve trained. Ninety percent will hinge on what you love.

Now I’ll go back to being the capering clown of the gunwriting circus, and you can forget I ever said these things, okay? Good luck to both of us.

Connor OUT