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Saturday, August 27, 2005 • _T"_heSacramento Bee •- ---------- . ·-- -- --------- ---------- 7 Sheehan's question is, 'Why?' Is an answer possible?B By Thomas G. Palaima Where is the divine plan in 14 good or bad, kind or cruel, smart There it is. Marines being incinerated inside or stupid. They died. So he could I was lucky. My loved ones and an amphibious assault vehicle by only say, "And so it goes." I have I only came close to death and "I like that very much: 'If the an improvised explosive device? been thinking about these things accident will.' " maiming. I can push incidents What human plan can explain to for years. Don't lie. You have, like these out of my mind most of - Kurt Vonnegut parents why their sons, all brave too. the time. Search in your own soul "Slaughterhouse Five" men, were there in Haditha on A few days ago, I was clearing and find a way that you, too, can t is a mistake to see what Aug. 3, far from brush behind my feel even part of what mothers Cindy Sheehan has been do Fairfield, Ohio; garage. A pliant like Cindy Sheehan are feeling. I Anchorage, '' War, even fought branch whipped ing in Crawford purely as a po litical act. She is caught up in poli Alaska; Folk half a planet away into my left eye, At the end of the classic Texas tics and is being used for political �ton, Ga.? The lacerating it and film "Tender Mercies" (1983), purposes by pro- and anti-war answer lies else by volunteer gouging the cor country singer Mac Sledge, a re demonstrators and by media pun where, and it is nea. My eye doc covered alcoholic played by Rob dits. Those are sad facts. But no analgesic. soldiers, brings tor rushed to my ert Duvall, chops at weeds in a Cindy Sheehan has a question, Documentary death to us on a help. He ex small garden patch out in the vast and she wants an answer no one filmmaker plained that if Texas landscape. His daughter can give. Werner Herzog regular basis. the branch had has just died in a car wreck. He calls it ecstatic struck 2 mm to 3 had lived through one once when Few of us even want to contem truth. Austin, When it comes, it is mm to the left, I he was dead drunk. His loving plate her question. Sigmund Texas, oral histo- would have lost new wife asks him if he is OK. Freud explains why. War brings rian Leila obscene. Parents my sight. If the Mac wonders out loud: "And I life's greatest mystery front and Levinson has accident will. prayed last night to know why I center. In peacetime, he said, bury their children, we been interview Eleven years lived and she died. But I got no an admit that death is a natural and ing soldiers who a terrible inversion ago, a speeding swer to my prayer. I still don't unavoidable part of life. But we liberated the driver skidded know why she died and I lived. I really behave otherwise. We Nazi concentra of the natural just as we had don't know the answers to noth push death aside. eliminate it tion camps and gotten out of our ing. Not a blessed thing. ... My from life. try toWe hush it up. order. We others who sur '' car on a residen- daughter killed in an automobile War, even fought half a planet vived them. She tial street. My accident. Why? You see I don't away by volunteer soldiers, calls it emotional truth. E.B. wife was seven months pregnant trust happiness. I never did, and I brings death to us on a regular ba Sledge writes honestly about the with our only child. I pushed her never will." sis. When it comes, it is obscene. horrors he and other Marines out of the way. My right leg was Duvall won an Academy Parents bury their children, a ter faced in fighting the Japanese in crushed. My head slammed the Award for best actor and Horton the Pacific. follows British windshield and then the curb. rible inversion of the natural or He Foote for best screenplay. Why? der. In their grief they naturally WW I poet Wilfred Owen in The emergency team got me to Together they revealed ecstatic ask, "Why?" Most of them ask speaking of "chance's strange the hospital fast. A skilled ortho truth about something we would why silently, day after day, for arithmetic." Herodotus, at the pedic surgeon performed many rather not think about. years on end. A such as Shee dawn of Western history, saw it operations over nine months to han, whose sonfew, was killed last as cruel bad luck combined with save my leg. My mind recovered. Cindy Sheehan and all parents year in Iraq, break the taboo and divine resentment of human hap So it goes. who have lost their children, in ask why out loud. piness. On Oct. 30, 1985, I was on war or peace, need our and God's American Airlines Flight 203, tender mercies. And that will still The real "why" question about Kurt Vonnegut found the an Associated Press not be enough. death and other severe trauma swer 22 years after WW II in the Austin to Dallas, returning to New York City from interviewing Cindy Sheehan placed the boots of her son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, has an answer, but Sheehan will mangled English of a Dresden at the cross bearing his name in Camp Casey Thursday. Sheehan re ■ ■ ■ not get it from President Bush. taxi driver. Such things happen for the position I now hold at the Thomas G. Palaima teaches University of Texas. As ap turned to Texas after tending to her ill mother in California. There is no factual answer. An "if the accident will." Vonnegut we classics and war and violence swers from men and pondered deaths, and lives proached the gate in Dallas, a board. A San Marcos salesman r homemade bomb in her cosmet studies at the University of even bomb went off in the luggage had insured his wife and two ics case. set the timer wrong. women of God or caring friends spared, during and after the war. He Texas at Austin. His commen hold. young children handsomely. He No one died, but all looked at sound like platitudinous guesses It didn't matter whether the men we tary first appeared in the Austin put them aboard. had planted of people stumbling in the dark. and women, boys and girls were There were 147 passengers on He death. American-Statesman. .

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