(Page 1 of 4) Another Monday Night by Dan BiegerSUMMARY: The regulars show again.Another Monday night at The Chapel, the regulars in and out, the evening drifting by in pleasant conversation, good companionship, excellent drinks.
Marvin sat nursing his scotch-on-the-rocks, Johnny Walker red by choice while Stephen opted to let his choice swim in water. That had brought the usual question: "how can you dilute good scotch." Followed immediately by the disclaimer: "of course, no one considers Black and White good scotch." To which, Stephen supplied the requisite grin. "Long story, Marvin, and not the one I want to entertain this night."
"What's on your mind?" the friend asked.
"The other night, listening to the songs, all that anti-war sentiment, it got me to thinking."
"That never works out well, does it?" Marvin smiled but it wasn't necessary. The two were comfortable trading barbs, had been doing so for more years than either could remember.
"No, it never does and this time is no exception," Stephen said. He sipped his B&W while he got the opening argument arranged just so.
"All lawful orders. That was the oath, right?" Marvin nodded agreement.
"We always assumed the ones making up the lawful orders knew what they were doing."
"Yeah, we did."
"And then there was duty and honor and country."
"Not in the oath but, yeah, they were part of who we thought we were."
"What happened to us, then?"
"What do you mean?"
"I always had pride in that life. I went to the war they gave me; did what I had to do; managed to come home. Took pride in that. Did my duty, held my honor, served my country."
"And now, something has changed?" Marvin didn't look at Stephen when he asked the question. Instead, he looked into the depths of his drink as if lack of eye content would make the expected answer more bearable.
"Yeah, something changed. Like I said the other night: the Pentagon papers, Watergate, Iran-gate, Hell, you know the list as well as I do."
Marvin continued to stare deep into the depths of his Scotch. From somewhere deep he mumbled his reply: "Yeah, I do."
"Stephen Decatur, then: "Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!""
"Always comes out ‘my country, right or wrong,my country."
"Either way it comes out, I am no longer certain I believe that."
"Nothing wrong with updating a belief system."
"But, when it seems to turn upside down everything you lived for half a lifetime?"
"Conversion, Stephen. Happens to lots of people."
"Yeah, it does. Doesn't make it any easier to comprehend, though. All lawful orders, Marvin, all fucking lawful orders. I thought they were."
Conversation time had shifted again, Marvin knew. They were back in the 60s and they were young and they wore uniforms. They were soldiers.
"How the hell would we know?" Marvin asked.
"We were supposed to know. They kept hammering that at us. It's what made My Lai so wrong. We were supposed to know what constituted a lawful order."
"We were eighteen years old."
"And we were the best and brightest of our class. You and me. None smarter.
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