Frank is Emptiness

July 29th, 2022

Asher is a good traveler. We took him on a road trip to Texas and he did well. He is about twenty months old, and he is surprisingly comfortable with long drives. Even so, eventually Asher gets restless and fussy, and we need to get him out of the car.

When this happens, we look for a Mcdonald’s with a Play Place. Normally, we would pull over at a rest stop with a playground. However, since most of the South is enjoying sauna-like temperatures (100 degrees+), we decided that we didn’t want Asher to get heat exhaustion on this trip. Asher needed to move around and exercise, but it needed to be an air-conditioned environment. Karin and I did not want to put a sweaty toddler back into the car seat.

Let me say up front, that we did not go into the McDonald’s because of the food. What is served at Mcdonald’s doesn’t really qualify as food. We did order fries for Asher, because he always eats French fries. I would usually get a soda and/or a burger, and Karin got some kind of mocha. We bought food simply to have access to the Play Place and get to use the bathroom.

Asher didn’t actually play that much in the Play Place. There isn’t much there that is toddler sized. Mostly, he observed the other children. He watched them very closely. Asher is a ladies’ man, so he tended to gravitate toward the little girls. One young woman in Arkansas rejected Asher’s advances and pushed him down. He just got up again to follow her around.

Asher eventually got bored with McDonald’s. When that happened, we would check his diaper, and tuck him back into the car for another couple hours on the road. Often, he would fall asleep on his seat once we got on the freeway.

Early one morning in Texas, I took Asher into a Mcdonald’s just so Karin could take a shower without interruption. Asher stood around and ate a greasy wedge of hashbrowns while I sipped some lava hot black coffee. As he munched, I looked around the restaurant and saw four old guys (my age) sitting at a table, slowly drinking their senior-price coffees. These guys were in no hurry to go anywhere (actually, in Texas, nobody seems to be in a hurry).

I suspect these gentlemen were up early, and they wanted to get away from their wives for a bit. I don’t know what they were all talking about, but I can guess: the hot, dry weather, the price of gas, “go Brandon”. If it wasn’t for Asher, I would probably be sitting at a table just like that in Wisconsin, slurping bad coffee and watching the time slip away. Well, at least those old boys had a place to sit and relax. They don’t need to spend much money for what they get.

Thank God for Asher. Thank God for Mcdonald’s.

July 24th, 2022

Asher was restless early on Sunday morning. My 19-month-old grandson wanted to get out of our room at the retreat house and go places. He didn’t want to go very far, but he needed to move around.

We were staying at the Coury House, the retreat center at Subiaco Abbey in western Arkansas. Karin and I have been going there for many years, but this was Asher’s first visit to the place. There really isn’t much at the abbey to entertain a toddler, but it was all new to Asher, so he remained interested in his surroundings.

Subiaco monastery is built on top of a tall hill in the Arkansas river valley. The Benedictine monks run the abbey. It’s off the beaten path, and it has a remarkably peaceful environment. For a person with a spiritual or religious nature, it is an excellent place to rest and recharge.

Coury House is built into the side of the hill. For some reason the first and second floors are located well below the crest of the hill. The third floor and the lobby are on the top of the hill, and that is where visitors first arrive. Our room was buried deep into the first floor. It was a nice room, but its window had a view of a concrete wall. Asher did not like to hang out there.

I had thought that Asher would want to run around the hallways and burn off some energy. No, what he wanted to do was to have me carry him up two flights of stairs to the lobby. with reluctance I did that. It was just as well. Asher is not very good yet with navigating stairs and he wasn’t wearing any shoes.

When we got to the top of the stairs, I stood in the lobby with Asher sitting on my right hip. He gazed around and showed no interest in going down on the floor. I looked down one of the hallways and saw two women walking slowly toward us. Both of them were dressed modestly, wearing long skirts. They appeared to be Latinas. I could hear them speaking Spanish together as they approached us.

Their faces lit up when they met us. One of the women was of medium height with her graying hair pulled back into a bun. She held a Bible in her arm. The other woman was young. She was a tiny lady. She had long, black hair with large dark eyes. The younger woman had a beatific smile. She had an expression of childlike innocence.

The older woman asked me, “¿Hablas español?”

I replied, “Un poquito.”

She nodded. Then both women started talking to me rapidly in Spanish. Apparently, when I told them that I spoke a tiny bit of Spanish, they assumed I was actually fluent. I struggled to follow what they were saying. My Spanish vocabulary has diminished significantly in recent years.

They asked the name of my grandson. I told them “Asher”. Then the smaller woman asked me my name. I told her “Frank”. She looked a little confused until the older lady told her “Francisco”. The younger woman nodded and smiled.

“Si, Francisco.”

They both looked at Asher and me with joy. The two chattered in Spanish and I only caught a few phrases, like: “un niño hermoso” and “muy bien”. I told them that I was Asher’s ” su abuelo”, his grandpa. They smiled again.

The small woman looked lovingly at Asher, who looked back at her with interest. She asked me, “¿Besar? (Kiss?)”

I nodded. She stroked Asher’s leg and touched his right foot. She stooped a bit and with exquisite tenderness kissed it.

Then she asked me again, “¿Besar?”

I thought she wanted to kiss Asher again, so I nodded.

She didn’t kiss Asher.

The woman stroked my left arm gently. Then she reached down to kiss my hand. A tremor ran through me.

The two of them came close to us. The older woman placed her right hand on my shoulder. The younger woman did the same with Asher. They prayed over us. I don’t know what they all said. I heard the word “corazon (heart)” spoken repeatedly. It doesn’t really matter what they said. A benediction can be recognized in any language. They blessed us.

After their prayer, the two women left the lobby and headed toward the church.

I never saw them again.

July 23rd, 2022

Conversations with my son, Hans, tend to follow a familiar pattern. He almost always starts by talking about guns (Hans is a Texan and is by definition a gun enthusiast). By the end of our talk, Hans is telling me about some disturbing and/or absurd experience he had when he was deployed in Iraq. Our last discussion was no different.

Hans began by telling the story of how he and his buddies went hunting for feral pigs several years ago. To the best of my understanding, there is no season in Texas for hunting these pigs. Actually, the state would prefer that people kill the damn things whenever possible. They are remarkably destructive creatures: strong, vicious, and prolific breeders.

Hans was using a rifle with a red dot sight. He spotted a large, hulking animal about 100 yards in the distance. Hans could not make out what it was. He preferred not to shoot a cow. His friend had a rifle with a telescopic sight, so he asked him what the thing was. his buddy said,

“Well, it’s not a cow.”

BOOM!

Hans turned down the red dot, and the immediately let off a round and hit the beast. Hans’ companion did not appreciate the fact that Hans fired his rifle without warning. Neither of them could see the wounded animal, so they, along with another hunter, drove through the fields to look for the pig. They found the boar in a mud hole where it had been wallowing. Hans had shot it in the spine.

Hans’ buddy took out his 9mm and starting firing at the pig from a short distance. Hans told me, “The guy missed the pig five times. I finally told the guy, ‘Give me the gun, you idiot!’. I don’t know what was wrong with him. I know the pig was still moving around and making a racket, but it was hit in the spine. It wasn’t going to go after the guy. I took the 9mm, went close to the pig’s head, and killed it. I mean, shit, just end it.”

The conversation inevitably drifted from there to Iraq.

Hans told me about being designated as a marksman on the caiman. He took a drag off his cigarette and said,

“We were shooting at these guys coming at us from across a field. One of these poppy-leaf-chewers was so high, he couldn’t feel nothing. I shot the guy in the shoulder, and he just shrugged and kept coming. I shot again and he went down. Then this guy got up again. I hit him one more time, and he went down. He got up again. I thought, ‘What the hell? Is this guy the Iraqi Terminator?’ I kept firing at him, and I was about ready to tell the machine gunner to light his ass up. I finally stopped him. I must have used twenty rounds.”

Hans went on, “I always had a magazine full of tracer rounds for whenever we went on night missions. Then I would take some tracers out and put them in another magazine with regular rounds. I would space them out every three or five rounds.”

“Well, we went on a night mission, and we were firing back at some bad guys. I fired once:”

“Tracer round.”

“I fired again.”

“Tracer round.”

“I fired again.”

“Tracer round.”

“Oops. Wrong magazine.”

“I set that field on fire. I caught shit for that. Well, it didn’t matter, we knew they were bad guys. We could see the muzzle flashes from their guns, and we could hear the ‘thump’. They were firing Ak 47’s. Those things go ‘thump’ when you fire them. You can tell that sound. Our rifles go ‘ptui’.”

Hans took another drag. He said,

“One time, these National Guard boys started firing us up. It was good that we were all in the truck. And it was during fucking daylight. How could they not tell an MRAP from a…a…well, from whatever the bad guys drive around? We couldn’t call them. They had the wrong week’s fill in their radios. “

“The grenadier shot a flare round toward their vehicle. That got their attention.”

Hans put out his cigarette stub and smiled.

July 20th, 2022

“The land here is strong
Strong beneath my feet
It feeds on the blood
It feeds on the heat” –The Rhythm of the Heat by Peter Gabriel

We drove down to Texas a week ago. Yeah, I know that making a road trip from Wisconsin to Texas in the middle of July is utter madness, but circumstances dictated that we go now or not go at all. We wanted to visit our oldest son, Hans, and his family. Karin and I had not been this way for almost two years, and it was high time to see the two grandchildren that we hardly knew. We took along our 18-month-old grandson, Asher, who has turned out to be bold and intrepid traveler.

Basically, the entire United States south of Chicago is a sauna. Texas takes the heat one step further. We are staying in Bryan, which lies in the Brazos Valley in central Texas. It is not only hot here, but also exceedingly dry. The whole region is in the midst of a severe drought. The grass, where it is not watered, is golden brown, and it crackles like kindling under our feet. The trees are still green (mostly), but they are obviously stressed. Their leaves are dull and dusty. The natural world is in pain.

People here keep indoors, if they can. The outdoor temperature regularly tops 100 degrees. Asher and his cousins went into the wading pool a couple days ago. They didn’t stay there long. Asher became flushed in his face after only a few minutes. Hans and Gabby’s kids started to overheat soon after that. They retreated back into the air-conditioned comfort of the apartment.

Hans works in the heat every day. He pumps concrete for a living, and he is outside most of the time. Hans can deal with the heat better than he can handle the cold. He does not find the temperatures in Texas to be too extreme, but that is because he was deployed with the Army to Iraq back in 2011. Hans knows what real heat is.

He came home from work yesterday afternoon looking rough and ragged. I asked him,

“How are you?”

“Hot.”

“How much did you pump today?”

“Ninety-five yards.”

“How did that go?”

“The ground was bad.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it was all sand. You know, it was like that real fine Kuwaiti kind of sand where if you break through the crust with your vehicle, you’re done.”

“And?”

“We only had one mixer get stuck. He didn’t dig into the sand. He just tried to crank the wheels too tight. You have to make slow, gentle turns.”

He gave me a little smile, like he was remembering something else, something from long ago.

Hans’ time in Iraq was hot and dry, and violent. His experiences there have made him impatient with folks who complain about small things. He told me,

“I got no time for people who cry that they can’t find toilet paper in the store, or who whine about not having air conditioning for a day. I was in Third World countries where people didn’t have air conditioning, or electricity…or water.”

Hans’ wife says that his time in Iraq changed him in a fundamental way. She thinks that there he is actually two separate men: the Hans before Iraq and the Hans after Iraq. I think she is right. Hans was different when he came back from the war. He wasn’t the same man. Whatever innocence he had before he deployed to the Middle East was burned away by the sun, and by the suffering he saw.

Hans remembers. He remembers the blood and the heat.

July 2nd, 2022

Several years ago, my wife and I traveled to visit some friends, Senji and Gilberto, near Seattle. We stayed with the two Buddhist monks at their temple on Bainbridge Island for a while, and then we found refuge in the home of an older lady, who was a friend of our friends. Mira, the friend of the monks, owned a home in Seattle proper, and she graciously offered to be our hostess for a few days. She was a sweet woman (sadly, now deceased) who took us all around town and showed us the sights. Mira spent a great deal of time talking with us. She was a highly educated woman, and well-traveled.

Mira was very active with social justice issues and would have easily qualified as a liberal in political terms. As we got to know each other, I told her a lot about our oldest son, Hans. I explained that Hans had served in the Army (like I did), and that Hans had been deployed to Iraq during 2011. In my description of Hans, I mentioned that he was a self-described gun enthusiast, and that he had strong conservative views.

After hearing some of my stories about our son, Mira looked at me aghast and said,

“I could never talk to somebody like that! “

Her outburst disturbed me. I asked her why.

She stammered something like, “Well, I’m sure he’s a nice person, but…”

Mira was emotionally upset with just the idea of dealing with a person whose beliefs were so radically different from her own. I suspect this notion also conflicted with her own self-image as an openminded individual. Mira, in many ways, really was very tolerant and generous. She took Karin and me into her home sight unseen. She had never met us before in her entire life. She only knew us from what Senji and Gilberto had told her about us.

I mention this episode because this situation is not unique. This inability to connect with “the other” is not limited to liberals, or to conservatives. I have met a vast number of people in my life, and I have an eclectic group of friends. I am an outlier in that way. Most people that I know tend to stick with the members of their tribe. It feels safer and more comfortable to interact only with those who share your opinions and values.

Although I know a lot of different kinds of people, that does not by any means imply that I get along with everyone. I don’t. I have my own prejudices. I avoid zealots of any stripe. I don’t mind hanging out with folks who are passionate about certain topics (especially if they are willing to buy me a beer), however I shy away from fanatics. I once read an excellent definition of fanaticism:

“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” ― Winston S. Churchill

That sounds about right.

It is amazing to me that with our current technology we can instantaneously communicate with almost anybody on the planet, yet we tend to only connect with those who we already know. People once thought that the Internet would turn the earth into a global village, a world where there would be more understanding through greater interaction. Instead, the Internet has made us more insulated and isolated than ever before in history. Somehow, the web has done more to divide us than to unite us. In earlier times, people had the excuse that they could not travel to learn about alien cultures. Now, with a single click of a mouse, we can learn about nearly every nation, language, or religion that exists. We, at least in America, don’t do that. Apparently, we don’t want to.

How do we get people to learn from each other?

I think the U.S. military provides a possible answer. When I joined the Army, I had previously never been out of my hometown. Suddenly, I was mixing with other young men from all over the country. I was interacting with guys from all sorts of backgrounds. I was forced to work with people who had very different life experiences. My eyes were opened to a new world.

If the citizens of the United States wanted to do so, we could have a compulsory service program for young people. High school graduates (or non-grads) would participate in a year or two of national service. The service would not necessarily have to be connected with the military. There are many civilian projects that need to be done. The program would have to be mandatory for every young person, no loopholes or exceptions.

The potentially positive effect of this kind of universal conscription would be that everybody gets to know somebody that they never wanted to know. They would be forced to leave their tribe. Spending a year with other people from very different histories would require the participants in the program to adjust their world views. Instead of being strangers and adversaries, like many liberals and conservatives, they might actually just become Americans.

It’s an idea.

June 16th, 2022

My son, Hans, called me a couple days ago. He lives down in Texas, and I haven’t seen him for over a year and a half, but we talk on the phone frequently. Hans was deployed with his Army unit to Iraq back in 2011. He got a little banged up while he was over there. Some bad things happened. It seems like when we talk, the conversation always winds up with us recalling our military experiences.

Hans started the call by saying,

“Well, I had an interesting time at Kroger’s today.”

I knew that I would regret asking, but I said, “What happened?”

Hans drawled, “Well, I was grocery shopping and I see this guy wearing an Army uniform. I had to look twice because that kind of uniform went out of service about the time I got out. Nobody in the Army wears that uniform anymore.

I looked closer at this guy, and nothing seemed right. He had no nametag. He had a Texas flag as a patch on his right shoulder. Nothing on his left shoulder. At least, he had his trouser legs tucked into his boots.

People were talking with him and offering to buy him stuff. That kind of bothered me.

I went up to this guy, and I asked him, ‘Where is your unit patch? How come you don’t have a nametag?’

Well, he started talking this shit about being Special Forces, and that he didn’t need the unit patch or a name tag. I told him that I knew Special Forces people, and they wore nametags when they were in country.

The guy was telling people that he was a sergeant. You know what rank he had on his uniform?”

I replied, “No, what did he have?”

Hans answered, “Private First Class.”

I said, “That doesn’t seem quite right.”

Hans went on,

“No, it didn’t. So, I asked the guy if he wanted to see something that he never had in his whole life. He said, ‘Yeah’. I pulled out my wallet and showed him my old, expired military ID card. He didn’t say nothing.”

Hans sighed and said,

“If I had met this guy after I got back from Iraq, or when I got out of the Army, I would have punched him in the throat. But I didn’t. I got a family to care for, so I didn’t do anything to him, even though all these other folks were trying to buy him stuff because they thought he was real. I just walked out of the store.”

I said, “Good move.”

We were quiet for a while. Neither of us spoke, then Hans said,

“Dad, why do people do that stuff? Why make believe like that? It was disrespectful, disrespectful of everything.”

I did a mental shrug and said, “Because they’re assholes.”

Hans asked, “Is it because they want the glory, but don’t want to do the job?”

“Hans, I don’t know. I really don’t.”

Hans told me, “There was an old man there, watching this guy. He was a Vietnam vet. When I got ready to leave the store, the Vietnam vet told me, ‘Son, don’t you worry. I’ll handle this.’ I didn’t stay, so I don’t know what he meant, but he said he’d handle it.”

Hans sounded depressed.

“Well, I just wanted you to know. I love you, Dad.”

“Love you too.”

June 11th, 2022

“A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.” – Tao Te Ching

“My turning point was my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. It was then that I, who had dedicated most of my life to penetrate the ‘secrets’ of the universe, realized that there are no secrets. Life is and will always be a mystery.” ~ Paulo Coehlo

I know two people who are on a pilgrimage. They are both friends of mine, but they don’t know each other. They are walking along the “Camino de Santiago” in Spain. “The Way of St. James” is 475 miles long and ends up at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. One of my friends appears to be traveling the entire route all in one shot. He will be walking for well over a month, maybe two. The other person I know has been doing the pilgrimage in series of smaller segments, giving himself and his wife the opportunity to rest.

My wife, Karin, and I have often thought about hiking on the Camino. However, that seems to be beyond our capabilities. Karin, since she had COVID in 2020, gets out of breath easily. A walk around the neighborhood is usually all she can handle. I also had COVID, and I find that strenuous activities are sometimes overwhelming. for me. We could potentially walk a short stretch of the Camino, but that would be about it.

My wife and I became the legal guardians of our toddler grandson, Asher last week. This fact is a greater obstacle to the making a pilgrimage than our physical condition. B.A. (Before Asher), we used to travel extensively, sometimes being away from home for a month or more. This is no longer the case. Now, it is a major effort just to get across town with the little boy in tow. I cannot imagine Karin or I going to Spain until Asher is much older, but then of course we too will be much older.

Why go on a pilgrimage? A person who makes a pilgrimage is by definition a seeker. Some seekers have a clear idea of what they hope to find. Some just have an emptiness inside that has to be filled. They know that they need whatever is missing, but they may have no idea what it is. I guess a pilgrimage is a journey to find something, although that something is often difficult to describe. Maybe it is an attempt to find God, or peace, or meaning. Each person seeks something unique, something that they understand intuitively, but perhaps not rationally.

It seems that almost all religious traditions encourage some sort of pilgrimage. Hindus travel to Benares on the Ganges. Muslims are supposed to make a trip to Mecca at least once in their lives. Jews visit the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Catholics go to Rome.

I’ve been to Jerusalem. That was almost forty years ago. I went there as a tourist, not as a pilgrim. I found the city to be fascinating, but nothing there resonated with me. Other people were in Jerusalem as pilgrims, and that place meant everything to them. In physical terms, Jerusalem was the same for me as it was for the pilgrims. However, our experiences were radically different. The difference was a result of who we were when we visited that city, and why we were there.

A pilgrimage is symbolic of the journey of life. Some people focus intently on the final destination. Some pay attention to the day-to-day experiences. Chogyam Trungpa, the Buddhist teacher wrote a book called “The Path is the Goal”. The gist of the book is that the process is what matters. St Catherine of Siena once said that all the way to heaven is heaven. Some Christians obsess about getting to heaven, when perhaps in actuality heaven is already here.

In my experiences with Buddhists, I have heard the idea that all of us have an essential Buddha nature. We are already perfect, but we don’t realize it. This might mean that going on a pilgrimage is superfluous, because we already have whatever we seek. I’m not sure about that. Sometimes, a person needs to leave home to come home. Sometimes, we have to go through enormous struggles and travel great distances to understand we had it all from the very beginning.

Referring back to our grandson, Asher, it is obvious to me that he is embarked on a remarkable journey. Our toddler is on a pilgrimage. He may never leave this town. He might never go anywhere far away. It doesn’t matter. He is starting on a path that will lead him to new worlds. He is beginning something exciting and wonderful.

I don’t need to go to Santiago de Compostela. I don’t need to go to Rome or Tibet. I can go with Asher on his journey. It will be an excellent pilgrimage. Asher will show me things that I have never imagined.

June 14th, 2022

My son, Hans, called me from Texas a couple days ago. He drawled,

“Hey Dad, our power’s out.”

“That’s no good. Isn’t it stupid hot down there?”

“Yeah, it is. You want to know why the power is out?”

I never know how to answer that sort of question. So, I said, “Sure.”

“A transformer blew up.”

“Wait. Now what happened?”

Hans took a breath and said, “Well, it was one of those small transformers, the kind that sit up on top of the poles. You know, the kind with the ceramic insulation.”

I didn’t know what he meant, but I let him keep talking. Hans was on a roll.

He continued, “I didn’t see it explode, but I heard it. It brought back all sorts of stuff from Iraq when I heard it go bang. I hit the ground.”

“Okay.”

Hans went on, “At first I thought I thought it might be somebody popping off fireworks, but it didn’t sound right. It sounded just like an IED.”

“Okay, so what does an IED sound like?”

Hans replied, “They have a funny noise when they go off. I can tell the sound of flying pieces of metal. I know what shrapnel sounds like.”

We were both quiet for a moment. Then Hans said,

“Well, I just wanted you know what has been going on down here. I’m okay. I didn’t have a heart attack when I heard the explosion.”

“I’m glad.”

Hans was deployed in Iraq over a decade ago. It amazes me that he still remembers the sound of flying shrapnel, and that his reflex is to automatically fall to the ground when he hears that sound.

It makes me sad too.

June 3rd, 2022

Suzanne came over to our house on Friday. Karin and I were expecting her. She had been planning to visit us for quite a while. She takes photos. She’s been studying her trade for a number of years, and she wants to be a professional photographer in her second career once she retires from teaching at the local community college. Suzanne is working on her portfolio, and she wanted to take some pictures of Asher, our toddler grandson. She takes photos with film and digitally. She chose to shoot her pictures of Asher in black and white.

I don’t know much about photography. Suzanne does. She is an artist. She can take a scene and emphasize a particular aspect of it. She can find a story in a human face and somehow tell that story without words. Hers is a subtle art, a nonverbal way of depicting reality. We know Suzanne from the Zen sangha. Her work is very Zen, very intuitive, much more so than my scribbling.

Suzanne and her husband came into the house and looked around for a place to shoot a portrait of Asher. They decided to seat Asher on to my footlocker, the one I had from my days in the Army. I told them,

“That footlocker is pretty old.”

Her husband turned to me and replied, “Yes, you went to West Point, and you were a second lieutenant.” Then he looked at the writing on the footlocker.

It says, “2nd Lieutenant Francis K. Pauc” on the top.

Suzanne smiled and asked me, “Does that feel like another lifetime?”

I told her, “Yeah, like different incarnation.”

Suzanne knows about my history. She knows I was an Army helicopter pilot in the 80’s. She knows that our eldest son, Hans, fought in Iraq. She probably knows that Karin’s father was an enlisted man in the Luftwaffe during WWII. She knows that generation after generation somebody has worn a uniform in our family. She also knows that isn’t how we wanted things to be. Karin and I did all we could do dissuade Hans from joining the Army. He did anyway. His time in Iraq did not go well.

Suzanne and her husband set up the camera, the lighting, and the backdrop. We all cajoled Asher into sitting quietly on the footlocker. We were sometimes successful with that. Suzanne took a number of photos. Photographing a little boy is kind of a crap shoot. The photographer never knows what he or she will get as a result. Asher the photo shoot, Suzanne packed everything up.

A couple days ago, she sent me a copy of one of the pictures of Asher.

She titled it: “On my grandfather’s Army footlocker, that I may never see war.”

May 25th, 2022

Yesterday, Salvador Ramos stormed into Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, and killed nineteen children and two adults. Ramos died during his attack on the school.

Another week, another mass murder.

I should feel something: shock, sorrow, outrage. I don’t. I just feel numb. I feel numb because this slaughter happens over and over again in our country, and nothing will be done to stop it. Perhaps nothing can be done. I know in my heart that this will happen again.

I am sure that some politicians are screaming for gun control, and that others are fighting that tooth and nail. After the headlines from Uvalde fade and we are distracted by other events, there will be no change. We will just keep doing what we have been doing, with the same predictable results.

I was in the Army back in the 80’s, and my oldest son, Hans, served in Iraq. We have argued about guns frequently over the years. I don’t own any guns. Hans has numerous firearms. We have gone shooting together several times. At this point, both of us agree that gun control is not a good idea, simply because it cannot possibly work in our country.

I do not believe that new gun control laws will do any good. We can’t or won’t enforce the laws that we already have. We can’t get rid of guns in the United States. We can’t control the supply of guns. We can’t even trace most of them. There are more firearms in the U.S. than there are people. America is awash with weapons, and there is no conceivable way to keep track of them. A War on Guns would be just as effectively as the War on Drugs: not at all.

Other democratic countries have stringent gun laws. The citizens of those nations abide by those rules. They follow the laws because within those societies there is a consensus that gun control is necessary for the common good. There is no such consensus here.

Hans lives down in Texas. That state has a strong gun culture. Hans has friends who are gun owners (a group which includes damn near everybody in Texas), and they are adamantly opposed to any government oversight with regards to firearms. It doesn’t matter what happens what kind tragedy occurs. They will not give up their guns. Period.

The problem is not with gun ownership. Although I have no firearms, I have no issue with other people, like my son, owning them. A gun is an inanimate object that is not intrinsically good or evil. Guns are by nature dangerous, but not necessarily wicked. I enjoy going with Hans to target practice. Shooting off rounds can be fun. In the hands of somebody who is sane and sober a gun can be quite useful.

The problem is, in my opinion, the fact that most people in the United States believe that killing somebody is a legitimate way to solve a problem. Our nation was born in violence, and we have been at war with somebody somewhere almost ever since that moment. Our culture worships violence. Americans can be described in many ways: brave, industrious, inventive, generous. However, I have never heard of Americans being described as peace-loving. That we are not. There are American pacifists like the Catholic Workers or the Quakers, but these people are rare, and they are the exception to the rule.

There are times when violence may be necessary. Some changes in our history have not occurred peacefully. Slavery was only ended through a bloody civil war. Fascism was only defeated by our nation’s involvement in World War II. However, we have made violence a fetish. It is our default mode. Our media glorifies violence and conflict at every opportunity. How many movies have you seen that have a peaceful reconciliation of adversaries?

Gun control will not work until there is a seismic shift of values in our society. Until Americans decide to forego violence, nothing will change.