Watering the Dead, War, and Mute Schism (or "Rachel's Song")

A young person's perspective; 23 yr old Rachel Murphy, has put to words an unopinionated reflection of the status for how many of our young might be ill-prepared to use critical discerning to form an opinion about Iraq war. Noticing how she puts forth what my own now grown children of Vietnam-era veteran have said to me; we didn't learn about Vietnam in school, it's not taught. My own grown children are slightly older than 23 yr old Rachel, and if the below reflections don't show an 'absence', then isn't it encumbent on us as older generation to give them more substantiative information?

Peace, Human Rights & Democracy | Young Adults

Watering the Dead, War, and Mute Schism (or "Rachel's Song")
By Rachel Murphy
Friday, April 8, 2005


My father was fond of summertime road trips. I came to welcome the break from the monotony of day camps, though hours in the car, baloney and orange soda lunches, and the eternal power struggle for radio control remain low on my list of preferred leisure activities.

We went to Michigan by way of Canada (not actually a short-cut, no matter what your Rand McNally may tell you); Mystic, Conn., to a Pink Floyd light show that cemented my abnormal discomfort amid bricks and British singers; and one summer, to Washington, D.C. There, we rested in the shade of the Capitol building, toured the Supreme Court room (empty, as most of Washington in August), were told we could not bathe in the scummy-edged reflecting pool, and finally, visited the low wall of black marble memorializing the astronomical number of young men who couldn't fulfill their promises to their mothers and fathers and younger siblings and sweethearts to come home safe and sound.

My father did not go to Vietnam to fight for the spread of democracy. I don't know exactly why. I theorize it had something to do with the pig farm he ran in western New York. And his seven-year college career. But many of his classmates, his neighbors, his friends, and their brothers did.

I've never asked him about it, perhaps because that August day in the thought-slowing, sweat-slick heat, amid wilting, groomed border gardens and parched cherry trees, was the first time I remember seeing my father shed tears. He gave water to the dead, his freckled hand against that impossibly cool black marble, shoulders rolled forward, head hung, unashamed, bowed and weighted by unreconciled history and the tart luck of survivors.


I've never asked him about [Vietnam], perhaps because that August day in the thought-slowing, sweat-slick heat, amid wilting, groomed border gardens and parched cherry trees, was the first time I remember seeing my father shed tears.

I didn't know anything about the Cold War or Red China or dirty commies, or nightly death tolls. My third-grade class baked cookies for soldiers in Desert Storm, and my mother tried to explain to me the difference between supporting such a military operation (which she, and thus I, did not) and "supporting the troops." Kids brought their enlisted uncles and cousins (never fathers) to school for show and tell, but military actions past and present and the associated philosophies were conspicuously absent from current events assignments.

In fact, I went to one of the best public high schools in the country, and I can't recall a teacher ever impressing on me the awesome scope of the tragedy of 'Nam. I suppose a government can't be expected to educate the upcoming generations about its recently past and still reverberating FUBAR (F***ed Up Beyond All Recognition) situations.

I have not since been back to Washington, D.C., to revisit all the iconic buildings that grace the covers of American History textbooks, not even in my brief career as a protest kid in college. I consider it a pilgrimage I'm not yet prepared to make.

Since 9/11/2001, I've reconciled my younger brother's recruitment to the Marine Corps Reserve Force, and harder than that, my father's pride in it, and the resulting (mute) schism in my family. My brother will undoubtedly go to Iraq, to fight this war against terror that can only be the first faltering step in my beloved country's downfall. Or its triumphant achievement, and acknowledgement as the first post-modern, truly global empire.

I stand here, and I am not fully possessed of the facts, given limited access to news outlets and rent to pay, and I am not convinced of the line continually drawn in so much Middle Eastern sand separating good and evil, and I watch men and women of my generation stand beside me. None of us know what to do. We were raised on romantic stories of Vietnam protests and summers of love and acid and mellow marijuana, but we've found that those tactics don't work without the element of surprise our parents had.


. . .I watch men and women of my generation stand beside me. None of us know what to do. We were raised on romantic stories of Vietnam protests and summers of love and acid and mellow marijuana, but we've found that those tactics don't work without the element of surprise our parents had.

We don't vote, not as a block, not with direction; thus we bringing no pressure to bear on a government we, of all demographics, should be best prepared to reform and redirect. We are overeducated for our jobs, disenfranchised by our suburban bubble-wrapped childhoods, medicated against the human social condition of frustration and righteous angst. We can't recall the taste of freedom of open spaces to run towards our dreams. We have trouble thinking, and even more trouble acting. We have an exquisite sense of self-preservation, self-promotion, self-obsession, and self-loathing.

Or perhaps I speak only for myself when I sing my song, "Freedom."


My name is freedom. And i am nine years old today.
My daddy was freedom. And he's gone from this world.
They call my mama jewel. She shines though it's night.
My name is freedom and this is my dusty road.

I never seen the city, but i been to town.
There's a man there, he likes to put me down.
He said, "What kind of name is freedom?
For a boy, for a son?"
I told him, "be that as it may,
my name is freedom" watch me run.

Gotta dream in my head about lion and lamb
Open pilgrim's hands and woman and man
Gotta dream in my head about blindness and sound
and blood, the color of blood, the color of blood.


[Ed. Note: This reflection was submitted in response to a Witness article by Daniel Webster, "The Names We Will Not Read".]

Rachel Murphy, 23, a New York City singer/songwriter, is known in the Manhattan music scene as "Rooster." She can be reached at emma.mae@gmail.com.

The Witness: Watering the Dead, War, and Mute Schism (or "Rachel's Song")