Instead, he would do whatever it took – even if very little –to free the simple and unsuspecting billions of dupes and victims and slaves of the massive, illegal and unaccountable system of deception and gangster-style abuse that was actively taking over the earth, exacting massive war tribute in one form or another at home and everywhere, perpetuating mayhem and chaos.
He would fight against them in a grisly death match and he would find or make a way to win out, too, if that were even one-tenth of a thousandth of a single percent possible, with or without General Montmoracy, Colby, Felicia, or anybody.
“But, how?”
That was the question he began to mull night and day.
* * *
After about a week, he felt he had at least a partial answer. It was to use his Air Force senior officer’s pension to acquire all the books on everything in any way pertinent to his concerns from online, to add to the twelve-hundred he calculated he had, and, together with grilling a hundred pertinent internet sites, learning all he needed to in order to extract and assemble an accurate understanding of what he called “Organized Evil," a reality incomparably larger and vaster in reach and wealth, but on a parallel with the entity known as “Organized Crime."
Which he found fitting, because he already had a preliminary notion that its various evil elements, corporeal and spiritual, worked absolutely in tandem, operated together perfectly as one grand singularity. And the radio interviews and possible live appearances with the ex-General could provide an adequate working medium for vetting his life’s now metamorphosed findings and learnings, once well-sifted and incorporated, communicated through his exertions beyond all reason, beyond precedent, beyond mistaking. Beyond belief.
* * *
His nephew Colby was still sleeping at the house but spent his days fishing and hanging out with his Steinhatchee friends, drinking, joking and, for all Colonel Crystal knew, whoring.
The night after arriving at what he called a “game plan with resolve," he sat down with Colby, who he loved, and tried to explain precisely what he was doing that Felicia, his wife, had found intolerably objectionable.
Colby said he didn’t understand very well why he would do that, but did admire what he referred to as his uncle’s “authenticity," and agreed strongly he had earned the right, through his long service career, to at very least take full advantage of the First Amendment. In response to his uncle’s numerous hair-raising Iraq and Afghanistan stories, he said, “Everybody knows that war’s a bummer. Life is unfair.”
The morning after he said that, Colby left to honor his mother.
XXXIV
Doubts Rush In
Very much alone now, despite Montmoracy’s seemingly less-spirited participation, Alva dove into his new chosen life’s work. Only loyal Ludmilla graced his hours, coming in to cook his meals and at times commiserate.
In the throes of a re-set, he almost wrecked his kitchen table, banging and slamming and skidding it, working to refine, refine, unpack, dissect and add to the list of outrages and deleterious myths he and the ex-General had compiled.
He started to write: “1. Military forwards the interests of enormous multinational financial concerns, not the people of the United States or world, and often to their great psychological and financial detriment. 2. Regime change operations…”
His pen dropped. He was overcome by self-doubt, brought close to tears by some intrusive thoughts of his nephew, Colby’s, disappointing lack of understanding of what he had tried to convey to him. Colby, a smart kid, who was always sympathetic to him personally, made him out a fool for making such a big, personally sacrificial thing out of “just the way things are, you can’t change them." Montmoracy seemed to have bled out his particular genius in the few hours of their meeting, and was pulling back, already losing his passion. As matters stood, Alva Crystal knew he had zero support among people he knew best, including his wife.
If he could persuade and enlighten people by the thousands, hundreds of thousands, of what he himself knew so very well, that could be well worth the sacrifices entailed, he tried to console himself – whatever those sacrifices might turn out to be. But, if people at large were such stone-faces, yahoos, and dunces as to not even care, as virtually everyone said, and some even spit in his face, even as they paid dearly many times over for their willful ignorance, their, in fact, complicity through apathy in the horrendous crimes and pillage committed in their very name. Out of sight, out of mind… and, for reasons they couldn’t or wouldn’t fathom, out of empathy and money.
If that was the case with the majority, then why should he care? Why should he try? Why give up his happy, secure retirement and home for such brainwashed and uncomprehending knuckleheads as these infuriatingly irrational, apathetic countrymen? he asked himself, if they, most of them, were like that? He sighed, practically wailed, already deeply committed, when he dwelled for more than a second on that painful likelihood. These Boy Scout missions, he reminded himself, hardly ever accomplished anything! No one had really succeeded at slowing down out-of-control militarism at all. Probably ever! But it seemed that no one currently had really even tried! Then, he remembered that he had figured most of the crazed U.S. establishment zealotry for offensive war for himself. Even the points Frank Montmoracy brought up had been nothing new to him. He could have made that same list, given time. “Alva, Alva!” he upbraided himself. Maybe you are an old, deluded, hammer-headed fool and not so smart after all, just a Luddite or something. Maybe Colby was right! Just look at how you kind of jumped to conclusions, unwarranted assumptions on Will Goldsby’s troubles, for example. Maybe Americans were just lemmings by nature, favored by nature with lots of resources, and inner-directed to crack up. Yet he had to try.
Somehow, somewhat calmed down and newly resolved to at least try, and do his best to follow through with a task he had started, regardless how large and hopeless-seeming, his hand shaking and his hearting skipping beats, he started again doggedly, forcing himself to write:
“2. Regime change operations (aka invasions) against even duly-elected and locally-popular regimes conducted for ‘democratic’ purposes. That was an unforgivable breech of law and international order. 3. Outrageous lies and calumnies against selected enemy regimes conducting their affairs in their own interest and not necessarily for us. … 4… 5… 6…” These were the most horrendous grievances.
He reminded himself that he would have to give multiple true examples of each of the items, because he would be grilled on them, no doubt occasioning outrage and demanding redress directed at him! Because there would be wolves, aardvarks, crocodiles ready and waiting in the weeds for sure, to rip him and the General limb from limb. The vanguards of American supremacy were ever vigilant to start more wars. And, hopefully, there would also be at least some people a bit more receptive than Colby had been. He couldn’t forget that.
* * *
And why him and – with the lone exception of Montmoracy – no one else out of all the military officers exposed to much the same circumstances and experiences, as far as he knew?
Montmoracy had been gung-ho, yes, but, because he was genius-level smart, he reserved the right to choose for himself the object and extent of what seemed to be turning out to be his strictly measured enthusiasm. “Curb your enthusiasm,” someone must have told him. So, was his focus now really the same as that of Crystal? The ex-General’s perceived ebbing of zeal nagged.
The heir of a surprisingly immense Dakota cattle-feeding fortune, Montmoracy was a natural maverick it was true. And, though a superior scholar in some respects, a Yale grad, for crying out loud, he was, frankly, a bit of a blowhard and poser at times, because he possessed the finances to buffer his selection of missions and messages without fear of resulting impoverishment or personal vulnerability. So, keep it strictly measured, preserve deniability, and what was his sacrifice?
By contrast, all that Colonel Alva Crystal had by way of security – good in itself – was his Air Force officer’s re
tirement pension – conditional on not breaking his leash.
Conflicted, Colonel Crystal asked himself yet again exactly why did the American people tend to remonstrate against and overwhelmingly reject, but then tolerate, foreign wars, albeit with increasing ambivalence and doubt, in this new century, new millennium? Who befitted in any tangible way, he asked himself again… A few dozen higher officers who made hay for themselves in the situation? Directors and financiers of death delivery systems. and war industry investors, old-line foundation members? And that lack of affiliation or attachment of all other Americans to the selfish motives and causes of the few, the shameless causing unjustifiable damage and mass death to strangers in an ever-widening arc, he felt he could effectively get across to at least some potential listeners: Who is it that benefits? Not you or me! And if we did, what business do we have conducting terrorism? That, and the enormous, crippling cost to each and, all for no apparent benefit at all, and much of detriment, to the generality of us here at home. All big-time cost, no net benefit. At all.
XXXV
Dueling Damsels
He tried hard to think of anything but Felicia, a distraction he didn’t need right not. Because she and his longing tended to sop up all his attention.
Maybe he’d been too absolute with her, he thought.. Maybe it was what she called his “deviousness," not so much what he said. No, that wasn’t right, because she hated what he said itself of late. She had overheard him, and she felt betrayed, scorned. How could he? she asked. In her eyes, he had shown personal disregard for her sentiments. Well, maybe she didn’t know all of him. Indeed, she would never understand or even listen to what he felt compelled to say, and he needed understanding at least acceptance, if not agreement. Oh, well, he thought – maybe it would be just as well in the long run. Desperate to finally give voice to all the talking points he was still developing from the lists of grievances and myths compiled with the General, he sat Ludmilla down in a chair at the table and tried them out on her.
She concentrated and listened carefully to what he had to say, her Russian features, with a strong dash of Asian, rapt, listening with a slightly open, and, he tried not to notice too much, supple mouth.
Then she laid out what he had told her in a way that proved she understood. And he responded, “Yes! That’s it, exactly.”
“But, you are a military man. You cannot say things against your country and your leaders.”
But what if it’s the truth?”
“I don’t know. You must decide. The military doesn’t exist to do nice things, you know.”
“But, don’t you see? That is why I am no longer a military man. The military is a legitimate or an illegal tool, depending -- a necessary and strong tool for doing what it is told to do, to be prepared, to keep the country safe. It should not be used, ever, to pick fights and make enemies, to force other countries to submit and give up what is important to them, their freedom. Or if they don’t kill their people.”
“Then, I think we agree,” Ludmilla answered, smiling gravely. “But, be careful.”
“I just want my country to stop bringing fear everywhere, and start to become instead a sensible, civilized example of peace and tolerance, as our own founding fathers all too clearly intended and counseled.”
“I only warn you – you are risking everything. You already lost your wife over it, at least for now. But, if you want to lose everything…?
“What I want to do is make a difference. Inform my country.”
“Then, I wish you success, Alva. In every way.”
* * *
The time was approaching for the next radio presentation by phone hook-up, at Quantum Radio, nationwide from Washington, DC with Ralph Morris. Colonel Alva had received almost no communications from ex-General Franklin Montmoracy regarding preparations for this impending appearance. And he had noticed that, in the first interview, he had been left to do almost all the talking himself after the first two or three minutes. Montmoracy, indeed, seemed to be slowly edging decisively away.
XXXVI
Personal Stuff
Dr. Ralph Morris on the Quantum Network seemed more interested in the two ex-officers’ personal stories and background than with their message, parts of which he’d heard framed in other ways from far less heralded sources a hundred times in the last year.
“To each of you,” he said, “what would you say was your personal tipping point? What pushed you in the direction of becoming a courageous, outspoken, let us say, dissident against the established order of things in this country and the larger world?”
“Well, for me,” ex-Colonel Crystal said, “it was the influence of General Montmoracy in pointing out the pedigree and modus operandi of overarching American domestic and international policy – military and otherwise, at home and abroad. That coupled with my first-hand view of the routinely very tragic consequences for literally tens of millions of individuals on the ground both in Iraq and Afghanistan, where I, like he, experienced it firsthand, as well as elsewhere, for decades. Also, the callous disregard for frustration and suffering on the part of a soldiery that probably didn’t understand and were pumped with propaganda and most often flat-out lies, a force largely, I’m sorry to say, of specialized professional trained killers and supporting units, directed toward the rightful owners and residents of those particular countries we both witnessed close-up but only engaged with as quarry and, guardedly, as paid henchmen. There was another word for them.
Speaking for myself, I was beyond shocked and appalled, as was virtually every other conscientious American in the war zone, by the monstrous – there’s no better word for it – disregard for humanity that was manufactured, expected, subtly or blatantly trained-in. My own training, I’m afraid, didn’t quite adequately prepare me for all of that. If the best way for Americans to operate is to de-humanize and be de-humanized, then so be it. But I personally don’t accept it. I know, they’ll say that is how it looks, and probably is, in any war zone, but…
General Montmoracy?”
“Oh, yeah. I have to largely agree. I’ve always been a little bit of a rebel type, pulling at the chains imposed by my strict boyhood here in the Dakotas. I just don’t cater to higher authority all that well. Never have.”
Ralph Morris, palpably shocked and still taken aback by the bluntness and bitterness of Colonel Crystal’s statement, continued: “Of course, Colonel, what you’ve said certainly wouldn’t apply to everybody. But, with all these severe symptoms you cite, assuming them, shall we say, viable, applicable, where do you place the blame?” Who has caused, or permitted, the homicidal malice, unjustifiable disregard we’ve all seen, if from afar, to creep into our system internationally? What’s with us Americans, in your opinion, or our government – so contrary, I might point out, to the myth that we are fundamentally a fair-minded and uniquely compassionate nation – and commendably, for the most part, self-governing? Reasonably self-assured?”
General Montmoracy unexpectedly stepped in, and said, “Let me answer this one. I’m afraid it is the training, the decision or consensus forged by someone one day somewhere, that, if we want to get monstrous things done, the surest way of achieving such results is to create, if you will, train and send in monsters to intimidate, to create in effect an individually indistinguishable progeny, then lead them from the very top down, and deploy them to accomplish Job One. Just get it done. I’m afraid that, in general, that’s it, unfortunately.”
Morris’s head was still spinning. “Which is Job One, I mean?”
“To bring the world into line with the way America – the top officials and élite boss establishment, that is – sees things,” Montmoracy explained. “And, if not, to keep the struggle going, and going, and going, endlessly, in that ultimate direction, to justify and raise finances That’s our Job One: to ultimately pacify the earth to receive and serve its masters, the Americans and, to some extent still, British and, I might add, Israeli high élite, along with others either aligned or coerced
to comply, contribute.”
“Colonel Crystal, how do you think the identity of America in foreign eyes as a ‘monster’ and in effect, the masters of a globalist terror force, the dominant one in the world right now and into the future, got started?”
“If you want to know the truth, I regret to say I see it as the fruit of a kind of cowardice, a general lack of real, moral courage, and a respect for and resolve to do what is universally agreed is right, respecting everyone first off as our top-flight human relatives. Even though doing that might require sacrifice and… yes… genuine courage. As it is, you’ll see youngsters, especially young guys in the war zones – even if their families, their parents, or cousins, have been brutally killed by the Americans, in awe… hearts and some minds. But, at what cost?
“It was Jefferson who wrote that we need to observe ‘a decent respect for the opinions of mankind’. And what’s wrong with practicing the good old Golden Rule? We need to start showing the world how to live up to the values of fairness and respect we so loudly and insistently claim… “If we went in a hundred thousand strong, armed with vastly superior weaponry to arrest one feisty old man, as some at the time pointed out, then why didn’t we leave when that was accomplished – when he was handed over to us by his domestic enemies? Because we had to systematically run over and destroy the whole country, to show our dominance, to try to show, in our own, very puzzling way, that our motives were ultimately democracy, freedom, friendship. Which they weren’t. The well-being of the locals. How perverse and how hypocritical is that!”
For all that, when we left Iraq, sort of, at American voters’ insistence, finally, we left it a den of spiders, wolves, and snakes. That is, full of the seeds of continual bitterness and discord, that we ourselves had stirred up or exposed openly. So, the question continues to haunt us all, or most of us who ever think – what the hell were we doing there in the first place?”
Colonel Crystal's Parallel Universe Page 11
