“You Gave Us Legs, Brian, When You Gave Up Yours”

mbarnato WWH – S. Brian Willson on book tour
Daniel Ellsberg is a hero to many. So when Dr. Ellsberg writes the introduction to a book, citing the author as one of his personal heroes, people sit up and take notice. Thus did Daniel Ellsberg introduce S. Brian Willson last night during Willson’s book tour for the newly published “Blood on the Tracks: the Life and Times of S. Brian Willson.” Dr. Ellsberg considers “Blood on the Tracks” the remarkable life story of an admirable individual who paid a price few others pay for speaking out against war and the corrupt actions of US administrations. For on September 1, 1987, Willson lost his legs during a blockade of the trains carrying munitions from the Concord Naval Weapons Station (CNWS) in California, destined for the Contras fighting illegal wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Mentioning his two other heroes: Mordechai Vanunu and Bradley Manning, Dr. Ellsberg wondered if it is “crazy” for an individual to make that level of sacrifice for his or her beliefs, for they are often considered such. Yet members of the military continue to take risks in the service of their country, and are not looked on as fools. As an officer in Viet Nam, Willson came to the idea that: “Our lives are not worth more than theirs; their lives are not worth less”, and from that day changed his beliefs and actions. As Ellsberg stated, we expect to have those feelings for our family, our team, our band of comrades, but it is rare to feel that for strangers, the “others”, particularly during war. In the 1980s, Willson believed that his legs were no more important than the legs of those in Central America who stepped on the mines we delivered. He understands that we need to expand our empathy beyond what our leaders encourage or we won’t survive. Ellsberg calls him a prophet.

Willson calls his book “A Psychohistorical Memoir.” The book was rejected by 33 publishers before being picked this year by PM Press. Willson says he wrote it to try and answer the question: “How was it so easy for a good kid to follow an order to travel 9000 miles to participate in destruction?” As a young man in the mid-1960s Willson was very invested in “killing commies.” He enlisted in the Air Force and headed a Ranger Unit in the Mekong Delta in Viet Nam. One of his missions was to assess the “success” of napalm strikes against targets. The “target” in this instance was a small village. Willson entered the village to find every person dead, “ripped apart from bomb shrapnel and machine gun wounds, many blackened by napalm beyond recognition; the majority were obviously children.” But it was one woman on the ground, clutching her three partially blackened children that changed everything for Willson. He wrote: “it seemed that her eyes were staring at me. She was not alive. But at the moment her eyes met mine, it felt like a lightening bolt jolted through my entire being.” He became known as the anti-war officer, and after Viet Nam knew that his own government, the government for which he had hoped to work, was “not only criminal but psychotic.” That became the beginning of Willson’s new life because he could no longer believe in anything he was taught.

As part of his post-Viet Nam healing in the 1970s and ‘80s Willson got interested in nature and environment. He examined industrial civilizations and the effects of their plunder and exploitation. He researched what he calls the criminal injustice system, and wanted to learn more about what makes us obedient, even to the extent that we protect ways of life that are killing us. In the 1980s Willson traveled to Central America and saw the killing first hand. He knew that CNWS was the source of weapons, and joined the shipment blockades on the train tracks. This was not considered dangerous, since there were protocols for removing protestors from the tracks and the train speed never exceeded 5 mph. The protestors thought that jail time was the worst that could happen to them. But on that day, the train crew was ordered not to stop the train, and accelerated to 17 mph. Willson’s legs were amputated on the tracks. Authorities alleged Willson was planning to hijack the train as a domestic terrorist; the Navy knew of his activity with Veterans Fast for Life the previous year.

These days, Willson is involved with the Transition Town movement in Portland, OR. He navigated his hand-pedal cycle on the book tour, traveling 1700 miles to the SF Bay Area. His thinking and research is centered on themes, reminding us that as individuals and a society: “Dignity trumps longevity; longevity without dignity is nothing.” As a society we’re taught to acquire and be obedient without being taught to see or know the consequences. Class divisions, even discussion of the “waning middle class” perpetuate toxic feelings because there is always someone above or below. We’ve been living in an era of entitlement allowed by plunder, and we need to learn that cooperation trumps selfishness and competitiveness. As humans, we’re wired socially, and we can’t live without cooperation, but our societies are built on dispossession. But what happens when our ability to plunder is threatened? Like many of us, Willson believes we need to prepare for the imminent collapse of what has been our way of life. We need to decentralize systems, build community, stop consuming, downsize. As Willson recalled being told years ago by an Amish blacksmith: “What are you going to do when the electrons stop?”
mbarnato, Guest Author
Photo’s bloodonthetracks