Words

Flower, Power

POWER (USA, 2003)

Most of us at the restaurant’s breakfast table chatted noisily amongst ourselves, oblivious to the story being told. But a few sets of inquiring ears tuned in. In this kind of clamor, the majority of any conversation melts into a muffled murmur. All the better, because nobody usually talks about anything too serious this early in the morning - especially during a brunch being held for a man who is about to get married. But even the Bloody Mary on my buddy’s wedding day couldn’t revive my wilting spirit as I listened to the former Air Force pilot discuss his combat experiences during the 2nd US invasion of Iraq around the large table seating about a dozen of us.

“I flew these huge bomber planes, the only ones big enough to carry the 2000 pound bunker buster bombs. We flew long missions, but because the Iraqis had nothing in the way of surface-to-air defense, we could fly low, lock in on our targets and even watch the destruction from above. One time I paid special attention. I dropped the bomb and watched it slam into the giant building I was aiming for. I think it was a big old palace with bunkers underneath. Anyway, these bombs don’t just explode on impact. They travel deep underground, through many layers of the target structure – even concrete – and explode from deep within, causing the most damage possible.”

The pilot, noticing he had a larger and more captivated audience by this time, prolonged the story an extra moment by taking a sip of coffee. The excitement in his eyes and voice became apparent. He continued.

“So I watched it drop through the layers. It shot straight through, making what looked like a tiny hole from above. Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then, all of a sudden I saw guys running out of the building from every side onto the sand. They looked like ants running from their nest. Finally, there was a bright burst of light. This all happened in a split second. I saw the building and everything around it shake like an earthquake. The explosion and the shock wave shuddered through the building and beyond, shooting outward in all directions circularly. I saw all the guys who had run outside of the building immediately topple flat like dominoes. It was amazing! They just laid there lifeless. The building collapsed in on itself, almost like an implosion. And it was gone; everything and everyone.”

The pilot finished wearing a proud smirk on his face, which vanished when he looked around the table and saw the various reactions of his crowd. Although I tried to hide it, I must have looked devastated. Most of the others also seemed shocked. The table had gone quiet. For a minute the pilot had failed to realize that he was not in the company of his sympathetic comrades. The realities of death and war were quite foreign to us. Surely the good majority of us disagreed with the war and its pretexts. In my mind, seeing him so excited in the destruction of human life was almost as horrendous as the act of bombing to begin with. The pilot scrambled to rationalize the cause of his enjoyment. Beaming a smile and comforting voice, he looked at us like we were school children, and explained, as simply as possible what so many commanding officers must have told him,

“Hey, you gotta understand that these are the bad guys.”

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FLOWER (Laos, 2002)

As I followed the path from the top of the rocky viewpoint overlooking the small river city I descended into a tepid jungle clearing, where sounds were tempered by foliage and city noise seemed as foreign as the idea of me exploring the rainforests of Laos. I found myself on a multi-level patio consisting of a terrace of hand-placed stones, rocky walls and a concrete pad with thick, waist-high walls upon which cement statues of lonely lions sat. Flowering plants bloomed in several planters surrounding the concrete level. The area seemed well-taken care of but lonely, as if an obsessively clean hermit made his home in a rocky, jungle cave nearby. Without my knowledge a young, shaved-headed Buddhist monk, wearing a traditional orange robe and flip flops, snuck up behind me in the silent clearing. He quietly said hello in English. I spoke no Lao, of course. He was 15 and studying in an adjacent monastery, which was tucked aesthetically into the steep hillside above the town of Luang Prabang, overlooking the Mekong River. He told me one of his daily activities - aside from long hours of silent prayer, study of Buddhism and English, and meditation - was to maintain the relaxing and spiritual tropical garden.

We conversed. For an adolescent, he was as collected as they come. The softness in his voice emanated inner peace while emitting strength as well. Although his English was spotty, he was able to explain to me a good bit about his daily activities and his likes and dislikes. I asked him if he was ever lonely here. He said yes. He was human after all; specifically, a human who was learning compassion for nature and humanity and the gift of peace. And the supreme glory of silence. The only noise came from dew drops falling through the leaves and a bird’s intermittent chirps.

He asked me to go with him to explore some caves waterfalls the next day. Using his hands, he explained to me how we would sit in the back of a vehicle called a songthaew – a small pickup truck – and travel down a bumpy, dirt road to a trailhead. There we would hike back toward the winding Mekong, whose southern bank was a tall mesa of jungle-covered limestone, hollowed out by erosion over centuries. If we brought a flashlight we could maneuver through the caves. He did not use all those words, but I clearly understood what he meant.

He showed me around his garden, which he was most proud of. I asked him to explain the plants to me. Giant palm trees, spilling with epiphytes, tangled with enormous ferns. The stonework patio held the jungle back just enough to create space for a number of potted plants. My eyes fell upon one bland-looking pot from which was spilling a flame of purple. A small plant several inches peered over the planter’s lip. One of the few non-green plants in the tropical enclave, it was the most alluring sight in the clearing, demanding the eye’s attention. But strangely, it grew from the least appealing of planters: a scuffed-up, dark green, half-cylinder. Upon closer inspection, I noticed curious white markings on the side of what looked to be the lower half of some sort of a metal casing. The writing was in English. Suddenly, I realized what I was looking at. I nearly choked, “It’s a...”

The monk cut me off, “A bomb.” “I find and I make for flowers.” He had found the tail end of the casing for what looked to be a six-foot long bomb in the forest and made it into a flower pot.

I was aware of the massive US bombing campaign in Laos during the Vietnam conflict. Many experts believe Laos to be the most bombed country in the history of warfare. The missions remain covert due to government secrecy but the physical remnants – hundreds of tons of shrapnel, bomb casings and destroyed habitat – are undeniable. I stood, mouth agape, in awe of the reality before me. He hadn’t been alive when massive swaths of his country were deforested and depopulated by explosives dropped from the sky. But it had affected him, even if he didn’t know it. And his reaction to a legacy of destruction was not hatred, anger nor violence. He overcame this deadly era with an equal and opposite force: from tools designed solely for the purpose to killing, he had created life.

It seemed as though I had been standing and watching for several long minutes, staring wide-eyed at the 18-inch diameter casing, which held a half-ton bomb at one time. The silence had grown awkward. My friend had no idea what my frozen, wordless reaction to his creation meant. In his external mind the bomb was simply a piece of useful material he found in the forest that worked well for planting. To me it was the perfect juxtaposition of contrast: death made into life; good trumping over evil. I had to break the silence to give him an indication of how special I thought his planter was. In order to savor the moment I asked him if he would pose for me next to his innovation. I snapped his picture.

The camera’s flash sent a brief burst of light through the air – perhaps similar to the flash released by the detonation of a two-thousand pound bomb.

flower pot bomb