(At about this time, 1957 or so, it was my first or second year in college, and I remember seeing some Hollywood actor, I think it was Errol Flynn, on TV, I think it was The Jack Parr Show, talking about Fidel and the revolution. He made it sound romantic, glamorous and wonderful.)
Now, as I read the details of the fighting, I am appalled by the brutality, both by the revolutionaries Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, and by the government of Fulgencio Batista.
Batista was a bastard. He and his men butchered thousands of people. They tortured people, executed people in the streets, and set fire to peasant villages. (Sound familiar? Much like the USA did in Viet Nam.)
But Che and Fidel summarily executed their own men if they deserted or if they disobeyed orders. On the good side, they dismissed volunteers who were not brave enough or committed enough, even if they wanted to say and fight.
And often, before a dangerous mission, they would let anyone go home who wanted to quit. But if any man betrayed the cause or was a spy or was suspected of treason, he was shot. Boom, dead. On the spot.
Che personally shot men in the head, maybe a dozen of them, up to this point in the book. It didn't seem to bother him. The brutality is horrific. I don't think I would have the stomach for it. You don't know what you would do, until you are there, with the gun in the your hand and the traitor at your feet.
You have to believe in the cause, I think, to kill anyone. Maybe that is the trouble. It wasn't my cause. Maybe you have to fight fire with fire. I don't know. But all this violence turns my stomach. Maybe that is what separates the men from the boys. If so, I am definitely one of the boys.
-- Roger
© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle
No comments:
Post a Comment