Wed 27 the two brought a just-home 23 year old army vet who was in Baghdad Narch-April 03 and longer than I. Handsome 23-year-old manager of a blackhawk helicopter’s numerous crew captivated me as we compared notes as to the void in our lives when we left Baghdad.

Then he reminded me that he could have been that gunner in the Apache chopper I faced in the desert l9 March except that he was the manager of a Blackhawk crew and you don’t take time to know who you shoot. He identified completely with the gunner, not with me. That was a bit scary for me, sitting in a rocker next to him.

“Its either them or you, sorry, but that’s the way it is, he said,” and when I asked him how he summoned up enough hate to shoot civilians and anyone he didn’t know, he parroted the “mass graves and “murdered his own family” quotes which have been worn out by millions of repetitions by those who have only learned those two worn out clauses.

The very clever reporter skirted the living room I had cleaned up for the interview and preferred the “media room,” stacked up with back packs, old Sony Hi-8s, Bolexes, and shelves of twelve years of Mississippi Artist Visits 3/4 analog video cassettes, khaki clothing, and 48 inch TV, my one luxury. He played the very pointed scene in Safer in Baghdad where French, Brit, Belgian and Australian peaceworkers verbally attacked a beautiful young ebony captain from California enthroned with latest Rolex and Nikon upon his tank. The reporter wanted to know whether he was confronted in this way himself, and he related some similar scenarios. When the news-man played the hospital scene with farm families at Hillah near Babylon he gave the stock replies.

The two were enroute to another shoot. He got time to rebut me, but there was no time for me to rebut; however when it was over he didn’t have a kick comin Did this mean ole witch enlighten this pretty young un?” I will never know. I tried to be kind….as the reporter ended the session, he summoned up all his screen skills and asked whether we could be friends and especially if I could forgive and forget and welcome these young men coming home. I was ready for it, and I replied: Sure, I’m so glad to see them coming home because they can no longer stir up trouble in Iraq!”

The special, I was told, is to run four minutes. My only hope, after performing for the camera for a documentary about my movie and standing by for over 2 weeks reminded me: those also serve who only stand and wait. The photographer’s best shot of me: a mother thrush flew into my camera lens and then thumped me on the head in the bamboo brake as he was leaving and getting a last shot for a second documentary to air the day after the debate I just told about. Another cameraman had found the nest, the week before and I rarely peeped at a nestful of charcoal/brown blobs of fur. Next day very sad. No news crew at all there when I was confronted by two mourning parents, the two identical thrushes now hopping about and quizzing me with their sharp chirps. During the night something had happened to their babies. The father had faithfully guarded the nest all along while his wife went on hunting scours. The tiny blobs of charcoal/gray fur looked like a level bowl of continuous fuzz. I thought I had counted a dozen, but really didn’t dare to stop long enough to upset the mother. There were probably less. I had got to be friends with the ebony dark mix photographer and asked him to relay the clip from the Wall Street Journal which recommended that each news session should include at least one in-depth l0 minute interview. I hope it reaches the news director and programmer. I am applying to Woods Hole, Globians in Potsdam, New Orleans, and Hot Springs Film Festivals. I have not been able to send pdf files and so send snail mail my own designed posters, bios, etc. by Somtimes overnighted, that is getting to be costly. After all, four minutes on the nightly news is like an hour compared to the seconds some stories get. The reporter began to interview by announcing: there is a huge split among people of the US now over the war in Iraq. Now, let’s… He was very forthcoming with everything and also said to me that he really liked my movie and agreed heartily with everything. At the end he took the young man aside to talk to him. I would’ve liked some minutes with him too. He said he watched all 60 minutes of it. I surely do grab the news on Viet-Nam. While I was working on the Longview TX News/Journal 1960 I met a family man just back from special force duty in Korea. He was on day leave from the Veterans Hospital in Gulfport daily, being treated for a mental problem connected with his desire to crush his baby daughter’s head with his two hands. He said that he was trained to swim under bridges in Korea and cut throats, and crush skulls, very efficiently and as taught. I I would have never known he had this disability had he not spoke at length of it. Jogging my memory of this I suppose was the young vet I debated with Wed.

Sweet and pink cheeked, polite, deferring to a lady, apologetic and airing the demeanor of West Point MAN, he is a real estate salesman and I was struck by his friendliness. He reminded me that he had also looked down on women wearing scarves just as Idescribed my encounter in the desert with an Apache gunner not 20 feet over my head.

I replied that I was not wearing a muslim scarf, but a Moroccan scarf, made in Paris of light gray silk. He reminded me that he could shoot, whenever he was told, anybody, anywhere. Then I realized that he could kill with no emotions except those stirred up in him by the helicopter commander.