Some of you will recall a “Peanuts” episode where in the middle of an argument Lucy suddenly pokes Charlie Brown in the nose. When Linus asks why she did that, she replies, “Because he was beginning to make sense.” I suppose most of us can relate to this, just as we grew up knowing the truth of Calvin’s observation of what you lack in reason and logic by your point of view you make up for in volume, shouting louder. But then, Bill Watterson knew as I have often pointed out myself that parents appear to children the most unreasonable of creatures. But it does seem to me that adults, especially politicians, generally go out of their way to confirm the views of both Lucy and Calvin. If anyone opposes politicians, if someone begins to make sense either shut them up or shout louder. Of course, the various religious leaders seem to operate in the same fashion, most especially in Muslim nations.

Unfortunately for humankind, Paul’s observation that when he grew up he put away the childish things of Lucy and Calvin has not proven to generally be the case. In far too many instances it still comes to poking in the nose or shouting louder when some people do not get their way, attempting to silence the opposition of the civilized by uncivilized means.

As a child, I grew up with a lot of violence and mayhem being a part of life. There was WWII going on and this naturally promoted the idea of a lot of violence being necessary, essential to winning the war against the Axis Powers. The sight of so many in uniform everywhere you went during that era promoted the visual image of violence, and even some of us children were dressed in military uniforms giving approval to the violence, making us feel we were a part of that approved violence. When I wore my army and navy uniforms, even as a child all that was needed was to put down my cap guns and pick up the real thing and start shooting. I was ready and willing. No need to tell me about “child soldiers” in far-off lands.

While I have written much about that era of American history from personal experience, and while I have written much about the goodness and ideals of a Norman Rockwell America we believed in and the sacrifices made here and elsewhere during the war, everything was not sweetness and light on my own homefront.

Little Oklahoma in Southeast Bakersfield was not without its share of violence during the war. You never knew when a gun or knife might be used to “settle an argument.” One incident involving my grandfather comes immediately to mind. He was a Special Deputy for the Kern County Sheriff’s Department, and often called upon to maintain peace in our neighborhood. But something had happened that so aroused grandad’s wrath he was getting ready to shoot someone. My grandmother was trying to restrain him, crying and pleading with him not to do this! I was only about five year’s old at the time, and the screaming and shouting going on, my grandmother clutching at grandad attempting to restrain him from his purpose of shooting someone certainly had my attention. But the singular thing that drew my attention was the sight of the Colt Lightning in grandad’s hand.

My own fascination with guns began from earliest childhood. The Colt Lightning was a real favorite of mine because of the Birdshead grip that fit my hand so nicely even as a child. Not only that, apart from the distinctive grip and being a double-action it was configured in the fashion of the very successful Colt Single Action Army all my cowboy heroes like Hopalong Cassidy and others used in the movies. Grandad was finally dissuaded from his purpose and I never knew why he thought the object of his wrath needed killing, my fascinated attention was on that gun in his hand.

Adults seem to quickly forget the impressions of childhood. When you are raised with guns and violence they too often lead to guns and violence becoming a way of life. No one is a stronger advocate of our Second Amendment right to bear arms than I am. And all the more as barbaric violence becomes increasingly pervasive here in America. But I am neither naive nor lack experience in what guns can mean to a child. A gun in your hand is power, even in the hands of a child. So “child soldiers,” certainly I understand this. That Muslim nations in particular teach boys from childhood that guns are the way of “manhood” should make civilized nations wary. That nations like Mexico are given to so much gun violence, that gangs here in America are devoted to gun violence as a way of life is a harbinger of things to come.

The nightmare that comes so often to me of so many innocent tens of thousands dying under the nuclear blasts of those two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is unrelenting. That I know this was necessary to save the lives of millions of both Americans and Japanese does not lessen the horror. But it was a horror brought upon Japan by its leaders, a leadership that had made people like Ensign Okabe possible:

Ensign Heiichi Okabe

22 February 1945

I am actually a member at last of the Kamikaze Special Attack Corps.

My life will be rounded out in the next thirty days. My chance will come! Death and I are waiting. The training and practice have been rigorous, but it is worthwhile if we can die beautifully and for a cause.

I shall die watching the pathetic struggle of our nation. My life will gallop in the next few weeks as my youth and life draw to a close...

...The sortie has been scheduled for the next ten days.

I am a human being and hope to be neither saint nor scoundrel, hero nor fool - just a human being. As one who has spent his life in wistful longing and searching, I die resignedly in the hope that my life will serve as a “human document.”

The world in which I live was too full of discord. As a community of rational human beings it should be better composed. Lacking a single great conductor, everyone lets loose with his own sound, creating dissonance where there should be melody and harmony.

There is much truth to the ancient proverb “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” As I observe so much perversion and corruption in our government, as I see the lack of morality without the role models children in America are so desperately in need of I have to conclude we are raising children to become “child soldiers,” and those in Muslim nations to become the Ensign Okabe’s without the redeeming questions that plagued that young man, questions that can never be answered where nations including America are given over to violence. And when dissenting voices of reason begin to make sense, the answer is to poke them in the nose and shout louder. Small wonder so many politicians and the wealthy elites are of a mind to disarm We the People.