WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.270 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.270 --> 00:00:13.350 align:middle line:84% That poem was criticized somewhere for what 00:00:13.350 --> 00:00:18.120 align:middle line:84% the critics felt was an exaggerated comparison 00:00:18.120 --> 00:00:25.050 align:middle line:84% of myself and other young nurses with guards at Dachau. 00:00:25.050 --> 00:00:30.210 align:middle line:84% But what I'm saying is that the love of order for its own sake, 00:00:30.210 --> 00:00:35.700 align:middle line:84% like the glorification of obedience for its own sake, 00:00:35.700 --> 00:00:44.400 align:middle line:84% is at the root of only mildly inhumane behavior, 00:00:44.400 --> 00:00:45.850 align:middle line:90% such as ours was. 00:00:45.850 --> 00:00:48.600 align:middle line:84% We wouldn't even be characterized as inhumane 00:00:48.600 --> 00:00:51.570 align:middle line:84% until you really thought about it 00:00:51.570 --> 00:00:57.750 align:middle line:84% and how lacking in gentleness and compassion 00:00:57.750 --> 00:01:03.420 align:middle line:84% and how not patient-oriented it was, but order oriented 00:01:03.420 --> 00:01:05.670 align:middle line:90% our behavior was trained to be. 00:01:05.670 --> 00:01:10.058 align:middle line:90% 00:01:10.058 --> 00:01:11.850 align:middle line:84% I can't remember how I started my sentence, 00:01:11.850 --> 00:01:15.330 align:middle line:84% but that kind of behavior, while mild in itself 00:01:15.330 --> 00:01:22.530 align:middle line:84% in the scale of wrongdoing, is rooted 00:01:22.530 --> 00:01:31.380 align:middle line:84% in those same beliefs in order and obedience 00:01:31.380 --> 00:01:37.860 align:middle line:84% as virtues for their own sakes that the most heinous behavior 00:01:37.860 --> 00:01:47.940 align:middle line:84% of soldiers and bomber pilots and Dachau guards. 00:01:47.940 --> 00:01:51.000 align:middle line:90% 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:56.100 align:middle line:84% I wasn't saying that we were to be fully equated 00:01:56.100 --> 00:01:59.310 align:middle line:90% with guards at Dachau. 00:01:59.310 --> 00:02:04.560 align:middle line:84% Only that our behavior was rooted in the same beliefs. 00:02:04.560 --> 00:02:08.800 align:middle line:90% Not even beliefs, but attitudes. 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:11.430 align:middle line:90% Attitudes. 00:02:11.430 --> 00:02:16.380 align:middle line:84% I think maybe this would be a good prelude 00:02:16.380 --> 00:02:19.080 align:middle line:90% to another poem I want to read. 00:02:19.080 --> 00:02:20.940 align:middle line:84% I'm going to turn to some typescripts now-- 00:02:20.940 --> 00:02:24.360 align:middle line:84% poems that are not in a book, although some 00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:25.590 align:middle line:90% have been in magazines. 00:02:25.590 --> 00:02:28.620 align:middle line:90% 00:02:28.620 --> 00:02:33.750 align:middle line:84% These poem, well, it's one of those 00:02:33.750 --> 00:02:36.030 align:middle line:84% that came out of my experience a year ago 00:02:36.030 --> 00:02:39.150 align:middle line:84% when I canceled my reading here because I had the opportunity 00:02:39.150 --> 00:02:41.760 align:middle line:90% to go to Hanoi. 00:02:41.760 --> 00:02:44.040 align:middle line:84% And the Poetry Center was extremely gracious 00:02:44.040 --> 00:02:47.310 align:middle line:84% about my last minute cancellation. 00:02:47.310 --> 00:02:52.890 align:middle line:84% So this visit now is kind of a make up visit 00:02:52.890 --> 00:02:55.530 align:middle line:84% for what I was supposed to come do last year. 00:02:55.530 --> 00:02:58.920 align:middle line:84% Out of my visit to Hanoi came a number of poems. 00:02:58.920 --> 00:03:01.560 align:middle line:84% One of which I wanted to read tonight and can't find. 00:03:01.560 --> 00:03:05.170 align:middle line:84% But I have three others that I am going to read to you. 00:03:05.170 --> 00:03:09.670 align:middle line:84% And one of the things that I did there, not to me 00:03:09.670 --> 00:03:11.580 align:middle line:84% the most important thing I did there, 00:03:11.580 --> 00:03:15.990 align:middle line:84% not the most striking and moving by any means. 00:03:15.990 --> 00:03:20.580 align:middle line:84% Although the one which TV interviewers and people like 00:03:20.580 --> 00:03:23.580 align:middle line:84% that most wanted to hear about when I came back, 00:03:23.580 --> 00:03:26.280 align:middle line:84% was to visit a prisoner of war compound 00:03:26.280 --> 00:03:28.560 align:middle line:90% and talk to some pilots. 00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:34.830 align:middle line:84% And 10 days or so after I had returned, 00:03:34.830 --> 00:03:36.675 align:middle line:90% I was on a TV program in Boston. 00:03:36.675 --> 00:03:39.300 align:middle line:90% 00:03:39.300 --> 00:03:41.610 align:middle line:84% A sort of talk show type of thing 00:03:41.610 --> 00:03:43.890 align:middle line:84% where some of the-- all the other people 00:03:43.890 --> 00:03:45.140 align:middle line:90% were relatives of POWs. 00:03:45.140 --> 00:03:48.990 align:middle line:90% 00:03:48.990 --> 00:03:54.930 align:middle line:84% And one of them was a very lovely and friendly lady 00:03:54.930 --> 00:03:56.790 align:middle line:90% called Mrs. Brown. 00:03:56.790 --> 00:04:01.320 align:middle line:84% And the poem came out of having seen the pilots 00:04:01.320 --> 00:04:04.530 align:middle line:84% and also from meeting Mrs. Brown, who 00:04:04.530 --> 00:04:11.080 align:middle line:84% was the mother of a prisoner of war. 00:04:11.080 --> 00:04:13.890 align:middle line:90% I hadn't met her son. 00:04:13.890 --> 00:04:18.420 align:middle line:84% I hadn't met the relatives of any of those people 00:04:18.420 --> 00:04:20.010 align:middle line:84% that I saw in the television studio. 00:04:20.010 --> 00:04:22.890 align:middle line:90% 00:04:22.890 --> 00:04:23.475 align:middle line:90% "The Pilots." 00:04:23.475 --> 00:04:28.200 align:middle line:90% 00:04:28.200 --> 00:04:31.500 align:middle line:84% Incidentally, this begins in the present tense. 00:04:31.500 --> 00:04:36.960 align:middle line:84% And I'm thinking of changing the "are" 00:04:36.960 --> 00:04:42.390 align:middle line:84% in the first line to "were" now that they're not prisoners 00:04:42.390 --> 00:04:43.150 align:middle line:90% any longer. 00:04:43.150 --> 00:04:44.790 align:middle line:90% I think I'll read it like that. 00:04:44.790 --> 00:04:47.400 align:middle line:90% "Because they were prisoners. 00:04:47.400 --> 00:04:50.910 align:middle line:84% Because they were polite and friendly and lonesome 00:04:50.910 --> 00:04:53.100 align:middle line:90% and homesick. 00:04:53.100 --> 00:04:56.040 align:middle line:84% Because they said, yes, they knew the names 00:04:56.040 --> 00:04:59.250 align:middle line:84% of the bombs they dropped, but didn't say whether they 00:04:59.250 --> 00:05:05.190 align:middle line:84% understood what these bombs are designed to do to human flesh. 00:05:05.190 --> 00:05:09.030 align:middle line:84% And because I didn't ask them, being 00:05:09.030 --> 00:05:14.100 align:middle line:84% unable to decide whether to ask would serve any purpose other 00:05:14.100 --> 00:05:15.660 align:middle line:90% than cruelty. 00:05:15.660 --> 00:05:20.820 align:middle line:84% And because since then I met Mrs. Brown, the mother of one 00:05:20.820 --> 00:05:23.790 align:middle line:84% of their fellow prisoners, and loved her. 00:05:23.790 --> 00:05:26.970 align:middle line:84% For she has the same loving kindness in her 00:05:26.970 --> 00:05:31.770 align:middle line:84% that I saw in Vietnamese women, and men too. 00:05:31.770 --> 00:05:34.170 align:middle line:84% And because my hostility left the room 00:05:34.170 --> 00:05:37.110 align:middle line:84% and wasn't there when I thought I needed it while I 00:05:37.110 --> 00:05:41.130 align:middle line:90% was drinking tea with the POWs. 00:05:41.130 --> 00:05:43.860 align:middle line:84% Because of all these reasons, I hope 00:05:43.860 --> 00:05:50.970 align:middle line:84% they were truly as ignorant as unawakened as they seemed. 00:05:50.970 --> 00:05:56.190 align:middle line:84% I hope that chances in life up to this point have been poor. 00:05:56.190 --> 00:05:59.460 align:middle line:84% I hope they can truly be considered victims 00:05:59.460 --> 00:06:02.040 align:middle line:84% of the middle America they come from, 00:06:02.040 --> 00:06:04.200 align:middle line:84% their American Legionnaire fathers, 00:06:04.200 --> 00:06:07.920 align:middle line:84% their macho high schools, their dull, skimped freshman 00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:11.100 align:middle line:90% English courses. 00:06:11.100 --> 00:06:15.060 align:middle line:84% For if they did understand precisely what they 00:06:15.060 --> 00:06:21.090 align:middle line:84% were doing and did it anyway and would do it again, 00:06:21.090 --> 00:06:24.960 align:middle line:84% then I must learn to distrust my own preference 00:06:24.960 --> 00:06:27.450 align:middle line:90% for trusting people. 00:06:27.450 --> 00:06:31.290 align:middle line:84% Then I must learn to question my own preference 00:06:31.290 --> 00:06:33.840 align:middle line:90% for liking people. 00:06:33.840 --> 00:06:38.430 align:middle line:84% Then I must learn to keep my hostility chained to me so it 00:06:38.430 --> 00:06:42.130 align:middle line:90% won't leave me when I need it. 00:06:42.130 --> 00:06:47.100 align:middle line:84% And if it is proved to me that these men understood 00:06:47.100 --> 00:06:51.240 align:middle line:84% their acts, how shall I ever again 00:06:51.240 --> 00:06:55.640 align:middle line:84% be able to meet the eyes of Mrs. Brown?" 00:06:55.640 --> 00:07:10.000 align:middle line:90%