WEBVTT

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That poem was criticized
somewhere for what

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the critics felt was an
exaggerated comparison

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of myself and other young
nurses with guards at Dachau.

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But what I'm saying is that the
love of order for its own sake,

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like the glorification of
obedience for its own sake,

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is at the root of only
mildly inhumane behavior,

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such as ours was.

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We wouldn't even be
characterized as inhumane

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until you really
thought about it

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and how lacking in
gentleness and compassion

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and how not patient-oriented
it was, but order oriented

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our behavior was trained to be.

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I can't remember how
I started my sentence,

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but that kind of behavior,
while mild in itself

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in the scale of
wrongdoing, is rooted

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in those same beliefs
in order and obedience

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as virtues for their own sakes
that the most heinous behavior

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of soldiers and bomber
pilots and Dachau guards.

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I wasn't saying that we
were to be fully equated

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with guards at Dachau.

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Only that our behavior was
rooted in the same beliefs.

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Not even beliefs, but attitudes.

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Attitudes.

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I think maybe this
would be a good prelude

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to another poem I want to read.

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I'm going to turn to
some typescripts now--

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poems that are not in
a book, although some

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have been in magazines.

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These poem, well,
it's one of those

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that came out of my
experience a year ago

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when I canceled my reading here
because I had the opportunity

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to go to Hanoi.

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And the Poetry Center
was extremely gracious

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about my last
minute cancellation.

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So this visit now is
kind of a make up visit

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for what I was supposed
to come do last year.

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Out of my visit to Hanoi
came a number of poems.

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One of which I wanted to
read tonight and can't find.

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But I have three others that
I am going to read to you.

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And one of the things that
I did there, not to me

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the most important
thing I did there,

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not the most striking
and moving by any means.

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Although the one which TV
interviewers and people like

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that most wanted to hear
about when I came back,

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was to visit a prisoner
of war compound

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and talk to some pilots.

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And 10 days or so
after I had returned,

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I was on a TV program in Boston.

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A sort of talk
show type of thing

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where some of the--
all the other people

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were relatives of POWs.

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And one of them was a very
lovely and friendly lady

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called Mrs. Brown.

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And the poem came out of
having seen the pilots

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and also from meeting
Mrs. Brown, who

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was the mother of
a prisoner of war.

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I hadn't met her son.

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I hadn't met the relatives
of any of those people

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that I saw in the
television studio.

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"The Pilots."

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Incidentally, this begins
in the present tense.

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And I'm thinking of
changing the "are"

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in the first line to "were"
now that they're not prisoners

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any longer.

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I think I'll read it like that.

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"Because they were prisoners.

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Because they were polite
and friendly and lonesome

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and homesick.

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Because they said, yes,
they knew the names

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of the bombs they dropped,
but didn't say whether they

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understood what these bombs are
designed to do to human flesh.

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And because I didn't
ask them, being

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unable to decide whether to ask
would serve any purpose other

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than cruelty.

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And because since then I met
Mrs. Brown, the mother of one

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of their fellow
prisoners, and loved her.

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For she has the same
loving kindness in her

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that I saw in Vietnamese
women, and men too.

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And because my
hostility left the room

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and wasn't there when I
thought I needed it while I

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was drinking tea with the POWs.

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Because of all these
reasons, I hope

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they were truly as ignorant
as unawakened as they seemed.

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I hope that chances in life up
to this point have been poor.

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I hope they can truly
be considered victims

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of the middle America
they come from,

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their American
Legionnaire fathers,

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their macho high schools,
their dull, skimped freshman

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English courses.

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For if they did understand
precisely what they

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were doing and did it anyway
and would do it again,

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then I must learn to
distrust my own preference

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for trusting people.

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Then I must learn to
question my own preference

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for liking people.

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Then I must learn to keep my
hostility chained to me so it

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won't leave me when I need it.

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And if it is proved to me
that these men understood

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their acts, how
shall I ever again

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be able to meet the
eyes of Mrs. Brown?"

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