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March 3, 2006
Red Alert
by Soren Wuerth

“Where you from, BOY?”

     Merlin wore sandy military fatigues as he addressed my class. He stood in the center of class, grinning as he showed off his uniform, “no buttons or zippers, just Velcro,” he said pulling at a pocket flap on his arm. He stood beside my desk, which has a yellow peace sticker facing the door that says, “Bring home our troops.”

     Merlin graduated a few years ago from our village’s school. When I met him last fall, he sheepishly recalled cross-country running performances. As he spoke, he turned every so often to take a pull from a cigarette clipped between his curled fingers.

     Now, in an aimless talk flecked with military jargon he didn’t bother to translate, Merlin softly boasted about the weapons he had fired, throwing a grenade on his birthday, and riding in a tank. He had just returned from six months in Army boot camp at Fort Benning, Ga.

     He told my high school class about his Latino friends (he called them “Spanish”) who laughed so hard they choked when Merlin said “Taco Bell” or “Dorito” as his new friends spoke in their home language. He said nearly all the recruits are Hispanic.

     Perhaps thanks to his running background, Merlin said he was a stronger cadet than the others. While some of the enlistees cried or urinated on themselves when the drill sergeant roared and cussed at them, Merlin tried not to smile, to shun what seems a natural inclination for his boyish face. He said he had heard a few recruits had committed suicide.

     Looking toward the pale, snow-coated window, he told us about the gas chamber that made the troops wheeze, drool and gag. One soldier complained about his heart. The sergeant and others laughed and derided him afterwards.

     “Did anyone talk about why we are fighting a war in Iraq?” I asked. “No, not really,” he said after some thought.

     The class listened patiently. One student straightened in his chair as Merlin talked about his training, his body armor, and push-ups with hands cupped in diamonds (“You can’t afford a diamond that big, boy, make a tiny diamond you can afford,” the drill instructor yelled).

     “How’d you join?” a student asked. “Oh, I just dialed 1-800-go-army.” That was all it took. No long form to fill out, no uncertainty. A recruiter called him back and he is in for three years, “at least.” He told me his recruiter lied to him, but he wouldn’t elaborate.

     Later, I heard a news report on semi-public radio. Conditions in Iraq are worsening. The number of attacks, the level of sophistication, and the magnitude of damage from clashes are all increasing.

     I wonder if Merlin will return home. He is the first Cup’ik Eskimo to head to Iraq with the army. “I just have to go through urban ops training” in Colorado, he said, where he will “learn to kick in doors, that kind of stuff.”

     It was another teacher who brought Merlin in, during a third tour of my classroom, to serve as an example. “Instead of hanging around here and getting into trouble, Merlin is stepping up,” he said.

     Unlike my colleagues at the school, I see a naive, young man anticipating a horrifying and illegal war. I see a school complicit in the sordid affair. Our school demands control, order, structure, discipline and uniformity. Young children march in lines, are punished with detention and exclusion, and are taught to obey a hierarchy of power.

     I wrote Merlin’s email address on the board and will have students write to him regularly. The last time a senior left his village, to attend college on a full-ride scholarship, he was back after six months—homesick. “Yeah, it’s a lot harder than you think (to be away),” said a student who dropped out of a Sitka boarding school.

     Merlin will be far from home, far from his nation, his Cup’ik Nation. When I last saw him, Merlin stood in the back of a community hall, watching family and friends drum, sing and dance yuraq. I approached him and shook his hand. 

     Be safe, Merlin. Be safe.





















 Soren Wuerth is perhaps Alaska's best known community activist. He resides in an undisclosed location in rural Alaska and can be reached at soren@insurgent49.com.
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in-sur-gent (in sur'jent), n. 1. a member of a group which revolts against the policies of its leadership.