If you look up the word tragedy, you will see that the death of Christopher Dorner and those he killed fits the definition.
Our hungry media could not even find a picture of this soldier where he wasn't smiling. How did he turn into a killer? Was he sick? Was it PTSD? And did he come home like so many soldiers to find his nation still plagued by age-old problems which even combat in war cannot dissolve?
There was a time when men marched in to war thinking that they were defending freedom, liberty and human principles worthy dying and killing for. There was a time when black men demanded to be allowed to fight and die for a nation that would not even grant them the status of human being in the hopes of being judged worthy of full citizenship. America was an ideal, and she would never send men to die for anything but true nobility.
Are we still that nation?
Were we ever that nation?
I don't have the answer and of there is one, I am sure it's very complicated. But I do know this: Dorner was one helluva a soldier, a warrior who turned his skills against perceived enemies at home. He killed innocent people and in the end, would not be taken alive. His aggression was against a police force with a past that can only be described as evil at times.
And I also know something else. Soon, another 20,000 or so soldiers will come home from Afghanistan, tired, stressed out and well-trained.
How will we greet them?
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