The Death of an Airman
"Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person."
I just read a post in
about the self-immolation of U.S. senior airman Aaron Bushnell.
I had not planned on writing about this specific incident. I certainly had not planned on writing about the larger conflict between Israel and Gaza. I have already written about that issue... twice, and both times solely because I believed I could approach it from a unique direction. In fact, both articles bear a similar disclaimer to the one I am currently typing. You can read those pieces dealing with the philosophy of war and the fog of war, respectively, here and here, if you please.
However, after reading Caitlin's compelling post and then separately watching the video of Mr. Bushnell's final act of protest, several thoughts of my own emerged that I felt compelled to share.
"Before closing my eyes and moving towards the vision of the Buddha, I respectfully plead to President Ngô Đình Diệm to take a mind of compassion towards the people of the nation and implement religious equality to maintain the strength of the homeland eternally. I call the venerables, reverends, members of the sangha and the lay Buddhists to organize in solidarity to make sacrifices to protect Buddhism."
— Thích Quảng Đức, Buddhist monk (pictured above)
Those were the final words Thích Quảng Đức left in a letter before he set himself ablaze at a busy Saigon intersection in the summer of 1963.1 He was 65 years old.
Who are we really, and what survives our death?
Though Thích Quảng Đức, the man, died that day it is said that his heart miraculously survived his self-immolation and subsequent cremation and is still revered as a sacred relic. His story has survived, as well. Could it be there that true immortality is found?
Caitlin Johnstone concludes her article by challenging our responses to the seemingly endless tragedy unfolding in Gaza and to the tragic end of Aaron Bushnell, offering this proposition: "This is who we are."
Who are we really, and what survives our death?
The Egyptians believed that our souls resided in our hearts, and that our hearts survived our death, imbued with the memory of our every deed. Beyond this mortal realm, in the Hall of Truth, our hearts would be weighed against the Feather of Maat. If they balanced the scales, we were worthy of entry into Sekhet-Aaru, the paradisal Field of Reeds. If they were too heavy with iniquity, they would be cast down and consumed by the monstrous Ammit.
“Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”
— Senior Airman Aaron Bushnell (pictured above)
Those were the final words Aaron Bushnell left on his social media account before he set himself ablaze in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. in spring of 2024. His final spoken words as he burned were “Free Palestine.”2 He was 25 years old.
We cannot know how heavy Aaron Bushnell’s heart was when Osiris placed it upon the scales, only how heavily the world had weighed upon his heart. I pray the weight of his burden has been lifted, like smoke in the clear, blue sky. Like a feather in the wind.
If I may invoke one of Linda Loman’s monologues in Arthur Miller’s seminal modern tragedy Death of a Salesman, I would say that many people will argue whether men like Thích Quảng Đức and Aaron Bushnell are great men or madmen. Whether they deserve to ever be in the paper. Whether they are the finest characters who ever lived or deluded pawns. Whether they even really have much in common at all.3
As I began this post stating, I am not here to tell anyone how to answer such questions.
However, as I stare at the haunting image of senior airman Aaron Bushnell standing at attention while flames engulfed him, I will suggest only that, to quote Linda Loman directly now:
…he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.
What weighs upon our hearts?
Are they heavy with grief? Are they heavy with guilt? Are they light enough to rise against? Are they light enough to rise above the flames? And how heavy will they be when placed upon the scales?
Who are we really, and what survives our death?
We are ashes returning to ashes. We are dust returning to dust. Yet, while we are here we all make choices, and, in the end, our choices make us.
Quảng Đức would find new life almost 30 years later when Browne’s photo was used as the cover for the band Rage Against the Machine’s eponymous album.
After Bushnell falls silent and collapses, motionless, to the ground, his video ends as a U.S. secret service officer enters the frame, gun drawn and pointed at Bushnell’s incinerating ruin. The officer stands there barking orders, keeping his gun trained on the flames, while another officer yells off-camera, pleading: “I don’t need guns; I need fire extinguishers!” It is chilling, surreal. And yet, it is real. And it may sum up the situation we are in more pithily than anyone could have imagined in the moment.
Linda’s actual speech is: “I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.”
Tens of thousands have died in Gaza, but millions have died from the mandated toxic mRNA injections. Why didn't he protest that much larger crime?
If you want to know how you would have acted in Nazi times, you know now by your approval or rejection of the mandated injections.
Performative activism reaches a new low. Tragic that a young man would waste his life in such a horrific way. Imagine the hell a person would have to be living in to conceive of and go through with something like this.