For those unfamiliar with the 2007 Foreign Film Oscar winner “The Lives of Others,” it is a German thriller about the Stasi in 1984 East Germany, the then-Communist German Democratic Republic. The Stasi, GDR’s Ministry of State Security, enforced Party policy and loyalty of speech and action. The goal of the Stasi was to know everything, and they did so through an extensive network of agents and informants that touched the lives of everyone in the GDR. 

In “The Lives of Others,” a strong, mournful Soviet-influenced string soundtrack accompanies an equally Soviet-influenced plot. East Germany’s lone socialist playwright with both talent and loyalty, Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), becomes the target of heavy surveillance when a high-up GDR official falls for his actress girlfriend, Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck) and wants him removed. Loyal socialist Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) oversees the surveillance operation to find fault with the socialist artist. But as the hypocrisy of his GDR comrades drives him from faith in the Party, and the faultlessness of his playwright subject leaves him sympathetic, Wiesler begins to question his allegiances, and as Dreyman grows subversive, Wiesler is forced to make a choice – between a Party of falsehood and a man of merit. 

First-time director (and story screenwriter) Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck drained the color from the film, save those moments of happiness between Georg and his girlfriend Christa-Maria. Dull grays and pale blues emphasize the drab atmosphere that pervades hopeless East Germany. 

Choosing a foreign film as the “best” seems like something that Hollywood establishment would do rather than a magazine like NRO, but they aren’t the only conservatives to call it a masterpiece: William F. Buckley, Jr. was a big fan. 

While the film is not based on a historical event, the film accurately portrays Stasi-inflicted fear and influence. Some of the actors in the film were a part of the cultural movement in East Germany in the 1980s, and it shows through powerful performances. Lead actor Mühe, when asked how he prepared for his role as a Stasi officer, said simply: “I remembered.” 

The film is important for more than artistic reasons however. According to Uwe Spiekermann, a deputy director of the German Historical Institute, “Lives of Others” was the first film from East Germany to portray the Stasi in a serious light, instead of mocking them in comic farce. 

John O. Koehler wrote in “Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police” that the Stasi employed “102,000 full-time officers and noncommissioned personnel on its rolls, including 11,000 members of the ministry’s own special guards regiment. Between 1950 and 1989, a total of 274,000 persons served in the Stasi.” 

Including informants, the Stasi network reached into the lives of every East German. 

“The Stasi was much, much worse than the Gestapo, if you consider only the oppression of its own people,” Koehler quotes Simon Wiesenthal of Vienna, Austria, a Nazi hunter. “The Gestapo had 40,000 officials watching a country of 80 million, while the Stasi employed 102,000 to control only 17 million.” 

With its network of informants, the Stasi had a spy over every 66 citizens, and an informer for every 6.5 citizens. “It would not have been unreasonable to assume that at least one Stasi informer was present in any party of ten or twelve dinner guests,” Koehler said. He concludes that the communist oppression by the Stasi was, while not as heinous as the attempted extermination of the Jews, as brutal in its oppression as the Nazis. This number is shocking, yet even more shocking is the habit of cultural elites in the United States to hail dictators like Hugo Chavez as democratic leaders, while their artistic kin from across the globe were jailed for speaking the truth about such people. Among punishable crimes in the GDR was engaging in “propaganda hostile to the state,” something artists in the United States should be ashamed to have supported when they defended communism in the past, and when they do so now. 

There’s my sermon. I’ll leave you with Buckley’s final words on the film: 

“I looked at the record and was gratified to find, in the critics’ files, encomiums absolutely unconfined in their admiration of this movie, which in fact won the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film. And I was unsurprised to find that what seems the whole of East Germany is riven by its impact. Since so many East Germans were complicit in the postwar reign of the German Democratic Republic, there is a corporate national shame at the betrayal of life, as so brazenly done by so many millions, but whose country, at least, has given the world this holy vessel of expiation.”

CHAPTER ONE

Saturday, February 23, 1861

When Lorenzo Smith heard the chugging of the train, he felt for the revolver at his side. His fingers met its smooth handle, hidden beneath his black coat. Then he found the short barrel and the trigger below. Smith had reached for it a dozen times in the last hour, but he wanted to be certain that the gun was still there. It will make me a hero, he thought. It will change history.

Listening for the rumble of the train had been difficult. A loud mass of people waited for its arrival at Calvert Street Station. Smith did not know how many were there, but they must have numbered in the thousands. The noisy throng spilled from the open-ended depot onto Calvert and Franklin Streets. Inside the station, where Smith stood, shouts bounced off the walls and ceiling. This place of tearful departures and happy reunions had become a hotbed of agitation.

The train’s steam whistle pierced the din of the crowd. The engine would pull into Baltimore on schedule, at half past noon. Heads bobbed for a view. Smith struggled to keep his position near the track. He had picked it two hours earlier, when the flood of people was just a trickle. He was not sure precisely where the train would stop, but he thought he had made a good guess about where the last car might come to a halt. He wanted to be within striking distance.

As the locomotive’s big chimney came into view, a man standing next to Smith bellowed, “Here he comes! Here comes the Black Republican!” A roar of jeers and insults filled the station. Smith craned his neck. He saw the engine’s massive oil lamp mounted on top of the smoke box. It gazed forward like the unblinking eye of a mechanical Cyclops. Behind it were the cab, the coal tender, and a line of cars. Flags and streamers covered them all. The whole train glistened from a recent cleaning. At the rear, Smith spotted a car painted in orange and black. He reached into his coat another time and tapped the gun. Just making sure.

For the last ten days, the train carrying Abraham Lincoln on his inaugural journey from Springfield, Illinois, to Washington, D.C., had taken the president-elect through six northern states–all populated by the abolitionists who had voted him into office. Applause greeted him at almost every stop. But on this morning, as Lincoln’s train turned south into Maryland, it had entered slaveholding territory for the first time. Baltimore was the only city on the trip that had not extended a formal welcome to the incoming president–an obvious snub that pleased Smith when he thought of it.

Smith scanned the crowd and saw several men wearing hats with blue-ribbon cockades. This was the fashion among Baltimore’s secessionist set. Each cockade had a button in its center displaying the palmetto tree, the symbol of South Carolina. That state had quit the Union in December, before any of the others. Many Marylanders now wanted to join the growing Confederacy. The moment Lincoln pulled into the depot, the members of the mob would let him know that he did not have their support. They did not even respect him. In fact, they hated him.

Rumors had circulated for weeks that Lincoln would not be safe when he reached Baltimore. But the president-elect had no choice about the visit. The only rail route into Washington from the north required going through Baltimore. Lincoln had to stop and switch to the Baltimore & Ohio Rail Road line at another station more than a mile away. That meant the presidential party would have to make a slow transit from one depot to the other, surrounded the whole way by an angry swarm. Lincoln was supposed to catch a three o’clock departure for Washington, where he would arrive about an hour and a half later.

Smith could not keep from grinning. He could hardly have asked for a better opportunity than the one handed to him here and now. He was about to become a hero–the hero of a new nation. He had planned for this moment from the day he heard Lincoln would pass through his city. He had visited the depot to see where the trains stopped along the platform. He had walked the route Lincoln would take to the other rail line, checking alleys and side streets for the best escape routes. He had studied a picture of Lincoln that had appeared in a magazine. When he learned that the president-elect had grown a beard, he drew whiskers on the picture and studied it more. Smith had cleaned his revolver over and over, trying to keep it in perfect condition. He had tried on his entire wardrobe, testing the gun in trouser pockets, through belts, and in his coat. He bought himself a new pair of shoes and broke them in.

They felt good on his feet as Lincoln’s train crawled into the station. The shouting grew louder and louder. The engine rolled past Smith slowly, from right to left. His eyes met the conductor’s for a moment. The man was shaking his head from side to side. Smith wondered what it meant, but not for long–there was too much going on. The cars kept moving by him. The presidential car in back crept closer. He could see the silhouettes of a few heads through its windows. A fellow up the platform from Smith began to smack the car’s exterior with his cane, but it rolled out of his reach a moment later.

Then the train hissed to a halt, with the presidential car directly in front of Smith. His meticulous planning had paid off. Smith jumped onto the car’s metal steps. His feet clanged against them as he thrust himself forward and up. He heard men rushing behind him. At the door into Lincoln’s car, Smith hesitated. He quickly surveyed the depot from this elevated position. It was so full of people that Smith was not sure how he or anybody else could make a hasty exit. He would have to slip into the crowd and count on its anonymity to envelop him.

First things first, he reminded himself. Several other men stood beside him on the back of the car. Smith thought he recognized one of them from a secessionist meeting he had attended. His hand was hidden inside his coat. Smith saw a slight bulge. So at least two of us are ready to perform the job today, he thought. Then Smith reached into his own coat and clutched his revolver. He was about to pull it out when the door flew open.

“Stop right there!”

The shout came from within the car. Before Smith could comprehend it, he saw the end of a pistol pointing at his face, just inches away. Behind the weapon he met the gaze of a man who looked ready to pull the trigger.

“Raise your hands!”

Smith knew that before he could even lift his gun, he would be shot between the eyes. But he did not loosen his grip. He was too close to his goal.

“Where’s Lincoln?” yelled Smith.

“Raise your hands, sir, or I will shoot!” came the reply. The man leaned forward. His pistol almost touched Smith’s forehead.

Suddenly Smith felt a commotion in the depot. He sensed that the men backing him up were pulling away. The tone of the mob’s shouting had changed, too. He could not hear exactly what they were saying.

“One last time, sir: Raise your hands!”

Smith released the revolver. It slid back into his pocket. He showed his hands.

“Lincoln is not on this train,” said the man. “You won’t find him in Baltimore today.”

Smith peered over the man’s shoulders, into the rest of the car. It looked like a room in the mansion of a wealthy family. The red walls and heavy furniture bore all the dainty trappings of Victorian elegance. Blue silk covered the space between the windows. Little tassels dangled from the chairs and shined in the light of the open door. As Smith peered inside, he realized the man with the gun was actually letting him study the car’s interior. He wanted Smith to see who was aboard–and who was not.

Toward the rear, Smith noticed a plump, round-faced woman with her arms wrapped around a couple of frightened girls. A hulking man stood beside her, his arm on the back of her seat. A couple of boys sat nearby. Smith was certain he had seen the woman before. She glared back at him, her eyes glowing with anger. Then Smith realized who she was. He had seen her photograph. It was Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the president-elect. He spent another few seconds looking at the other faces. Mrs. Lincoln’s husband was definitely not aboard.

The man with the gun spoke again: “There’s your proof. He’s not here. Now leave this train immediately!”

Smith studied the man. He was in his early twenties. Except for a thin mustache, his face was clean-shaven. His features were soft. He did not look like the sort of fellow who would pack a gun and protect a dignitary, but there was a steady determination in his gaze. Smith had no doubt the young man was willing to pull the trigger.

Smith still did not move. “Who are you?” he asked meekly.

“I am John Hay, secretary to Abraham Lincoln, who at this very moment is relaxing in Washington. He passed through Baltimore early this morning, in darkness. Now back off or I will shoot!”

Smith retreated a step. The door slammed shut. Smith realized that he now stood on the back of the car with a single companion, the man he had recognized. The others who had followed him up the steps were gone. He looked at the mass of people surrounding the train. He heard voices up the track: “Lincoln is not on the train! He’s not on board!” Someone at the front of the car must have delivered the message, which spread quickly through the crowd.

Dozens of faces now turned to Smith, hoping he would contradict this report. But they saw a demoralized man. “It’s true,” he said. “Lincoln is not here.”

The catcalls started again. “Lincoln is a coward!” “He’s a sneak!” “He’s lucky he’s not here!”

Smith slumped his shoulders and looked at the man beside him.

“We have failed,” he said.

Then Smith stepped off the train and vanished into the mob. On the way out, he did not touch his gun.

CHAPTER TWO

Monday, February 25, 1861

Langston Bennett threw down his copy of the Charleston Mercury. The pages fluttered to the floor as Bennett balled his hands into fists. “Damn him!” he said, sharply but to himself. His anger crested and began to subside. Bennett could almost feel it flow from his body. That was how it always happened–a moment of lost control, followed by a quick return to his senses. He let out a sigh, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. He ran his fingers through the long gray hair that touched the collar of his shirt. “Something must be done,” he said in a low voice.

He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a blank sheet of paper. Instead of writing, he arched his back and gazed out the window in front of him, through the trees in Battery Park and across the harbor. He could see a couple of ships on the water. Further to his left, at the harbor’s mouth more than two miles away, he spied a tiny flag flapping above the waves. His eyes narrowed and returned to the page on his desk. He dipped his pen in a small bottle and rattled it around. When he brought it to the top of the page, the pen made a short black mark and ran dry. Now Bennett frowned. He could not even write the first letter of the date. He put the pen down, reached for a bell on his desk, and rang it loudly…

God-kings are not new on the stage of human history, nor do they exclusively occupy the dusty corners of the distant past. One need only look to the Japanese worship of Emperor Hirohito during World War II to see that an industrialized, modern country can still vest in its leaders supernatural authority. And there are far more subtle ways of making divinity out of men as well.

The Apostle Paul was warned two-thousand years ago that, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Certainly his intention was to illuminate to the self-righteous that they do not live up to an actual standard of perfection, but perhaps there is more. For as surely as a man might be blind to his own failings, there seems to be some propensity in man to be selectively blind to the failings of others as well. This selective blindness may have many causes and find many expressions.  Some in our society carry cultural guilt and fear of accusations of bigotry that cause them to hold entire social, racial, and religious groups to different standards of judgment than others.  Still, it is the elevation of individuals above common scrutiny that creates idols of men. Whether it is a rock-star or actor, sportsman or elected leader, holding any man above reproach is folly, for in ceding to anyone our power to critique them, we grant them power man was not meant to have.

Now, to some, this double standard of generosity may seem harmless enough.  After all it might be argued that most people are far too judgmental as it is.  However it is no less sinister to apply a positive double-standard than it is a negative one. Both of these biases have the same result on the individual making the unfair judgment – by limiting the individual’s ability to accurately see the humanity of the judged, they falsely color that individual’s understanding of the human condition in general. Just as the thoughtless demonization of any person renders them sub-human to the person making the judgment, and therefore their choices, actions, and motives are no longer subject to the same thoughtful consideration as those of others, Hero-Worship creates a blindness in which it is not necessary to consider the fundamental humanity of the so-called hero, nor is it necessary to emulate their actual virtues or accomplishments. After all, if Hitler is simply the most evil creature to ever live, why question the motives, politics, or persuasions by which his actual, human evil was allowed to thrive? Similarly, if a Martin Luther King, Jr. was simply better than everyone else by design, what point is there in attempting to follow his virtuous lead?

This power that hero-worship imbues in its champions is also a narcotic that dulls the mind of the worshiper, and allows and even promotes abuses by the worshiped.

Clearly, this is the case with the current President of the United States. With so many people seeing President Obama as a super-human, almost religious figure, and placing so many of their hopes on his shoulders, they blind themselves to the reality of the man, both his better qualities as well as his more troubling ones. Any accusation of wrong-doing or hubris is instantly and angrily rejected by the faithful as an attack on a man who is simply above petty criticism. He can do no wrong, and further, no one else can do the good that he might. He is, as Evan Thomas so aptly and honestly put it, “standing above the country, above the world, he’s sort of a God.” There is nothing more dangerous than this kind of isolation of a man from the restraining power of common criticism, especially one who by his office already has so much power over so many and so much. After all, if criticism is suppressed and virtues are seen as intrinsic and not attained or attainable, an elected leader doesn’t actually answer to the will of the people at all, rather, the people exist to validate his will.

For man to truly be free, he must reject elevating any human to super-human stations, reserving such worship exclusively for the truly divine. Christ may be perfect, but President Obama is only a man. A compelling case can be made that George Washington was one of the best men who has ever lived. The Indispensable Man, he twice surrendered his sword, and almost absolute power, to the new country he had bled to create when frankly most people would have preferred he kept it. But this same great man had great failings, not least of which were his somewhat nuanced views on human slavery.

If even a man with the moral fortitude of Washington did not escape the human condition, then what man could? I can say without shame that there is no public figure alive who I hold in higher esteem than I hold George W. Bush. I realize the cultural-correctness barons who have demonized him for the last eight years will recoil at the fact, but I would rather have some BBQ or sit on a fishing boat with 43 than meet a Beatle. He was true to his convictions, and he exuded a grace and good-will to his enemies even when beset on all sides by a recklessly hostile, slandering, hate-filled media and opposition.  President Bush is as close as I have to a hero. But I am not fooled by my affection into believing he was superior to his mold. Despite the public claims of exuding calm, I have little doubt what was going through the president’s mind during those excruciating seven minutes in the school-house in Florida in 2001. Fear. We’re being attacked? Confusion. If we’re being attacked, why aren’t they pulling me out of here? Uncertainty. Am I supposed to be doing something or did I misunderstand? The sort of very human things any of us might have felt in that sort of situation. Would I have preferred that he sprung to his feet, strode to his jet, and took command of the war we did not yet know we were in? Sure. I would rather he hadn’t passed TARP, articulated conservative principles like Reagan, and defended himself against his hate-drunk critics too, but I don’t look for God-like perfection in human beings. Even Presidents. Especially Presidents. I have an actual God for that, so my admiration for Mr. Bush can survive exposure to his actual humanity expressly because it isn’t built on the false premise that he has none. It is respect, not worship, and it is a deep respect.

Because in application, worship is all a man requires to reign as a God. Hold one man to a more generous standard, bind him by a less restrictive set of rules than you do other men, and you give to him transcendent powers no matter what secular name you might call him by. If you make that man-God the leader of a country, then he is a God-King as surely as any who has gone before, and making a God-King of a man only makes slaves of the rest, no matter how he uses his authority or for what. This is what the idea of separation of Church and State was actually meant to protect us from, un-checked executives consolidating personal-religious powers. Let us direct our prayers elsewhere that we might have eyes to see this man as man.

Accurate mortar fire lands on Taliban positions thanks to SSG Vile’s Mortar Ballistic Computer Skills

One of the many personal emails I received was from Staff Sergeant William Vile’s former battalion commander. Then-Sergeant Vile is the hero in my first Boots on the Ground Report and I purposely kept his name out of the piece because I remember how embarrassed he was by all of the attention he received from my team and me as we medically evacuated him from the Korengal Outpost to Bagram Airfield Combat Surgical Hospital.

Rocket propelled grenade ‘duds’ into a Hesco barrier at the Korengal Outpost during 5 January attack 

I received the former commander’s email on Wednesday this week. I was in a business meeting when my Blackberry buzzed indicating I had a new message. Noticing the sender and the topic, I scanned the email and the words: 

Sir,

I read your article on-line today about fighting in the Korengal.  I’m sorry to add a poignant piece of news to it:  SSG William E. Vile was killed in action in Kunar Province on 4 May [2009].  He was back as an [Embedded Transition Team member] assigned with 6-4 Cav up near Naray [along the Pakistan border].  His [Afghan National Army combat outpost] was overrun, and SSG Vile was [Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown] for three days.  [The battalion Command Sergeant Major] proudly reported to me that soldiers of 1-32 were called upon to locate and recover SSG Vile’s remains, and that they carried him back to Bagram for his last flight home.

Sir, in the article you mentioned that Vile’s heroics didn’t stop at the end of the fight, that he returned to his unit.  His heroics didn’t stop then, either, I guess. 

SSG Vile will be buried on Thursday in Arlington National Cemetery.  As you might imagine, several alumni of the unit will attend. 

A chill shot up my spine for two reasons. First, of course, this is a man, half my age, that I truly held in the highest esteem. The news of his death in combat struck me to the core. I’m affected by every service member’s death as I’ve officiated over several funerals of Soldiers killed in combat, some who were friends, some who were assigned to me by the Army. It was a privilege in every case and each service required about two days to fully process and emotionally recover from as I engaged grieving family members and friends, presented the flag to the next of kin and personally mourned the loss of a great American. 

But having watched this man in action I had selfishly held out the notion that I had a hero I could call my own and could one day point to him as the Sergeant Major of the Army or some other influential position worthy of his abilities and sacrifice. Indeed, he had already been rapidly promoted to Staff Sergeant as a young man. 

So as the contents of the email registered, I stood, walked out of the room and took about five minutes to myself. I don’t know what the others in the room thought, and I truly didn’t care. 

And that’s when it hit me: 4 May 2009 was the day Andrew Breitbart and I exchanged emails about my joining the Big Hollywood team. After that email exchange, I wrote the article that day, of course oblivious to SSG Vile’s plight in Kunar Province. 

Indeed, as I was writing that first Boots on the Ground report, Staff Sergeant Vile’s new place of duty as an advisor to the Afghan Army in Kunar Province was in mortal combat with Taliban forces. 

The brave men of 1-32nd Infantry, Chosin, from the 10th Mountain Division, SSG Vile’s old unit in which he was serving when he conducted the heroic deeds reported in the last column, heard the news, geared up and buzzed through the Asadabad Valley to find their missing hero. While SSG Vile was not assigned to his old unit on this mission, the Soldiers were living by the Army Warrior Ethos:

Never leave a fallen comrade behind. 

It was purely a coincidence that 1-32 was back in the action in Afghanistan, just as it was purely coincidence that I wrote that blog column on the exact day he went missing. 

Right. 

No matter what you believe, no matter what your personal moral guideposts may be, don’t think for a second that this isn’t the Big Guy upstairs at work. I don’t believe in coincidences and, in retrospect, I do believe that God spoke to me on 4 May. I essentially wrote that piece in one sitting without stopping and only going back to do some minor edits. It’s almost as if I was called to write his story before knowing he was killed in action. Perhaps to capture the purity of the event without being clouded by the tumbling emotions that I’m feeling now. 

When I return to Washington, DC I intend to visit SSG Vile’s gravesite and pay my respects to a man who had at least three purple hearts and served at least three combat tours in the last six years. He did so with a humble heart, just wanting to do his piece and take care of his buddies, perhaps advancing American foreign policy a bit as he served. 

While there’s no nexus between pop culture, Hollywood and the military here, I thought it proper to update those of you who read the first column. 

Make no mistake about it, SSG William Vile remains a personal hero to me and it was my privilege to write his story. 

And my departing thought today is that SSG Vile has rightfully ascended to a place where the full measure of his sacrifice is properly rewarded. I pray that he has found the everlasting peace he was trying so hard to accomplish, on our behalf, in this world. 

Stay safe,
AJT

 
Pinning on then-Sergeant William Vile’s Purple Heart (2nd Award) in Bagram, Afghanistan a few minutes before his flight to Landstuhl and Walter Reed