My past came back to greet me recently.
Being retired military, I occasionally shop at a Base Exchange at the local Air Force base. On one recent trip, I had breezed through the door and was walking past the vendor displays in the hallway between the BX and Commissary when something caught my eye.
It was a T-shirt emblazoned with an elaborate skull and the large caption "Kill Them All And Let God Sort It Out." This is the kind of novelty that would definitely draw attention anywhere. Not only did it stop me short, but it triggered a flood of memories. I hadn't run across this one since my days in Southeast Asia, circa 1974.

I guess anyone who has never been in the military and/or in a war really wouldn't understand. This is the kind of false bravado common in the armed forces. There's no denying reality - the military's job is to protect our country by killing anyone who gets in our way. (Hopefully, this won't happen very often.) When I was a cadet, we had an entire repertoire of memorized songs and slogans expressing tasteless, even gory sentiments which are embarrassing to repeat outside a military environment.
Add to the normal military machismo the frustrations of my generation's war (Vietnam) - of trying to fight an unpopular war against a cunning, determined enemy despite a host of seemingly inane political restrictions - and one can begin to understand how a "Kill Them All..." slogan could take root, and even become popular.
But that was a long time ago. My perspective is completely different now. And I guess that's why becoming re-acquainted with an old war slogan I'd never expected to see again has triggered a very different, and unexpected, thought process. After ticking through my memories, for some unknown reason I am remembering some heinous domestic events in my adult lifetime. For example:

- In an unbelievably brutal crime, a Jasper, Texas, man was chained to a pick-up truck and dragged three miles to his death, apparently because he was black.

- In Sylacauga, Alabama, a young man is lured from a bar into a secluded area, beaten, then dumped into the trunk of a car. He's driven fifteen miles, beaten to death, and his body set afire. All apparently because he was gay.

But those were a while ago, right? We surely have made progress in the last decade or so. Well, I just did a Google search on "Hate Crimes" and came up with 2,630,000 hits!

So my mind began to compare the expected hatred of an enemy in war with a totally different situation: an irrational hatred in peacetime. It's not that I profess to understand hate crimes; I don't. All I know is hate crimes of any type are a waste. A waste of talent and potential for both the victim and criminal. A waste of resources for the justice system. A waste for us all. And I hope pointing this out is simply explaining the obvious.
But something else I've learned is that the best way to attack a negative is to turn it into a positive. So now that I am older ... and presumably wiser ... I have a suggestion. Let's take this negative sentiment of war and turn it around.
One reason hate slogans of any kind work is because they de-humanize. Yet what if we all took the simple step of recognizing people as fellow human beings instead of by race, sex, appearance or sexual orientation, and afforded them the basic dignity and respect everyone deserves? Think of how many problems this would solve!
So let's make a slogan to "Treat Everyone With Dignity and Respect, And Then Let God Decide."
Boy, would I like to see THAT on a T-shirt.

Learn more about this author, Bob Welbaum.
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