'Suffer the Little Children'

This is the 200^thCivic Duty column I've written and it is heartbreakingly apropos that it is about the 1,400 children who are to be interned at Fort Sill in Oklahoma.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus said, “Suffer little children to come unto me” although over time it has become “Suffer thelittle children to come unto me,” although it matters little. 

What matters is that little children are the lifeblood of the future and the government of the United States of America has seen fit to cruelly and wantonly separate thousands of immigrant children from their parents and families and imprison them at far distant and inaccessible hell-holes like Fort Sill.

Significantly, Fort Sill was used during World War Two to intern some of the hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans who were basically locked up during the entire war. This was another stain on the American flag that has since been admitted and apologized for by subsequent American administrations. Franklin Roosevelt was a great president, but that was certainly not one of his greatest moments. Still, there was a World War going on and America was reeling from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The internment was at best misguided and at worst a betrayal of our democratic principles. It was also a statement of our inherent white-skin racism. 

There is no war going on today despite the Trump administration's feverish gibberish about caravans of migrants bent on breaching our borders and plunging America into chaos and disorder. There is no justifiable excuse for this evil kidnapping and imprisonment of the little children that Jesus Christ himself said to “suffer” – and to love. 

Added to this disgrace is the fact that Fort Sill is also the home of the U.S. Army Field Artillery School. When I was in the Army, the dudes that had been at Sill remembered one thing above all else: the incessant and excruciating pounding of heavy field artillery, day and night. These children will be in a prison constantly bombarded with ear-splitting detonations. If they didn't have post-traumatic stress disorder before they get to Sill, they will surely develop it. This is cruelty beyond measure.

Cruelty is the hallmark of Donald Trump and all that he touches. And it is contagious. The casual admission by administration officials that they basically have no idea what has become of thousands of separated children would be cause for a national uproar if the nation was not already punch-drunk from the endless stream of evil and cruelty that flows from the White House like an open sewer. 

In the meantime, Trump's own grown children gad about the world spreading his sacrilegious gospel to all who will listen – which is unfortunately too many. 

Their time might be better spent taking their many offspring on a field trip to Fort Sill and maybe even spending a night there – without earplugs.

Christ said to suffer the little children – not to make them suffer.