Brian Willson, Protester Injured by Train

“Brian Willson gave his legs to stop the war,” says Robert LaSalle, a Catholic theologian and fellow protester. I do not doubt it. Neither Willson’s nor the locomotive engineers’ acts were in any way accidental or unintentional; both knew that what did happen would happen unless Willson chose to save himself.

But the question remains: Why was Willson’s dreadful act necessary? Why the paradoxical need for someone to kill or mutilate himself in order to call attention to the murder and mutilation of others? Hasn’t enough blood been spilled already and don’t the many murders and outrages of Central America speak for themselves?

Why do we “identify” with one American who injures himself but not with the thousands of innocent Nicaraguans and Salvadorans who are murdered and maimed by our agents, the contras and the Salvadoran military? Is it because these victims are too far off, too poor, too foreign? And if this is so, wasn’t Willson’s self-sacrifice the act, not of a desperate or unbalanced man, but that of a sober realist who knew that nothing short of such an act could waken our dull imaginations?

But I find myself--and I’m sure others find themselves--torn between awe and dismay at Willson’s deed; awed by courage so far beyond ones’ own, dismayed by the pessimistic premises of his act.

In any case, those of us who are not utterly bereft of imagination, who have still some sense and sensibility, fervently hope that Willson’s sacrifice will not be in vain and will never have to be repeated.

EDWIN B. RIDEOUT

Santa Cruz