by Stewart Rowlands

My father knew war, first hand, in Vietnam. I was four. To me Vietnam was this place a long way away where my daddy was doing something, fighting bad guys I figured, so that mommy and I could buy groceries and eat breakfast and go to the movies.

My parents, both still alive, live in Riverside. They've spent the past few weeks as volunteers helping with the embarkation of soldiers from March AFB. I donated my least precious novels, a dozen science fiction and one soft porn by Anne Rampling (Rice), so that the soldiers would have something escapist to read on their journey.

My brother knew war, first hand, in Saudi Arabia in 1991. I was 26. He fought to protect our country from a nation, and a leader, that he felt was dangerous to me, to his family, to his nation.

I know nothing about war.

I know anger and fear when some out-of-town punks attack a neighbor and try to pull her into their car. But I didn't know that fight. My neighbor did. She fought her way out. I showed up after they'd run.

I know drunken arguments that lead to sirens and handcuffs and overnight stays in jail. But those are the fights of others. I listen from my apartment.

I don't know jail and I've never known handcuffs.

And I don't know war.

I live in Hermosa Beach — Sanctuary. I go to Starbuck's and sit outside and talk about cars and women and local bars and the new color scheme inside that's nice once you get used to it.

Last Wednesday, five days before President Bush gave his ultimatum, but close enough to smell the freshly forged hammer and to feel its weight and to know almost definitively that war is coming, I booked 12 weeks with a Spanish school. In Spain. My flight, for which I've paid, leaves April 19. My return flight is July 17.

There will be a war.

I'm leaving my friends. I'm leaving my parents. I'm leaving my apartment from which I can hear the surf fall against the sand. I'm leaving the Sanctuary for Spain where 14 percent of the people support the U.S. Which means 86 percent don't.

I ask myself why.

For the past three years I've taken Hermosa Beach for granted. Without a word or even a thought, I let the city council vote to breach a contract that would, in its only miniscule way, help to alleviate our nation's dependence on foreign oil. I stopped running on the sand because my toes got blistered. I stopped body surfing because I got an ear infection. I stopped walking to Manhattan for a slice of pizza and a coke. I even stopped playing anagrams with my 84 year old friend and her 18 year old lab.

I stopped enjoying Sanctuary. I even forgot that it was.

But the prospects of leaving create physiological changes. The eyes that once passed over fresh paint and new window shades and that saw only roadwork and view-blocking behemoths, now see sidewalk cafes teeming with smiling people and waves with mist blowing from their crests and dolphins of course and blue water and the orange sunset sky. Skin feels the salt and sand again and 70 degree air that refreshes but doesn't chill. Ears hear not only the cars that accelerate up the hill beside my house, but also the chatter of joggers and skateboards scraping along curbs and repeats of "dude" and laughs and music and happiness.

The senses notice life in Sanctuary. Comfort.

For the first time in my life I am going to a place where I expect, even though Spain is our ally, to be disliked simply because I am part of a group. I'm sure I've been arbitrarily disliked before, for my race or car or job or university.

However, in four and a half weeks, I will fly to Spain for three months. I am an American, a blonde, blue-eyed American. No longer as unobtrusive as the sand, I will have a heavy accent and fair, obvious features.

I am not flying into war, I am flying towards it. Instead I am flying into antipathy. I will stand I will stand among growing antipathy towards those bearing my passport.

And I look forward to it.

I look forward to the whispers and the jeers and perhaps a wad of spit or two directed my way. The potential for conflict, relatively safe conflict, spit-level conflict, excites me.

It's nothing, I know.

Eighteen year old men are in Kuwait, ready to die so that I can live in the United States, so that I can walk along the strand at sunset, eat pancakes at Uncle Bill's or get a slice of Pizza or play anagrams on a bench. So that I can fly.

They believe in their country, and even if they doubt, they do their jobs. They wear gas masks and boots and M-16s. They follow orders. They fight. And they worry that any day, at any moment, they may face death. They are soldiers.

They will know war.

I will know Spain.

And I will miss Sanctuary.

(Stewart Rowlands is a Hermosa Beach writer. His website is www.seliot.com. This was posted March 19, 2003)

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