And War was Good again (SSKC excerpt 3)

It’s no wonder that the 6 acre brownstone and brick armory two blocks up from my place, with it’s eight great round turrets, one of which soars dominantly over its peers, and cornerstones the size of coffins on Bedford would resemble a castle. It’s between Atlantic and Pacific streets; in the microcosm of Kings County, I guess that would mean the armory represented the pride of the nation, from sea to shining sea. It was the 1890s, and after a bitter reconstruction, a country searching for its soul for nearly thirty years after losing it in the bowels of hell, America was finding its pride once more.

We had found a new enemy, and praise the good Christian Lord, it wasn‘t us. The greedy, licentious, Spaniards; the Grand Conquistador of 400 years past was now feebly clinging to it’s handful of sad little colonies, island scraps in the South Pacific and scattered here and there in their in the Old New World. A tarnished bronze gauntlet that clutched the peasant colony of Cuba like a vice, while the gold that kept the grip firm grew thin. The Cubans were being forced into concentration camps, mass evacuations and atrocities up and down the coasts.

Those Spanish bastards. This was the Western Hemisphere, our Hemisphere. The United States, still limping and sore was beginning to stand tall once again, taller than it had before. By simple precedent the United States had no just claim on the island. But isn't it true thaat precedents are made, not born? Was it not time for the most civilized nation in the world to assert its presence? Was it not time for An American Empire?

Providence itself had propelled us Westward, teaching the savage Indians of the land the ways of our Lord by any means necessary, and the winds of change now pointed us South through the gates of the justly won Alamo and into the mouth of the Gulf. The beacon that led the way was a ship that burst into flames and sunk nobly into the sea, taking 266 American Boys to the depths with it.

The Spanish had done it. The proof was inconclusive, the evidence contradictory and full of holes, but good God man, for the sake of American patriotism it had to be irrefutable. There was confusion, had the Spanish Navy sunk the Maine? Or was it the Cuban rebels? What did it matter? Hearst bellowed in his Herald paper. What did that matter, if the Spanish could control their harbor, good American boys wouldn’t have gone down, it was our imperative to make change now! By all logic, it had to be true. How and why would we go down there like good Christian soldiers of fortune and freedom if the Spanish hadn’t sunk the U.S.S. Maine?

The evidence was softer than clay, but the fires of battle made it harder than obsidian stone.

It was the dusk of a dark century. A dawn of a new one.

And War was Good again.

It’s a robust, hearty castle, red as the Earth of Adam evocative of the barrel-chested men who ruled the day, McKinley, who had sent the men down into war once claimed that he prayed on his knees to the Good Lord in the middle of the Oval Office for guidance on what to do. That God himself pointed him toward the right way, toward the musket and the bayonette, for the sake of the Cuban people who needed good American liberation.

Coward. The brutish Under-Secretary of the Navy left praying to the women and children, picked up a rifle and bullied his superiors into lead his own squad of wild men up San Juan Hill.

Teddy was his name, a real man of good, rich Dutch-American Stock. a Boy of top breeding who rose as high as the highest rung of New York respectable families. He and his Rough Riders knew that on the battlefield, it is the sword of the Archangel that will guide you to victory, not some vague finger pointed by an absent and ominous God.

They were America’s First Volunteer Cavalry. The Weary Walkers of Colonel Leonard Wood, who found themselves acting as infantry, one of the only three units to see any real action. Roosevelt resigned his Cabinet position to follow Wood into battle, taking with him a mosaic of America’s finest, bravest and most proud, from the Montana Ranch Hand to the Harvard Polo Player, from the Indian Scouts of the Pawnee Tribe to Gunslinger Cowboys of the Dakota Badlands, local town sherrifs and nomadic highway bandits. Even officers who served under Police Commissioner Roosevelt followed their Warrior Prince to the barracks of Texas and Florida where they trained like Spartans during the day and tossed, turned, sweated and burned at night as they dreamed of their Dawn at the Hot Gates of Thermopole.

The first generation of free American Negros lead that charge up San Juan Hill, but being free Negroes, got the complete lack of credit that the White Men of America waned. Returning home victorious, they were lost in the shadow of praise for Theodore. They quietly and proudly renamed their Manhattan West Side haven after the site of their bloody conquest.

And Commander and Chief of these Obsidian Buffalo Soldiers was the pale, sickly moon-faced McKinley? A sad, dismal answer to the call for an Emperor. How could a man lead an empire if he can’t take a bullet to the chest, get back up and finish the job? The bullet of a workingman no less, one of the millions broken by the ruthlessness of American industry brought down a President at a train station outside of Buffalo. Now The American Empire needed a Bear to wield its big stick. A Rough Rider, a warrior and civic principal of pure American blood. And when the call came up the rural Adirondack mountain, where the warrior prince lay in waiting, Gotham’s favorite son Theodore was ready to answer. Hell he held the lantern like two stone tablets when he came down that mountain in the pouring, weeping rain.

Eight years later, TR was the fourth man to take the lead-slug test of the late 19th century President. He claimed the The Ghost of McKinley himself compelled the Milwaukee saloon keeper John Schrank to put a bullet through this President's chest. It punctured his glasses case and ribcage, but more importantly ripped a hole through the speech he proceeded to read for the next ninety minutes before sauntering through the doors of the closest hospital.

Ten years later, he died of a broken heart. Weeping for his son who was shot down from the skies over the trenches of The Great War.

In America, being A Man would never mean the same thing again

* * * *

The Armory stands like a fortress, a castle to the might of the American Military. If it only had a moat, it could suit the very court of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. After the return from victory in the seas near and far, the Armory was used for sporting events, keeping young men fit and competitive, when there was no grand overseas victory to claim from the bloodied hands of an adversary.

In 1981 it became a men’s homeless shelter. Scores of broken toy solders now huddled in and around the relic in hoodies, caps, faded jeans and cigarette smoke seeking guidance, hope, and just little scratch to score a hot cup of coffee, a meal or a little something to help them forget. Now at the grand armory, it’s just lost boys; each fighting their own small, sad little wars.

I really had to haul ass up Bedford now. It was almost 6.