Fortress America
Sept. 26
One week later. Past the check points. The random searches. Armed guards. Where getting out of the country is like getting into it. I'm in Little America, Kaiserslautern, Germany - the self-proclaimed largest concentration of Americans outside of America: 50,000 people strong - and I'm thinking that I guess it looks American, or like America, but not like you would think.
Been to Little Italy.
Been to China Town.
Little Havana.
I heard there was a Little Tokyo in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Most of the Little Anythings really are in America, though.
Not in a place like this.
It's a cool September day and it feels cooler, like October, because it's Germany and Germany is colder, even though the sun shines bright and clear, and the wind is blowing and the trees of the endless forests surrounding Little America are already changing colors and their leaves are being plucked and flung away in the breeze and I think that I guess it feels like America, but not really because I would really expect some college football game to be going on right now, in this perfect fall weather, and tailgating too. But Germany doesn't know what football is. Or tailgating.
This is Little America. The lite version. It has a certain ring.
America invented the Little City of culture. But the fact that it's created it's own Little Self in the Middle of Nowhere...baffles me.
Doesn't quite feel American because any Little Place should be in America, I think.
The security is here, though. Always the security. America can't even trust it's own populations. I hear in Japan the crime rate of young people is next to nothing. In America Americans are the enemy.
Since 2001, security has become America's culture.
"Little Fortress America" has a better ring, I think as I watch as a German truck is denied entrance into the base and waved away from the front gate.
All of a sudden the road opens up, a sheet of concrete rises out of nowhere to block the truck from going any further: the median slides into the ground and a new road is created. Military Police with Beretta's and M-16's wave the driver out of America, back into the rest of the world. The funny thing is as they wave him out they wave in countless other cars, not checking a single one of them for guns, bombs, missiles, fire crackers, Chinese rockets, Roman candles, daggers, etc.
Odd, I think, if that's what safe means in Fortress America, not being "American".
I'm pushing the clicker on the top of a pen frantically because I'm waiting and I'm nervous and I'm bored and I'm thinking about my future and thinking about people entwined with my future.
I'm standing outside the gate to Little America.
The MP's see me, approach me - guns shown - ask me why I keep clicking the pen, ask me what I've written on my hand, ask me if I speak English, of course after they ask me everything else. Everyone speaks English.
"What does 'flowers' mean?" The bigger, uglier one says.
I had written it on my hand as a reminder.
"What do you mean what are flowers?"
"Is that a code word?"
"For...what....?"
He calls in backup and the German police and more MP's come and I'm surrounded and as they surround me I mouth "fuck" because you don't fuck with America, because America is trigger happy and nervous and doesn't care if they put a bullet in your head...even if you happen to be American.
"I'm American," I say.
Who cares anymore. Maybe some backward, Dark Age, cave-dwelling fundamentalist in Arabia. But they'd kill me, too.
The American MP standing next to the German tells me to stand on the curb, six feet away, for my own protection. Shows his sidearm to make sure no one's laughing, and I'm thinking this is all a joke. He asks for I.D., I ask how I'm supposed to show him if I can't hand it to him and he walks over and takes my: passport, student I.D., Kentucky driver's license and military I.D.
All for clicking a pen.
That's how it comes apart. The way it does in bad films. Where all you can do is mouth "fuck"; because this is Fortress America, where the sun doesn't set on the battlements from Japan and Korea, to Germany and Italy, to New York and California.
Little Fortress America.
The less touristy-version of the American classic.
One week later. Past the check points. The random searches. Armed guards. Where getting out of the country is like getting into it. I'm in Little America, Kaiserslautern, Germany - the self-proclaimed largest concentration of Americans outside of America: 50,000 people strong - and I'm thinking that I guess it looks American, or like America, but not like you would think.
Been to Little Italy.
Been to China Town.
Little Havana.
I heard there was a Little Tokyo in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Most of the Little Anythings really are in America, though.
Not in a place like this.
It's a cool September day and it feels cooler, like October, because it's Germany and Germany is colder, even though the sun shines bright and clear, and the wind is blowing and the trees of the endless forests surrounding Little America are already changing colors and their leaves are being plucked and flung away in the breeze and I think that I guess it feels like America, but not really because I would really expect some college football game to be going on right now, in this perfect fall weather, and tailgating too. But Germany doesn't know what football is. Or tailgating.
This is Little America. The lite version. It has a certain ring.
America invented the Little City of culture. But the fact that it's created it's own Little Self in the Middle of Nowhere...baffles me.
Doesn't quite feel American because any Little Place should be in America, I think.
The security is here, though. Always the security. America can't even trust it's own populations. I hear in Japan the crime rate of young people is next to nothing. In America Americans are the enemy.
Since 2001, security has become America's culture.
"Little Fortress America" has a better ring, I think as I watch as a German truck is denied entrance into the base and waved away from the front gate.
All of a sudden the road opens up, a sheet of concrete rises out of nowhere to block the truck from going any further: the median slides into the ground and a new road is created. Military Police with Beretta's and M-16's wave the driver out of America, back into the rest of the world. The funny thing is as they wave him out they wave in countless other cars, not checking a single one of them for guns, bombs, missiles, fire crackers, Chinese rockets, Roman candles, daggers, etc.
Odd, I think, if that's what safe means in Fortress America, not being "American".
I'm pushing the clicker on the top of a pen frantically because I'm waiting and I'm nervous and I'm bored and I'm thinking about my future and thinking about people entwined with my future.
I'm standing outside the gate to Little America.
The MP's see me, approach me - guns shown - ask me why I keep clicking the pen, ask me what I've written on my hand, ask me if I speak English, of course after they ask me everything else. Everyone speaks English.
"What does 'flowers' mean?" The bigger, uglier one says.
I had written it on my hand as a reminder.
"What do you mean what are flowers?"
"Is that a code word?"
"For...what....?"
He calls in backup and the German police and more MP's come and I'm surrounded and as they surround me I mouth "fuck" because you don't fuck with America, because America is trigger happy and nervous and doesn't care if they put a bullet in your head...even if you happen to be American.
"I'm American," I say.
Who cares anymore. Maybe some backward, Dark Age, cave-dwelling fundamentalist in Arabia. But they'd kill me, too.
The American MP standing next to the German tells me to stand on the curb, six feet away, for my own protection. Shows his sidearm to make sure no one's laughing, and I'm thinking this is all a joke. He asks for I.D., I ask how I'm supposed to show him if I can't hand it to him and he walks over and takes my: passport, student I.D., Kentucky driver's license and military I.D.
All for clicking a pen.
That's how it comes apart. The way it does in bad films. Where all you can do is mouth "fuck"; because this is Fortress America, where the sun doesn't set on the battlements from Japan and Korea, to Germany and Italy, to New York and California.
Little Fortress America.
The less touristy-version of the American classic.
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posted by Chris Miles at 5:36 PM
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