One Second After [94]
"Perhaps he sees things different now," Dan replied. "I know it's not orthodox with some, but I have a hard time not seeing God as forgiving, even after death."
John tried to smile. There were some on campus who were rather traditionally "hard-line" in their views of salvation. Dan had never voiced this view before and it was a comfort, for the memory of that twisted kid's final seconds lingered like a recurring nightmare.
"Washington told me how you reacted and the kids know that, too. Remember, this is a Christian school and the reaction could have been bad if it seemed you were cold-blooded about it. So a lesson was taught there, John, but it's what you said as well that resonated.
"Washington and later Charlie Fuller told me that at that moment we as a community were balanced on a razor. Charlie had made the right decision, but he did not know how to see it carried through correctly.
"You did. At that moment we could have sunk into a mob or, worse, a mob that would then follow a leader, even a leader of good heart like Charlie, but still follow him with bloodlust and thus would start the slide.
"You're the historian; you know that of all the revolutions in history, only a handful have truly succeeded, have kept their soul, their original intent."
Though it struck John as slightly melodramatic, Dan pointed to the portrait of Washington kneeling in the snow.
"I don't think we are in a revolution," John said. "We're trying to survive until such time as some order is restored. Communications up, enough vehicles put back on the road to link us together again as a nation."
"But suppose that never happens," Dan said quietly.
"What?"
"Just that, John. Suppose it never happens. Suppose the old America, so wonderful, the country we so loved, suppose at four fifty P.M. eighteen days ago, it died. It died from complacency, from blindness, from not being willing to face the harsh realities of the world. Died from complacent self-centeredness. Suppose America died that day."
"For heaven's sake, Dan, don't talk like that," John sighed.
"Well, I think it did die, John. I think our enemies caught us with total surprise. We should have seen it. I'm willing to bet there were a hundred reports floating around Congress warning of this, experts who truly did know their stuff screaming that we were wide open. It happens to all nations, all empires in history. Hell, you're the historian; you know that. And at the moment it does happen, no one believes it actually is happening. They can't comprehend how their own greatness can be humbled by another whom they view as being so beneath them, so meaningless, so backwards so as not to be a threat. You know that, John. Nine-eleven, Pearl Harbor, were like fleabites in comparison to this."
"The Mongols hitting Eastern Europe in 1241," John said softly. "The Teutonic Knights, when they first saw the Mongols at the Battle of Leignitz, supposedly laughed hysterically at the sight of their opponents on horses so small they were the size of ponies. Ponies that would be crushed under the first charge of lancers. They lowered their lances, charged, and at a hundred and fifty yards the Mongols decimated them with their compound bows, unheard of in Europe, each bolt hitting at fifty yards with the kinetic energy of a .38. Thirty thousand Mongols annihilated tens of thousands of Europe's finest that day."
Dan nodded.
"The French knights at Crecy mocking the English longbowmen. The British mocking us at Monmouth and Cowpens. The Germans disdainful of the Russians in 1941," John said.
"And us in Vietnam," Dan said quietly, "though that was not a war for our national survival, but it certainly was for them. I remember going over there filled with a bunch of crap about how we were going to walk all over the gooks. Well, I've not walked right since.
"Nation makers out there, John. Some of our profs might think I've sold this college to the community, but the hell with them. I know a college nearby, one that put out a lot of majors in peace studies, and if there