Roberto César

I spent thirty-five years fighting for America. When I came home to retire, I did not recognize it. We've gone soft and lazy. Our esprit de corps has vanished like a coward in a fight.

 

 I wouldn't bother telling you a damn thing about myself if not for that. We're ignorant as to how the world works, how power works. We need to change course and educate ourselves. Maybe what follows will help. We'll see.

 

 Don't be deceived. These are no deathbed confessions, no last-minute, “Oh my God, now I see the light!” good liberal sentiments. I hate melodrama. Besides, it's you who need to wake up to exactly what has taken hold of this once-great country, not me.

 

Faith

By the end of my second winter in Germany I felt like I had a better grasp of what Berto called “the big picture” and this made it easier for me to support his work. I came to understand that my husband was part of the very best America had to offer to the world. The more I understood about these men and their mission, the prouder I felt. The Army did not recruit them. They volunteered.

 

“I would rather die knowing that my children will be safe to live in a free world, than to live in a world where their freedom is threatened.” Berto repeated these words to me so many times that I learned them by heart. After Korea, this was his religion and he never wavered.

Those were dramatic times, difficult times. I learned to see the world through Berto’s eyes.

 

Slowly but surely, I came to understand my role: to nourish, to keep a stable home, to support, to encourage when times got tough, to share the joy and laughter so that the men would always remember what they were fighting for. In Bad Tolz I learned what my life was going to be like with Berto. It would not be an easy life, but it would never be dull. Berto needed me to be a rock at home. And I was, an Army wife.

 

 

Berto Junior

My father was an agent of imperialism. In that capacity he was both a victim and a victimizer. I never outed him. I never gave him up. But it’s fair to say that I’ve spent the last thirty years working for a US foreign policy that is the antithesis of what he so single mindedly devoted himself to.

 

My father was a charmer, a spinner of stories. At some point I stopped believing in him. At some point I stopped believing his stories. How much was true? How much was fabrication?

Most importantly, how much was not revealed? Do you really think, after a third of a century in and around the intelligence community, he would tell you more than he thought you needed to know?

 

I loved my father. I struggled with him and, in the end, I made my peace with him, but I did not sign on to defend him. How can you defend torture? How can you defend assassination and the wholesale destruction of communities? There are circles that cannot be squared. There are actions that cannot be sanitized.