Overseas Briefing

Author: Edward Pickering

September 11, 2003, marks the day I lost interest in the ongoing war.

The previous evening I had stepped aboard a plane bound for Scotland. Somewhere above the Atlantic, in the stuffy confines of an IcelandAir jet, my awareness of world affairs quietly stole away. Before me stretched a semester of personal adventure. Beside me was a close friend, whispering obscene jokes about the Icelandic language. The realization that I have not mentioned international affairs in the intervening month came as a mild surprise, but not a shock. Political involvement thrives at Middlebury, whereas students here do not really go in for it.

The change - from an atmosphere of political ardor to one of relative indifference - is as invigorating as a bracing North Sea wind. No longer do I hear those haggard, yet inescapable phrases "foster debate," "promote discussion," and the like. Britain plays deputy to America's captaincy in the current Iraq war, leading one to presume a level of political involvement on British campuses.

Conspicuously absent from this campus, though, is the very activism that two years at Middlebury has led me to expect from a college environment. But maybe, you say, the political groups aren't as "visible," as "publicized" here as they are at Middlebury. A valid point, but then again, I have taken a vacation from such words. My operative vocabulary no longer includes "exposure" and "visibility," no longer do I encounter them daily on posters and in articles. Consumed by my own pursuits, reclused from world developments, I feel odd when I see the occasional article on Iraq or overhear the rare dialogue. Odd, I guess, because I feel I ought to be interested, but I'm simply not.

Clay pigeons, for those who might not know, are small clay discs that simulate the flight of startled bird. Catapulted from improbable angles, they fly serenely or violently, depending on the stand. Shooting them out of air is both a sport in itself and practice for the real thing. As a member of the Clay Club, I spend whole afternoons with shotgun shells in my pocket and a mild anticipation of the next shot running through my frame.

At some point, often the highest point in the disc's trajectory, time lapses, momentarily relaxes. Too much debate, too many spoken words, hands gesticulating valid points, emboldened posters - too much of that and one loses sight, so to speak, of one's own personal aim.

I am never so well informed as I am when I'm at Middlebury, but I am also never so distracted, pulled in opposing directions, confused as to my own allegiances. Resentment and hostility burn slowly in the Middle East and I, as insulated as I've ever been from news of the war, have embarked on the most violent chapter in my life: on Wednesday and Saturday, Clay Club; on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday, boxing team. No political epiphany, no asseveration of allegiance, shall come of my experience here. Of that I'm sure. But I'm hoping that time away from the turmoil, from the activism and involvement and words and writing, will permit me space to consider and reconsider past propositions and future probabilities: When does one retract support for a war that is still ongoing, still undecided?

A war one supported and thereby helped bring about. Freed from distractions, pacified, I spend my time far from the political realm- practicing on insensate clay pigeons.