Nazis, Confederates, and the Redemptive Power of Shame
In the early 1980s, my father, who was a career U.S. military officer, was stationed at the Royal School of Military Engineering in Chattenden Kent, located in the rural south of England. During those two years of discovery and new experiences abroad, my family lived in a small British military community surrounded by picturesque villages-a far cry from the more insular US Army bases where military families in Europe were typically posted. Officers from around the world, like my father, came to Chattenden to teach engineering to British troops and apparently drink and raucously party together like it was New Year's Eve year round. One of those military officers was from West Germany-I forget his name after so many years-but he had a sweet, introverted son named Marcus, whom I befriended. One afternoon Marcus came home from his first week in British middle school upset and confused. His classmates had harassed him nonstop, calling him a Nazi and goose stepping and shouting, &