At the YKos Sunday morning service, Pastordan encouraged us to reach for the spark or soul within our adversaries, and engage with them. Shortly after the service, I had an opportunity to practice what he preached, and I failed.
During the Sunday Blogger's Brunch, Sergeant Aguina sat next to me at my table. And I did not engage.
At this time, I only knew him as the "military guy" that had been disrupting the event. He pulled out his laptop, manual, and several news articles, as if preparing for a confrontation. We were sitting close to the stage, so he could have made quite a scene. However, he was also quiet and polite.
It is really a dirty trick to put "My brunch with Sergeant Aguina" in the title, because that implies that I had a conversation with him. I did not. The extent of my interaction with him was getting him to lift the leg of his chair off my backpack strap (because I thought if things got ugly I may have to grab my backpack and get out of there). I responded to his presence as if he were an IED that could go off at any moment.
My wife, Unstable Isotope, left the table to point out his presence to organizers. Gina Cooper came over and had a very long discussion with the sergeant. I tried not to eavesdrop, but the impression I got was that he was polite, but sincere. I spoke with her briefly afterwards, and she said that he was deeply concerned for the wellbeing of people in Iraq.
Gina Cooper did what I did not...engage. Pastordan would have been proud of her.
In retrospect, letting Gina handle the situation was probably best. But the fact remains that I was unwilling to so much as say "hi" to this person because I thought they may be a nut.
For everyone that's said derogatory things about this sergeant, think about people such as David Brock. Imagine how hard it would have been to be civil to him back when he was a Republican hack. Now, he's one of the most vocal critics of the Right. If someone as disagreeable as Brock wasn't "beyond redemption", surely Sergeant Aguina deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Also think about other people that stood up for their beliefs when they weren't "appropriate" or even legal, from Rosa Parks to Mike Stark. We may not like someone crashing our party and disrupting it, but haven't we encouraged such behavior in the past when the disruptor was someone we agreed with? We may disagree on the Surge, but my understanding is that Sergeant Aguina ultimately wants the same thing we all want: peace, stability and safety in Iraq.
Sergeant Aguina said that the YKos attendees were all good people. My impression is that Sergeant Aguina is a good person. I hope that, as a community, we may yet follow Pastordan's advice and be quicker to engage and slower to dismiss.