The Soil Soldiers

The Soil Soldiers

By Troy Bishopp

Every time I hear Toby Keith’s song, American Soldier and hear the beginning lyrics:

“I'm just trying to be a father, raise a daughter and a son, be a lover to their mother, everything to everyone.  Up and at 'em bright and early, I'm all business in my suit.  I don't do it for the money, there's bills that I can't pay, I don't do it for the glory, I just do it anyway.  Providing for our futures, my responsibility, yeah I'm real good under pressure, being all that I can be.  And I can't call in sick on Mondays when the weekend's been too strong, I just work straight through the holidays, and sometimes all night long.  I will always do my duty, no matter what the price, I've counted up the cost, I know the sacrifice.”

 And then onto the ending stanza, “I’m an American Soldier, an American.”  At this point I usually belt out, “I’m an American Farmer, an American.”  It’s rather brazen to expound on these words, but I have the freedom, provided by our service men and women to express my vocal chords however painful that might be for bystanders.

This 2010 Memorial Day prose is in memory of a different kind of soldier---A Soil Soldier.

Look at a farmer’s hands or better yet look into the eyes and you will see the reality of agriculture.  My friend Brian Moyer’s hands trembled and his eyes reddened as he told me one of our own had taken his own life and that of his cows.  It didn’t matter who, why, or where, it was a tragedy of epic proportion.  A heavy feeling of remorse, confusion, understanding and then pure anger filled my heart. 

Wendell Berry’s quote, “If you’ve lost the capacity to be outraged by the outrageous, you’re dead,” played over and over in my head. 

How the heck could a dairy farmer, like Dean Pierson, in the land of plenty, think he had no other options?  What was the breaking point?  Was it financial, emotional or the consumption of guilt that his work ethic and service to feed this nation was not enough or appreciated?  "Dean grew up being taught if you got up at 5am, took good care of your cows and worked hard, you'd be successful.  I tried to tell Dean it was not his fault that he wasn't succeeding, it was just the economics of dairy farming," said Dr. George Beneke, a Copake veterinarian for 41 years, who has cared for two generations of Pierson's prized Holsteins.

 Don’t worry, everyone has an opinion about his mindset.  One only has to go to the Huffington Post and read the 1000 comments.  Some think he was evil for killing the cows and deserved to die for contributing to animal agriculture, some said he must have been a poor farmer, while others showed compassion to the plight of his family’s hard life and still others blamed the industrial/ corporate/ political complex of the cheap food policy.  My opinion is until you’ve walked in the daily toils of a farmer it would be difficult to speculate what actually precipitated the gunshots heard throughout America.

 I have lamented for months on what this tragic loss means to me, struggling in the past when the auctioneer’s gavel sold my sweat equity and dairy cows away to other farms.  As I walked through my empty barn, I felt like I let everyone down, from my family, to the community and my farming brethren.  I can hear my dad say, “It’s not your fault, it’s just the economics of dairy farming.”  I have asked myself countless times, why should I continue to feed and bleed for an economy that cares so little for its soil soldiers?

I found my answer and comfort, in of all places, the Antietam National Cemetery at sunrise, as the light framed the “Private Soldier” memorial.  There, I knelt down amongst the brave who sacrificed their lives for their beliefs and wept profusely as I read the inscription:  “"Not for themselves, but for their country."  No amount of words can describe the revelation and feeling I received from this silent monument.  It’s like I was called to duty by God to be vindicated from my pain.  And yet in that moment, I realized my strength within was because of my family, my friends and these courageous soldiers.  How blessed am I to have such support.

As I read the iron tablets inscribed with "Bivouacs of the Dead" poems, this one garnered my tears:  “Rest on embalmed and sainted dead; Dear as the blood ye gave; No impious footstep here shall tread; The herbage of your grave.”  I left the hallowed ground, humbled and with a clear head, vision and passion to never allow my farming blood to be shed in vain over a cheap food policy.

The courage to mourn for a farmer that shocked a country by his own bullets could be construed as disrespectful I suppose.  I believe Mr. Pierson was crying out for help but no one heard his voice as it was muffled by pride and work ethic.  I feel remorse because I didn’t work or fight hard enough on his behalf, and many other farmers, to rectify the injustices that plague our unforgiving food system which treats its soil soldiers with commodity-like respect.

When this country remembers its fallen heroes with flags, words and the sound of taps, please pray for the John Deere procession that carried Mother Nature’s soldier back to the earth he helped nurture.  “I will always do my duty, no matter what the price, I've counted up the cost, I know the sacrifice.”