LT C. Dorner, USNR
As a Navy officer myself, the tragedy of Christopher Dorner hits me hard every time he’s pictured as an officer of the United States Navy. The happy, intelligent man wearing a huge smile and the uniform of a Navy two-striper had potential for life, both as a naval officer and as a policeman. The evil that brought him down and drove him to destroy his own life and the lives of several other people and families, including murdering at least four human beings, is terrible to think about. It seems clear from reading news reports that as an LAPD officer he was the victim of inexcusable and unforgivable morally criminal racism. His developing hatred and seething rage over that experience in the years since his unjust firing brought him to his final inferno in life, understandable to anyone but a moron. Only the most obtuse of us would expect the outcome to be otherwise when a man is treated so badly and unjustly as part of an evil, racist culture. And it is no wonder to read that he had a cheering section especially among people of color.
- National Defense Service Medal
- Iraq Campaign Medal
- Global War on Terrorism Service Medal
- Sea Service Deployment Medal
- Navy Marine Corps Overseas Service Ribbon
- Armed Forces Reserve Medal w/ “M” Device
- Rifle Marksman Ribbon
- Pistol Expert Medal
There is something wicked about the human way, deep in human nature. It seems to be inherent: when our evil comes back to haunt us in evil returned for evil, we are unable to see our underlying responsibility, and we strike out aggressively and self-righteously, finally marching away victorious and arrogant and having learned nothing. As with Chris Dorner, there were reasons for 9/11, but instead of facing and dealing with the reasons over the past decade, we’ve waged Dorneresque war that has wreaked disaster on a generation of young American families. Not to mention visiting disaster on tens or hundreds of thousands of other human beings across the sea.
Law officers live and work in harm’s way. No one wants them to be hurt or killed, but it’s part of the way life is for them, just as it is for career military people. And so, as a father of beloved daughters, my sadness is that Dorner murdered an enemy’s innocent daughter in his drive for vengeance. If it weren’t for the daughter, I could have cheered for him myself.
Christopher Dorner wasn't insane, he was God's human being driven insane. Terrible to say, but it was time for the swat team to do their work.
As for the evil we do that generates evil, one might wonder if there is a greater accounting in the flames of some afterlife.
Kyrie, eleison.
Commander, U. S. Navy (Retired)