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When I dodged the draft during the Vietnam war, I went through a lot of difficulty as a result of that decision - as did a lot of other people, no matter what road had been selected. After I got my doctorate and started teaching full-time, I began restricting myself pretty much to the requirements of my job and spending time with friends.

I seemed to feel I already had done my quota of suffering and sacrifice for humanity. Time to get on with life and leave the sacrifices to others.

Ironically, on the basis of conversations I have had with a number of Vietnam vets, I suspect there were more than a few who returned from that war with the same sort of attitude as I, the draft-dodger, had. They had done their duty as they understood it. They had sacrificed and suffered as a result of fulfilling such duties.

Now, according to the logic of the attitude in question, one had a right to focus on one's personal life. Furthermore, like me, many of them began to go through life with blinkers on concerning the need for making more sacrifices for the sake of others.

A lot of people, on both sides of the matter of Vietnam, left the issue of acting on principles behind in the 1960s and 1970s. Many of us seemed to be working on the quota system and believed, apparently, we had satisfied our life's assignment in one flurry of activity in relation to the war.

Yet, if I were to say no to Beth, how would I reconcile this response with my actions during the Vietnam war? Did my foray into being a caring human being end there? Was I no longer prepared to take risks for the sake of principle?

Beth's feeling of shame on my behalf was another issue that was posing considerable difficulty for me.

According to Beth, I, along with tens of million of other non-Natives, had permitted our institutions to destroy the lives of many generations of Natives, and we had done nothing to stop it.

In one way, her sense of shame on my behalf seemed a little presumptuous. How could any one individual possibly know everything that different social institutions were doing which was wrong, unjust, illegal or questionable?

On the other hand, the German people were reported to have said words to the effect of: 'We didn't know what was happening with the six million Jews and three million others who were being factored into the final solution'. There were many people in North America who did not accept their explanation.

Therefore, why should Native peoples be prepared to accept from non-Natives a similar rationalization for our inactivity on their behalf? How is the logic of the situation different between World War II Germany and 20th century North America?

How many facts about the abuses and injustices being done to Native peoples did we let slip through our minds during the course of our lives? How many movies, newspaper items, magazine articles, books, television programs, documentaries and personal experiences concerning Native peoples did we file away, never to be explored, reflected on, questioned or acted upon?

After getting out of a movie about cowboys and Indians, how many non-Natives asked: Gee, I wonder what's happening with those Indians nowadays? Are they O.K.? Are they happy? What's been going on in their lives during the last several hundred years or so? I know I didn't ask these questions.

The world of Native Americans began and ended, for the most part, with movie and television westerns. Exceptions to this rule, such as: the Jim Thorpe story, or the life of Olympic runner Billy Mills, or the life of Ira Hayes, tended to be seen as isolated cases involving interesting individuals. Consequently, the Native theme played as little more than backdrop scenery to the movie's primary treatment of, and focus on, individuals.

So much of what we do is steeped in denial. We see evidence all around us concerning so many injustices, yet, for the most part, we do little or nothing.

We are trained from a very early age to become initiated into a hypocritical dualism. On the one hand, we are taught to hold, in high esteem, ideals of compassion, commitment, charitableness, justice and truth. On the other hand, we are discouraged, in so many ways, from acting on these ideals.

There are a whole set of penalties and punishments that are ready to be administered by families, friends, teachers, employers and various authorities. All one has to do to be a recipient of this largesse is to point out the inconsistencies in our social institutions between what is professed to be right, or true, or just or good, and what are the standard operating procedures for our culture and institutions.

These penalties, or the threat of them, are so prevalent during the socialization or development process that most of us are terrorized into not only accepting this dichotomy, but to serving in an evangelical capacity for the spreading of this gospel. Some people see the hypocrisy, but feel isolated and unable to carry the battle by themselves.

Only a very few brave or foolhardy souls speak out against the dualism, and even fewer have the courage to act against it. In one way or another, both of these categories of individuals end up getting buried.

More often than not, the people who are buried in this fashion by an earlier generation are the individuals who are written up for the next generation as the sort of visionaries the young people should seek to emulate. Pity the ones who take the gambit seriously.

If I accepted Beth's challenge, I was not naive enough to suppose there might not be a chance, maybe even a very good chance, for some sort of potentially unpleasant ramifications to arise from such a decision. Even the simple events of life had an annoying tendency of cascading out of control before one's eyes.

Just going to talk with Brian seemed, on the surface, simple enough. However, I wasn't forgetting about the symbolism of the owl in Beth's vision. I might not be a believer in Beth's spiritual path, but I had been through too much in my life to ignore the fact that trouble loves to eat the unprepared mind and heart for brunch.

In the end, there were four reasons why I finally decided to try to help Beth Idaho. First, my post-Vietnam quiescence had gone on long enough.

Secondly, I realized that an offer of assistance from me really did nothing to redress all the past wrongs inflicted on Native people. Nonetheless, I felt the time had come, for me at least, to begin to struggle, through the means available to me, against the perpetuation of those wrongs into the future.

Trying to help Beth, didn't necessarily mean I believed Brian was innocent of murder. Beth was the one who had come to me for help, not Brian. Going to see Brian was the expression of my willingness to try to help her.

The third reason for offering to help revolved around Brian himself. I wanted to meet him and try to get a sense of the man and whether or not I felt he was guilty of the crime for which he had been convicted.

No matter how my evaluation turned out, I wasn't really clear about what I would do with the outcome of such an informal assessment. On the other hand, if nothing else, talking with Brian might turn up something of practical value that could be used to help either Beth or Brian or both of them.

Finally, there had been a stale, somewhat emotionally toxic cloud which had been hovering over my life for the last few years. I was going to take Beth's advice and leave a little opening for the unexpected to enter into my life and, then, do my best to listen with my heart and soul to whatever came my way, and not just with my mind and usual biases. Maybe this change would help the cloud dissipate.

All of my reasons for embarking on the trip to see Brian were quite legitimate as far as they went. What I failed to understand is that I had booked passage for one destination, but the boat was sailing to another port-of-call.

I phoned Beth and told her of my decision. I requested that she not become overly optimistic in her expectations concerning what might be accomplished in my meeting with Brian.

Beth's response to my request managed to be both cryptic and annoying. She said: "The man in my vision will find a way to do what is indicated, or what is indicated will find a way for that man."

The response was cryptic because I had no idea what she was talking about or why she would say what she did. The response was annoying because she was operating out of her own world view and seemed to feel I ought to be governed by its logic as well.

I asked her the name and address of the facility where Brian was incarcerated and told her I was planning to take the trip early in the next week. I said I would contact her upon my return, probably toward the end of that same week.

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