A Catholic Boy with a Jewish Name and Muslim Cap

Look at the picture. What do you see? More to the point, what do you notice first? What catches your eye? How do you react?

I have sent a copy of this photo to probably one hundred people already, and I have received a variety of responses. Most of the recipients already know the identity of the child in the picture. They remark on the radiance of the boy’s smile or on the joy in his eyes. One woman remarked, “I like the irony of the freedom in his eyes and the plastic thing on the doorknob!!!”

What people have told me about the picture perhaps has less to do with the image than it does with what is within themselves. Maybe they project whatever is truly important to them on to portrait of the little boy. Maybe he is like a mirror for them. Perhaps some of them don’t really see the lad at all.

A young man who is originally from Syria wrote to me, “He looks amazing with cap. Many Muslims wear kind of the same cap.”

That’s what I thought too. I looked at the boy, and I immediately thought to myself, “He looks just like one of the kids from Gaza.”

He does. The little man could easily be one of the children currently being traumatized in the war. The difference is that this boy is smiling. The children in the pictures from Gaza generally are not smiling.

What a difference the golden cap makes! Like magic, it draws our attention, and it causes us to put the kid into a mental pigeonhole. His image conjures up certain emotions. The cap encourages us to judge the boy, without ever having met him.

The truth is that I know this young man. I know him very well. He’s my three-year-old grandson, Asher. He’s Catholic boy with a Jewish name and Muslim cap. He’s more than that, much more. Asher is smart and strong and a trickster. He is loving and passionate and headstrong. No photo can ever capture who he truly is.

Likewise, no picture or video on the news can do justice to the children in Gaza. In a matter of seconds, we make snap decisions about who they are and if we should give a damn about them. We should take a bit more time.

We don’t know them. 

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Frank (Francis) Pauc is a graduate of West Point, Class of 1980. He completed the Military Intelligence Basic Course at Fort Huachuca and then went to Flight School at Fort Rucker. Frank was stationed with the 3rd Armor Division in West Germany at Fliegerhorst Airfield from December 1981 to January 1985. He flew Hueys and Black Hawks and was next assigned to the 7th Infantry Division at Fort Ord, CA. He got the hell out of the Army in August 1986.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.