Killing the boys with the luggage

The incident in London on Wednesday is horrifying for so many reasons. You know—two men (one a Muslim convert) attacked a young man outside Woolwich Barracks with knives and cleavers (maybe a machete), hacking him to death before anyone could stop them. Some stories say the victim was beheaded.

Then they lounged around making statements to witnesses with video cameras. Bloody hands, bloody knives, bloody minds.

Police responded to 999 calls, but they had to wait for Armed Response Units (ARUs) before they could take down the alleged murderers. British police do not carry firearms.

Today the Ministry of Defence (MOD) released the name of the victim—Drummer Lee Rigby, 25, serving in the 2^nd Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. He leaves behind a wife and a two-year-old son.

Rigby was 25, and allegedly targeted because he was wearing a tee-shirt for the charity Help for Heroes, which raises funds to mitigate the circumstances of military men and women wounded in the line of duty.

He was 25. 

When I saw that, I was reminded of the scene in Henry V, as the soldiers discover the slaughtered boys who’d been sent to the rear of the battle, with the baggage. Fluellen cries, “Kill the boys and the luggage! 'Tis expressly against the law of arms. ‘Tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offert, in your conscience now, is it not?”

Oh, indeed it is—like hacking to death a lad in a tee-shirt.

I look at that face and I weep.