Ben Linder would have been 50 last week....
Every so often, I tell you about cool people who have done cool things. For me, one of the cool people is a fellow named Ben Linder, whose 50th birthday would have been last Tuesday on the 7th. I found his story compelling enough to compose a song about him in 1992, which is on my last album Things Seen & Unseen.
So, as a birthday present to you (with the hope that you always try to make each day new, as Ben did), I offer you my song & a little writeup about Ben that came from my website, with a moving comment by Dan Rather at the time. The song is called “Hey, Ben, Hey.”
Click here to hear the song.
Here’s more:
Hey, Ben, Hey: Ben Linder was killed by American-supplied contras in Nicaragua in 1987 as he was working to finish a hydro-electric project that would bring light to a small village out in the countryside.
Told from the point of view of a kid in the town – Ben was famous for playing with the kids in the village, juggling & riding his unicycle – this song speaks of the kid’s wonder as he saw Ben’s magic, and the darkness that closed out his life at the age of only 27.
My son Shay helped me write this – we were taking a walk when he was five, and he and I had a little ditty going that went something like, “Hey, Shay, hey, turn the lights on/Hey, Shay hey, make the water flow,” because he would run the bath & turn the lights on the wall on & off. I had Ben Linder on my mind because it was the fifth anniversary of his murder, so the song morphed into “Hey, Ben, hey,” with the hope that no more mamas and papas would have to face the kind of terrible crime Ben’s folks did.
Here’s the Wikipedia article about his life, a few notes about his legacy, and a review of the context of what he was doing. Dan Rather courageously stood up to the US government’s report of the murder with this report:
Benjamin Linder was no revolutionary firebrand, spewing rhetoric and itching to carry a rifle through the jungles of Central America. He was a slight, soft-spoken, thoughtful young man. When, at 23, he left the comfort and security of the United States for Nicaragua, he wasn’t exactly sure what he would find… But he wanted to see Nicaragua first-hand, and so he headed off, armed with a new degree in engineering, and the energy and ideals of youth… This wasn’t just another death in a war that has claimed thousands of Nicaraguans. This was an American who was killed with weapons paid for with American tax dollars. The bitter irony of Benjamin Linder’s death is that he went to Nicaragua to build-up what his own country’s dollars paid to destroy – and ended up a victim of the destruction…
The loss of Benjamin Linder is more than fodder in an angry political debate. It is the loss of something that seems rare these days: a man with the courage to put his back behind his beliefs. It would have been very easy for this bright, young man to follow the path to a good job and a comfortable salary. Instead, he chose to follow the lead of his conscience.
Ben knew that the area was dangerous, but, for him, the risks were worthwhile. He wrote, ‘I see the kids and I feel like taking them all away to a safe place to hide until the war stops and the hunger stops and El Cuá becomes strong enough to give them the care they deserve. The pied piper of El Cuá. But I can’t do that, and even if I could it wouldn’t help the neighboring towns. So instead, I try to put in light, and hope for the best.’
Ben (left) working to get the hydro plant going....
