Not many people really know or care who Ben Linder was, today. Ben was a kind and bright young man who studied engineering at the University of Washington from 1979 to 1983. He was a vegan, as well as an amateur clown and juggler. He’d spend his free time entertaining children. It appears that Ben was raised in a household of leftist activists. In Ben’s leftist household his parents made their own leftist/liberal political beliefs part of their children’s upbringing. But, how do we know this?

  Well, we’re told by Jacobin.com and other public sources that, Ben “was steeped in activism from a young age.”  His family was “politically conscious” and as a child young Ben and his siblings were taken to “anti–Vietnam War demonstrations” by his parents who would also make “their living room and spare bedroom available for meetings and traveling activists.” By the way, there is nothing wrong with parents imparting their values unto their kids.

   According to Jacobin.com: “Ben followed in his parents’ footsteps. He became a vegetarian for ethical reasons and was part of a thirty-eight-hour-long sit-in outside Portland’s Trojan nuclear power plant in his final year of high school. Even his decision to study engineering was a product of his political sensibilities: Ben hoped that his skills could be used “for the benefit of the human race, particularly in developing countries. He shunned his classmates’ decisions to put their skills to work doing defense work for firms like Boeing.”

   Are you getting the picture here?

   We’re also told that instead of working as an engineer, for some firm that did defense work, Ben decided to move to Nicaragua, putting his skills as an engineer in service to the impoverished Nicaraguans.  Ben was certainly an idealist. There is little doubt that his motives were altruistic. Yet, Ben’s selfless decision was not without risk.

   At the time of Ben’s decision to relocate to Nicaragua, in the mid 1980s, the United States was engaged in a full-fledged proxy war with the Soviet Union and its allies, in Latin America. Nicaragua was ruled by a brutally repressive Communist regime- free press shut down, imprisonment of political foes, free speech stiffed, etc. The Soviet Communists were attempting to destabilize the entire region and ground zero in this war was Nicaragua. The Soviet Union provided the Communist government of Nicaragua with weapons and other military hardware such as tanks and armored personnel characters. These armored vehicles were useless in defending themselves from a US invasion- the first round of airstrikes would have taken most of them out. They also would have been near useless in fighting a guerrilla insurgency like the Contras were waging. However, these tanks and armored vehicles would have been ideal for projecting power and invading neighboring countries. Further, the Communist government of Nicaragua was training, funding and arming Communist guerrilla insurgencies in El Salvador and other Latin American countries.

  The Nicaraguan government was being assailed by a guerrilla force trained and backed by the United States known as the “Contras.” In short, the Contras were attempting to overthrow the Communist dictatorship and establish a democratic form of government. The Contras were trained and backed by the United States. It was a brutal war and the young, newly minted engineer Ben Linder, would be knowingly inserting himself into this war zone. A bold decision, to be sure. Ben was no coward and showed his willingness to risk his own safety in furtherance of his convictions. In short, Ben walked his talk. He lived by a code.

    Ben ended up in the Northern Nicaraguan village of El Cuá, a remote and impoverished community. Ben would focus his skills on assisting with the construction of a small hydroelectric dam which would bring much needed electricity to the local, populace. Unfortunately, El Cuá was a place where there were frequent skirmishes between the US backed rebels and the Nicaraguan Army.

   According to the jacobin.com, Ben “Linder, like his companions, was carrying a rifle and wearing a cartridge belt. As they walked over the hill, the group stumbled into a contra ambush.”

  If true, what was young Ben, who looked down on his classmates for taking jobs with defense contractors, doing carrying the implements of war on his person? Didn’t he not know that carrying that rifle and cartridge belt would make him a target in the war zone that he was in?

   By carrying that rifle and wearing that cartridge (ammunition) belt, again if it’s true, Ben was taking a huge risk which would make him, for all intent and purposes, a combatant were he and his friends to encounter the Contras. He had to have known this- wouldn’t he? Was Ben a combatant by choice as well as an engineer or was he merely carrying someone else’s gear? We will never know.

  After Ben “stumbled into a contra ambush,” he was sadly, killed. Ben’s supporters make it sound as though he was “killed in cold blood.” Maybe but, while carrying a rifle? Perhaps so, if he tossed his weapon and surrendered, only to be killed anyway. That would be a heinous example of a cold blooded murder. For their part, the Contras responded by saying they didn’t know Ben’s nationality and that they tried to take him as a prisoner but, Ben apparently wouldn’t have any of it. Hence, the Contras shot him. That’s basically the Contras’ version. We undoubtedly will never know the complete truth of what happened.

  What seems clear is that this otherwise honorable and well-meaning young man tragically lost his life.  Ben would use his talents as a juggler and an amateur clown to entertain children both here in the US and in Nicaragua. Ben had a big heart and although I may disagree with his some of his political views and decision to risk his life in a war zone they way he chose to, I still certainly think we all can and should, respect him as a person. Ben wasn’t a bomb thrower. He may have been misguided but, he had no shortage of personal character and courage. Two attributes few others seem to have in today’s society. When people like Ben leave us, the world becomes just a little more worse off.