To Kill or Not to Kill—Baby Hitler

Jeb Bush on the campaign trail took the bait on a ludicrous question and today responded to whether or not, could he go back in time to do so, would he kill "Baby Hitler."

His response, which I rather doubt his handlers had previously anticipated and coached him on, was, "Hell, yeah, I would! You gotta step up, man!"

The proper answer, in case you're wondering, and I write this fully knowing I may forever turn off a significant percentage of potential readers of this blog or of my books, is:

"Of course not."

Here's why.

If, by the phrase, "Baby Hitler," you mean the Baby who brutally committed genocide, well there's no such thing. 

The Baby—who eventually grew up to become the man who committed murderous genocide—was an innocent. It had not committed any genocide.

If one believes that the taking of innocent life is justified if it effects some change in the time continuum that prevents worse evils, then where will we accept that a line should be drawn?

If our time machine could only drop us off ten years before Baby Hitler's birth, is the murder of his mother then justified?

Now, don't get me wrong, I firmly believe that the efforts of German Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who participated in an attempt to assassinate Adolph Hitler, were fully justifiable.  And I myself worked for four years at the NSA after 9/11, fully knowing that intelligence I produced was intended to result at times in the deaths of our adversaries.

I am a devotee of my Lord who told me to "turn the other cheek" (Matt 5:39), but I also hold that the Just War Doctrine absolves those who struggled and died to stop the Nazis. I hope and pray it absolves me of my actions.  

For the killing of "Baby Hitler" to be morally justifiable,  it would have to satisfy all the criteria of a "Just War." Even though I am not a Roman Catholic, I find the definition of a Just War as found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church to be an authority on the topic (Paragraph 2309):

* the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

Right here, the defense of killing Baby Hitler already falls short. "Inflicted" is a past tense verb. The damage has not happened. 


* all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

Such as Neville Chamberlain not proclaiming "Peace for our Time" with his policy of Appeasement?

* there must be serious prospects of success;

One can never know whether Hitler created the times or the times created a Hitler.  Kill that baby and maybe it just means another thug leads the Nazis.

* the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated (the power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition).

And here, finally, is the deepest Caveat of all. We simply can never know what world we would live in today if a Time Machine allowed someone to kill "Baby Hitler." Hitler may have been the dullest thug of all the potential murderous tyrants who could have seized Europe in the 1930's. Or the brightest. But we don't know. And all of the above is why killing "Baby Hitler" can not be justified morally.

And so, as we approach Veterans' Day. God bless the sacrifice and service of those who need not ever second guess the violence they had to inflict in order to oppose the evil of the Nazis.

Requiescant in pace.

Dona nobis pacem.

Evidence of Time Travelers into the Past?

Anecdotally, people have found a few things from time to time that seem to imply that people from the future visited the past. An interesting example is the claim that human shoe prints are fossilized over trilobites.

Archaeologists have found what seems to be a battery in a provably ancient stratum.

I personally don't believe that time travel is possible and I don't believe it has ever happened. But that sure didn't stop me from writing a novel based on the premise. And that's because I think time travel is a deep human pre-occupation. We wish we could travel through time because as we go through life we invariably collect memories of things we botched and wish we could redo. 

My novel, In Saecula Saeculorum, describes a mission in which four young people are sent back in time to ancient Rome to retrieve information to hopefully save the modern world. 

In this novel, however, the US and UK governments that control this technology are so concerned that other countries may find out they have time travel technology, that they refuse to send anything back in time that could be found later as evidence of time travel at all.

Time travel is intriguing because we all look back on our lives and wish we had a do-over. As a personal admission, I can never forget the one that got away--the woman I should have loved more and yet so horribly wronged. I live with many regrets. But that's my journey...

Anyway, any evidence that people traveled to the past will always tug at our hearts. It will always make us wonder, what if?...

Meet the Team of In Saecula Saeculorum

In Saecula Saeculorum. That's Latin for "Unto Ages of Ages." It's an Espionage-Adventure novel set in Ancient Rome.



 

Four high school students are sent back in time to Ancient Rome on a mission to save the modern world. They thought they were going to a quirky Classical Academy. They were actually duped by MI-6 and the NSA in preparation for this crucial mission.

They've learned Latin, sword-fighting, horseback riding, and other practical skills that the mission requires. Even so, they're high school students with all of the insecurities and angst other kids their age are going through. And now these four have had the survival of the world dropped onto their shoulders.

Click on their cartoon avatars to learn more about them and what part of me they expressed as I was writing this novel.

Will Stanhope

 Will Stanhope. The only Brit on the team. Nobility, Science Whiz, Secretly in love with Layla.

Layla Ramzy

Layla Ramzy.  Linguistic Wizard. Insecure despite her brilliance. Secretly in love with Will.

Carmen Mattila

Carmen Mattila. Best fighter of the group, be it with fists or swords. Also captain of the Chess team.

Jonathan Drake

  

Jonathan Drake. Orphan. Underachiever. Only student at the Academy to have gotten an out-of-school suspension.






An Espionage-Adventure novel set in Ancient Rome? What does Keith Massey know about any of this?






Immediately after 9/11, I sent my resume to the National Security Agency to see if they could use my expertise. I have

my PhD in Biblical Hebrew, with a minor in Arabic. They hired me and I worked there for four years, during which time I was awarded the Global War on Terror Civilian Service Medal for service I performed in Iraq.

I left the NSA in 2006 to become a high school Latin teacher. You see, my undergrad studies had been Latin and Classical Greek. 

In Saecula Saeculorum let me express the full range of my learning and life experience, weaving together my expertise as both a spy and a language scholar. But, more than that, it's a story about young people thrust into greater responsibility than they feel ready for. And who among us has not felt the same? For them, however, the stakes are unbelievably high. Read the book to find out how they race to the save the world while also trying to save one another.



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Meet the Team of In Saecula Saeculorum: Jonathan Drake

My novel In Saecula Saeculorum tells the story of four high school students trained to be sent back in time to Ancient Rome to save the modern world. It combines Espionage/Action/Adventure with a touch of Latin language dialogue for authenticity. 

The team that tries to save our world consists of the following characters. The cartoon avatars of these characters are based on descriptions of them found in the novel.

Jonathan Drake

Jonathan is going through a rough patch. His parents died three years ago. He's been living with an uncle who's so careful not to replace Jonathan's father, that Jonathan feels quite alone. 

And now, as graduation nears, he has to see the other kids' parents at all the events and it reminds him of what he's lost.

I lost both my parents earlier than most people do. And so I feel Jonathan's pain of being an orphan. 

But Jonathan's also about to be thrust into a dangerous mission. And I know what it means to try and set aside my grief to face the challenges of the moment.

Read the book to find out how Jonathan copes and forms a new life on the other side of sorrow.


Click on the pictures to meet the rest of the team:

Will Stanhope

Layla Ramzy

Carmen Mattila

Meet the Team of In Saecula Saeculorum: Carmen Mattila

My novel In Saecula Saeculorum tells the story of four high school students trained to be sent back in time to Ancient Rome to save the modern world. It combines Espionage/Action/Adventure with a touch of Latin language dialogue for authenticity. 

The team that tries to save our world consists of the following characters. The cartoon avatars of these characters are based on descriptions of them found in the novel.

Carmen Mattila

Carmen is quite a contradiction. She's a girlie-girl while simultaneously being the best hand-to-hand fighter at the Academy. She's the best at sword fighting and horse-back riding as well. 

And because of those skills, she will be tasked with fighting and killing the team's enemies when they arrive back in time. 

And her tender heart will not be ready for the trauma of taking another human life.

I worked at the National Security Agency as an Arabic linguist for four years following 9/11. And I served in Iraq for three months in 2004. Did I ever fire a gun in anger? No, thank God. But I worked in a world wherein my actions meant life and death for others. And anyone with a conscience will feel it burdened in the midst of all that.

And so I know what Carmen experiences. Read the book to learn the despair into which she falls and how she finds the grace to move on.

Click on the pictures to meet the rest of the team:

Will Stanhope

Layla Ramzy

Jonathan Drake

Meet the Team of In Saecula Saeculorum: Layla Ramzy

My novel In Saecula Saeculorum tells the story of four high school students trained to be sent back in time to Ancient Rome to save the modern world. It combines Espionage/Action/Adventure with a touch of Latin language dialogue for authenticity. 

The team that tries to save our world consists of the following characters. The cartoon avatars of these characters are based on descriptions of them found in the novel.

Layla Ramzy

Layla is a linguistic wizard. She was a native speaker of Spanish and Arabic before she came to the Academy. Now she's also fluent in Latin, Classical Greek, and every Romance language there is.

But she's insecure. She loves Will but would never dare tell him. She's been driven by her mother to be the best there ever was, but she's stressed beyond her limits.

I love languages and I'm good at learning them. So Layla channels my linguistic talents. I endowed her with something I wish I could have had--a second language as a child. And I envy her the fact that she came to Classical Studies already speaking a Romance language. 

And who among us has not loved from afar and yet kept our heart secret? Read the book to find out if Layla can ever speak her love for Will.


Click on the pictures to meet the rest of the team:

Will Stanhope

Carmen Mattila

Jonathan Drake

Meet the Team of In Saecula Saeculorum: Will Stanhope

Travel back in time to Ancient Rome. In Saecula Saeculorum. Sword fights. Chases on horseback. Adventure. Love. Loss. Latin.

My novel In Saecula Saeculorum tells the story of four high school students trained to be sent back in time to Ancient Rome to save the modern world. It combines Espionage/Action/Adventure with a touch of Latin language dialogue for authenticity. 

The team that tries to save our world consists of the following characters. The cartoon avatars of these characters are based on descriptions of them found in the novel.

Will Stanhope

Will Stanhope

Will is the only Brit on the otherwise all American team. He's a member of the British nobility and a science whiz. Will is also utterly, madly, and unrequitedly in love with Layla.

My overall goal in crafting this novel was to create a team of kids who were from wildly different backgrounds, but would be forced to gel around their common mission. So we needed a Brit on the team (it's a joint MI-6/NSA project, afterall).

Will channels me in several ways. First, Will is the only openly professing Christian on the team. He's an Anglican; I'm Eastern Orthodox. But the novel by no means preaches at you. It's an Espionage/Time Travel/Adventure, not a catechism. Even so, Will's faith creates a plot tension when he faces moral dilemmas in the course of the adventure.

While I was at the NSA, I was occasionally put into a leadership role. And with the stakes so high (force protection of our men in the field, for example), I loathed such responsibility. Will is put in charge of the mission and he at times buckles under the burden because he, and I, are human and feel pain and loss if we can't bring everyone home safely. The other team members will need him to somehow hold it together if they are to survive. Read the book to learn how he does.


Click on the pictures to meet the rest of the team:

Layla Ramzy

Carmen Mattila

Jonathan Drake