Factual Dispatch #63 - Immolation in Uniform

(Credit to Talia Jane for breaking the story, Luke O’Neil for signal boosting, and Ash Higgins & Nick Slayton for confirming military/service-related details of this story. Also, Content Warning: suicide, self-harm)

On February 26th, 2024, an active-duty servicemember of the Air Force set himself on fire outside of the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC. His name was Aaron Bushnell, from San Antonio, Texas, and was 25 years old. The Air Force confirmed he did DevOps, IT, and graduated top of his flight and top of his class. He yelled “Free Palestine” for as long as his body allowed him to.

When DC police arrived, a gun was drawn on a 25 year old sitting cross-legged and on fire. I don’t know how to explain it, but a police officer pulling a gun on a self-immolating active service member is the most effective metaphor for the breakdown of America’s emergency response I’ll ever see.

People far more eloquent than me will comment on what this says about America’s role in the ongoing crisis in Gaza, what it says about our role as the “World’s Policeman,” and what it means for the 2024 election. The points I’d like to make are less sweeping and more to be used for contemplation, instead of the weaponizing-then-minimizing that will happen once this story catches the mainstream media’s attention.

1. This is the first time an active duty US servicemember has self-immolated in American history. Not during Vietnam, or any conflict since, has there been an active duty service member who protested a war they saw as unjust, this way. From the admittedly non-exhaustive research done, this is the first servicemember, active duty, reserves, or discharged, to self immolate in protest, in or out of uniform.

2. This was a white kid from Texas, full time with the Air Force since May 2020. People probably expected monks, minorities, or Muslim civilians to be the ones lighting themselves on fire. But this was a Wonder Bread American, calling out injustice the only way he thought he could.

3. This kid had an amazing career ahead of him. Even if the Air Force didn’t work out (which it had), he looking for Skillbridge opportunities, which are essentially military-to-civilian pipelines, so airmen can get civilian work training & experience. He even got his CompTIA Security+ certification, one that I would have attempted if I hadn’t pivoted to SEO. He made good choices, and seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. When someone tries to call him mentally ill, understand what they’re invalidating, about his life and decision-making.

4. Responding to fire with a gun is the smartest thing police can think to do, and that should be deeply humiliating to anyone who defends the Thin Blue Line.

The New Yorker did a good dive into self-immolation back in 2012, and Tricycle has a piece on it from the Buddhist historical perspective. Instead of wasting your time with 1000+ more words about honor and horror, I will just ask one question.

What are our Armed Services doing in the Middle East right now, such that an active duty Air Force tech geek who graduated at the top of his class, felt that the best use of his life and body, was to auto-cremate in front of an embassy? 

This isn’t even 50% rhetorical. Between the reservists from Georgia killed in Africa, SpecOps deaths in the Mediterranean , attacks in Iraq, Yemen, and the drum beat around Iran, I truly have no idea how entangled we are there, what we’re being lied to about, and what terrible stuff we’re going to hear about years from now. To cleanse the palette, indie rock from 2004:

Keep your wits about you,tn