Sigh…

Two nights ago, somebody standing on an overpass dropped bricks onto cars speeding along the Autobahn near Darmstadt, Germany. Some cars crashed. Some people were very badly hurt. Two people died.

I shook my head in disgust when I heard this. Jeremy said that it was probably some dumb kids messing around. I was just surprised that nobody on the news said anything about Germany getting to be as bad as America. You hear that a lot over here when, say, somebody in Germany runs amok with a gun. Of course, in America we have people shooting guns from overpasses and not “just" throwing rocks - not that these rocks turned out to be any less deadly than bullets.

Anyway, yesterday they caught the suspected rock-droppers. They are indeed just kids. Four kids between the ages of 14 and 18. Four American kids.

I let out a spontaneous groan of dismay when I heard it. It doesn’t really matter whether the rocks fell from German or American hands - two people are still dead. It’s just that it’s one more incident to reinforce this image that so many Europeans have of the stupid, violent American. It’s one more thing that I will, in one way or another, have to answer to as an American living overseas (“Did you hear what those Americans in Darmstadt did…?"). And it’s fuel for the fire tended by people who claim that all the crimes committed in Germany are committed by foreigners.

Why do people have to be so stupid and destructive? Why? Why? Why? And don’t tell me it’s video games…

You horrible teenagers, what were you thinking? Were you thinking at all? Do you realize what you’ve done? Do you understand the concept of death? Do you grasp the fact that you have been the sole cause of a completely and utterly pointless waste of innocent life?

I’m embarrassed and disgusted by these four “fellow Americans”, and I hope that they have some sort of conscience so that they can be racked with guilt for the rest of their miserable little lives.

Ugly Americans indeed.

Further reading…