Rapport with death

"Rappo", is there a more ironic name for a serial killer in the whole of the X Files?

To have a 'rapport' (of French origin, silent 'T') is to have a good relationship with another, such that there is understanding of feelings and thoughts.

Leonard 'Rappo' Trimble is a victim of the Gulf War, a quadruple amputee, restricted to having others wheel him around and having to listen to others fantasize about if only things were different - enough, in itself, to make anyone 'go postal'. He is damaged by his experiences in ways other than the obvious visible physical damage.

Rappo's unwilling accomplice is a man known only as Roach, who Rappo holds responsible for his present condition, "I wouldn't be in this damn chair if it wasn't for you." However much Roach complies with Rappo's demands, we have to be wary of statements like this; killers, especially of the serial variety, always have someone or something to blame for their actions. Rappo not only blames Roach specifically for his condition, he claims, like other serial killers before him, a noble cause for which he sees himself as the lone fighter:"This isn't about you and me, man. This is about all the grunts and all the crips and all the boys who came home in a BOX!" (cf. Inside the X)

But Rappo's condition is a modern one. He can blame his superiors and take vengeance out upon them because they gave the orders that sent him and thousands like him into harm's way. But that has ever been the nature of war. If one accepts that war is right, and there are sound arguments for a just war, then one must accept that there are going to be casualties.

Rappo's misfortune is not that he is a casualty of war, he is a casualty of modern medicine!

The simple fact is, until recently, with the extent of his wounds, Rappo simply wouldn't have survived.

Rappo has the misfortune of surviving a war because of a medicine that can keep him alive for no reason other than being alive is deemed better than being dead, in a culture that has no room for him. He is nothing but a reminder of the consequences of our actions, and who likes being reminded of them?

War was easier when people just died! Now we have to live with what we have done. And we just don't know how to.

Rappo is in the best place he can be, receiving the round-the-clock care that he deserves. But, ultimately, in he is in the same situation as Neech Manley, an institution waiting for him to die. It might be other characters that say, "He won't let me die," but it applies just as well to Rappo.

Cultures have, in the past, recognized the honor of dying in battle, the warrior's death. The Spartans, the Samurai, the Vikings, all honored the warrior who gave his life. Nowadays, we don't even let the terminally ill take a honorable and dignified way out of this life.

Rappo isn't just some weird X Files serial killer. He is a cry of pain of all those who have been prevented from a dignified death in order to live a medically prolonged, but undignified, life.