I have lived on Little Sebago Lake in Windham for about 20 years. It was last year during the summer months when I was often home working on my house that I first heard automatic and semi-automatic gunfire coming from the vicinity of the public boat launch on Little Sebago.

After several weeks of hearing weapons fire, and a neighbor asking me if I knew what it was, I called dispatch for the Windham police to inquire. I wasn’t calling to complain; I was under the impression automatic weapons are still illegal among the general public so I was curious. When the dispatcher I talked to determined where I lived, they told me I was hearing the Bushmaster test firing range.

Many folks are aware that Bushmaster is a Windham company and provides weapons to the military, the M16 assault rifle being one of its chief products. In 2006, Bushmaster was sold to the hedge fund company Cerberus Capital Management. The name Cerberus comes from the three-headed dog of ancient mythology that guarded the gates of Hell and prevented the dead from crossing back over the river Styx to the living. I leave it to your imagination why this name was chosen for the hedge fund. Its website doesn’t currently list Bushmaster under its “selected equity investments,” but the $18.5 billion business (in 2006) may not divulge all of its present holdings having a reputation for secrecy. It also acquired a majority stake in Chrysler in 2007, and General Motors financial arm, GMAC, in 2006, investments I can’t help wondering if they now regret. But back to Bushmaster and its firing range.

I live at least a mile away from the range. When the wind is right, however, the rapid firing of the weapons I imagine sounds very similar to what a not-too-distant firefight might sound like. Apparently others closer to the range have complained to the company and plans are in the works to move the site indoors. For me, as I work on my house, I hear the firing – today for several hours throughout the day – and am reminded about conditions in Afghanistan and Iraq where the real fronts are. The automatic weapons fire is incongruous to this wonderful lake, the vacationers pulling their kids behind their boats on tubes, the great summer weather. The firing is out of context. With Afghanistan and Iraq so far removed from this rather idyllic setting, it is easy to forget what is happening in those places, except for the firing.

I was brought to this realization recently from an entirely different angle. City Theater in Biddeford just finished a powerful production of “Hair.” The anti-draft movement of the late ‘60s figures large in the plot of the play, and it occurred to me that public opinion for the current wars would likely be very different if a draft existed now. The volunteer military precludes the necessity of a draft but also distances most people from direct effects of the wars.

These wars don’t touch most people directly and are rather more abstract ideas revolving around manufactured fears about security, terrorism, existential threats from rogue nations and extremists. The hundreds of billions spent to conduct these operations has greatly contributed to our economic situation, but concerns over that gargantuan cost to society is easily lost in the size of our abstract fears. It used to be the standing army was kept rather small and when a legitimate war effort was mounted, the call went out and people signed up. Our economy since Reagan has revolved around trillions in military spending, our military around constant recruitment, advertising service within our schools and placing monuments outside our schools commemorating the dead. “See the world” indeed.

I hope the Bushmaster range does get moved indoors somewhere. When the need arises a well-equipped military is necessary, and Windham should be proud of this local employer for the jobs and service it provides. Sending soldiers to Iraq with unarmored vehicles, no body armor, no real plan, that was criminal. But I would rather not think about unnecessary wars being fought with my tax dollars, in my name. A constant barrage of automatic weapons fire on a beautiful Maine summer’s day somehow reminds me that very, very big business is what these wars really come down to.

Steve Demetriou lives in Windham.