We don’t talk about the roadside bombs. That would only make things
worse. So instead we tell morbid jokes and force grins, trying to hide
the sensations in our guts that are pulling and twisting and eating away
at us.
You get ready for a mission, check the oil in your truck, load your
weapon and do radio checks, while somewhere in the back of your head you
try to remember what you last ate, wondering what it will look like
splattered across the road if you get blown inside out.
For someone with whom I was not familiar prior to reading her obituary, I was surprised to learn that the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Claudia Emerson shared some of my roots. She grew up in Chatham, Virginia, not far from my hometown, Danville. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 1979 five years after I moved to Richmond from Charlottesville. I find something hopeful in that Ms. Emerson's writing epiphany occurred while she was working in Danville. Her subsequent career, starting later in life, tells me that great talent can flower in the most unlikely places.
"When you talk about 20 years in a lump sum, it sounds like a big deal,”
he told reporters. But, he said, “On a day-to-day basis, you just learn
to go along.”
And we complain when the internet goes down.
Godspeed, Mr. Downey. Thank you for the perspective.
Aside from learning about Mr. Shuba's baseball career. of which I knew nothing--he was a strong hitter and good fielder--I picked up on this item.
He was exempt from military service during World War II because of a
broken eardrum, sustained when he was slapped by a nun in class at a
Catholic school.
As a survivor of a 1950's nun-run Catholic school, I witnessed what today would be considered physical abuse if not criminal assault. A broken eardrum is not at all surprising.
But Mr. Shuba survive to play some good baseball and live a long life. Not a bad deal.
Among all of the fine patriotic speeches today, you will probably not hear that "war is a racket". Something to think about as you remember these honored dead.
The author of Martin Luther King's 1967 speech linking racism and militarism in Vietnam and America, Vincent Harding, has died. The speech, "A Time to Break Silence", was not well received and called everything from a serious tactical error to treason. But Harding's words spoke the truth about war and racism.
From the obituary:
The 1967 speech condemning the Vietnam War, Dr. Harding said, was not
an anomaly but was a pure reflection of King’s evolving views of the
role of civil rights on the world stage.
“For those who seek a
gentle, nonabrasive hero whose recorded speeches can be used as
inspirational resources for rocking our memories to sleep,” Dr. Harding
told the National Catholic Reporter in 1997, “Martin Luther King Jr. is
surely the wrong man.”
The Canadian writer and environmentalist Farley Mowat has died. My introduction to his work was the movie, Never Cry Wolf which led me to Mowat's original text and thence to other titles. This discovery came not long after moving to Arizona and first learning of Edward Abbey, a writer of similar sentiment if not style. Mowat, along with Abbey and others of their ilk greatly influenced my view and love of the natural world.
His view and understanding of nature was enough to draw my attention but what truly bound me to Mowat was his 1979 World War memoir, And No Birds Sang. I read it in the late 80's or so and recall it as a harrowing read. Mowat captures the fear and endurance and determination of an infantry soldier in a way that comes only from experience. Knowing that Mowat was an infantryman added to his credibility in my mind.
No Man's River chronicles Mowat's return to civilian life after the war. The transition is a difficult one that leads him to abandon his job shooting specimens on a scientific expedition to the Barrens of north Manitoba. From that account it's easy to see how Mowat became the outspoken environmentalist barred from entering the US by the Reagan Administration. What I remember most from reading No Man's River is how incredibly self-sufficient Mowat's indigenous hosts were to live in such a remote and hostile world. He would not have lasted long without their skills.
Above all Farley Mowat was a fine writer with a great deal of respect and love for our planet.
The Olympia progressive community and northwest Native Americans lost a talented friend this week with the death of film maker Carol Burns. Carol was an activist who was instrumental in creating Thurston County TV and getting our Veterans For Peace Chapter on the air. She was director when I first joined the crew in 2008. I am director these days and much of what I know about that control room came from Carol.
Her media activisim dates back at least to the northwest tribal fisheries protests that began in the late Sixties as part of Treaty Rights and Indian Life movement. Not only did Carol document the grievances and actions of Native Americans long denied to fish in traditional, she stood with them at the Puyallup River Encampment where she was arrested in September 1970, tried and ultimately acquitted on riot-related charges. Her film, "As Long As the River Runs" is a testament to the determination of local tribes to assert long-ignored treaty rights. Those rights were recognized in the federal Boldt Decision in 1974 which was upheld by the US Supreme Court five years later.
Despite Peter Matthiessen's prolific output, I have read only two of his books, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse and The Tree Where Man Was Born. I read Crazy Horse in the late 80's and consider it a necessary counter-narrative to the official story that led to the conviction and imprisonment of Leonard Peltier. The Tree Where Man Was Born was my trail reading between Salisbury, Connecticut and almost Maine when I hiked the Appalachian Trail. Reading it was a drawn out affair; only a few pages a night before I expired completely. Two images from that book have stayed with me ever since. In describing predators on the Serengetti Matthiessen noted that lions killed and ate prey every few days but the dogs ate every day. Another scene describes a Scottish researcher standing his ground against a charging elephant and, amazingly, spooking it enough to turn away. Both books held my attention and presented information I did not know.
Olympia Veterans For Peace lost another long-time member last week. Duane King, a Korean War veteran who served in Vietnam with the State Department, died March 3. Duane was fiercely anti-war and was a constant reminder to the rest of us about why we were veterans for peace. Duane was part of the studio crew for our chapter's cable-access television program, "The Veterans' Hour" but also told his own story in front of the camera as part of our Soldiers' Stories series.
“I call them all love songs,” Mr. Seeger once said of his music. “They
tell of love of man and woman, and parents and children, love of
country, freedom, beauty, mankind, the world, love of searching for
truth and other unknowns. But, of course, love alone is not enough.”
Last week I learned of a former colleague's suicide in Phoenix. He is the second colleague to make that choice this year. Jerome and I worked together for the Arizona Auditor General in the 1980's and early 90's. In the years since our sporadic contacts and news from other former colleagues told me that he was happy with his work at the City of Phoenix. In the past year or so I saw on the city's website that Jerome was a deputy city manager. I wasn't surprised. I was certainly pleased for him.
A suicide always has a narrative. I do not know Jerome's, only it's end. What I do know is that the years we worked together were good for me personally and professionally. Jerome is among my fond memories of that time. I will remember him as a friend, a talented co-worker and a dedicated public servant.
Today is the 43rd anniversary of Jimi Hendrix's death at age 27. The date sticks in my mind because on that day I was enroute to Fort Lewis, Washington to begin infantry training for an inevitable tour of duty in Vietnam. On September 18, 1970 I did not have much assurance that I would ever see age 27.
Until I read his obituary I was not familiar with Mr. Clement by name but I know his work.
“Cowboy” Jack Clement, who became one of the most influential backstage
forces in country and rock music by producing artists ranging from
Johnny Cash to U2 and by helping discover performers such as Jerry Lee
Lewis and groundbreaking black country star Charley Pride, died Aug. 8
at his home in Nashville. He was 82. [...] “Jack was a musical mastermind, in a sense, but what made him stand out
to people was he had this sense of fun and a little bit of mischief in
everything he did,” said Michael McCall, a historian at the Country
Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. “He had a whimsical,
creative spirit about him, and he inspired that in other people. In an
industry that puts a high value on conformity, he was the ultimate
non-conformist, and people loved him for it.”
Nadezhda Popova, a Soviet aviator who became one of the most celebrated of the so-called “Night Witches,” female military pilots who terrorized the Nazi enemy with their nocturnal air raids during World War II, died July 8. She was 91. [...] Ms. Popova was among the first female pilots to volunteer for service in the Soviet military during World War II and became a squadron commander in her swashbuckling all-female regiment. She flew 852 combat missions — including 18 during one night — and was honored as a Hero of the Soviet Union, one of the nation’s highest decorations. [...] The pilots achieved a degree of surprise by shutting down their engines in the last stages of their bomb runs; the Germans heard only the hiss of the air flowing across their wings and, likening the sound to that of a broomstick in flight, referred to the women as Night Witches.
Godspeed, Commander Popova.
postscript
Women also flew for the United States during WWII. Not in combat like the Night Witches but as WASPs.
My friend Mel Swartz died this morning just after midnight. We knew this day was coming but today was much sooner than we expected. Mel died at home over the past four days. His son and daughter cared for him with hospice assistance. Maggie and I helped out. It is a humbling experience.
Mel was a man of many talents. He was a story-teller, pioneering lawyer in Phoenix, author, powder man on a blasting team, wild fire fighter and prospector, to name a few. In the face of cancer and other adversities in his later years, Mel never lost his sense of humor or optimism.
Most of all he was a good friend. A man whose life enriched mine.
T.S. Eliot called April "the cruelest month". April 2013 certainly lived up to that reputation for me and even came with a follow-up kick in early May. I previously wrote about the death of my co-worker April 1. Turns out that was only the first death notice.
Not long after my co-worker died, my friend Mel was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that had metastasized to his lung. His prognosis is six to 12 months. Mel is almost 83 and beat several cancers in his 60's so he is pretty mellow about his fate. He calls himself lucky. I am lucky to have known him for the past nine years. He's been good company and, as a retired attorney, a valuable and sometimes iconoclastic legal resource. Had I not met Mel, I may not have ended up in Olympia. His son's connection to this town that brought me here. Maggie and I are taking the opportunity to enjoy his company while we can.
That was April.
May began with another death. Ken Schwilk's died May 8. Ken is a fellow Veteran For Peace, a charter member of the Rachel Corrie VFP Chapter 109 here in Olympia and Camera 1 on the studio crew for the chapter's cable access television program, "The Veterans Hour". Ken served in Vietnam in the late 60's. Here in Olympia he has been a consistent and vocal advocate for peace. I am honored to have served with Ken as a veteran for peace.
Ken's death was sudden; most of us learned of a possible cancer diagnosis only in late April. I saw him mid-March and can't say that I noticed anything at all. Maggie thought less color maybe. He performed in an annual musical production in February. And now he is gone at 68.
Aside from Vietnam and VFP, Ken and I had the shared experience of living in Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia. As a regional manager his territory covered the southern portions of Piedmont Virginia where I grew up. We both knew the routes and landscape of that region.
Until I heard the sudden word that a friend of mine was dead. Jackson Browne, "Song for Adam"
It's never a normal day at work when you learn that a a well-liked and respected co-worker is dead. Even more abnormal when the co-worker takes his own life. That was the news I learned on Tuesday morning when my supervisor told me that Curt was dead. He and I were not close friends but in small office you develop a certain level of professional intimacy. That was easy to do with Curt; he had a pleasant manner, was always upbeat and genuinely nice guy. His death leaves a very large hole in our office. Seeing his empty office has been difficult for me over the past few days. I can only imagine the impact on his family and those who knew him better than I did.
Our most personal bond was music; Curt liked all kinds of music and generously shared his extensive collection with the entire office. I was always happy when I could introduce him to a musician whom he had not heard. More often, the situation was reversed.
Until recently, Curt was also the only other veteran among my co-workers. His experience was considerably different from mine. He was a 12 year Air Force E-6 who, I am certain would have made first sergeant (E-8) had he stayed in. He functioned in that role in our office--he kept all of the administrative functions running smoothly. Curt's efficiency and concern for the rest of us reminded me of the best first sergeants I knew during my short military career.
Curt had health problems throughout the almost five years that I knew him. He was often absent but, even with all that, he always seemed to be positive and never lost his concern for our welfare and professional reputation. I don't know any details of his condition other than he lost a lot of weight and suffered from frequent migraines. What I do know is that he was always kind and generous. I never heard him complain or indulge in self-pity.
I don't think it was a false front; I'm guessing that he expected to manage even if he couldn't beat whatever it was that ailed him. He was in the office for a few days just last week, pretty much as normal. Not long ago, it loaned him a Reverend Peyton CD that a friend had given me for Christmas. Curt liked it so much that he ordered several more. Not exactly something a person considering suicide is likely to do.
In the end, though, Curt decided that he no longer wanted to or could live with his illness. As far as I know, that was a rational decision and not one for me to judge. Rather, I remember Curt by what I knew of him from our personal and professional interactions. He was the very best of men. I am richer for having known him. I am poorer for his passing.
