Likewise find Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation on Amazon.com
Regarding Memorial Day.
I receive a lot of email from listservs, subscription email communities that deal with special interests. The community found in VIDPRO (video professionals) is remarkable... they ganged up a few years ago and made up a very silly mystery parody about what I might be doing in Europe, and spent a lot of bandwidth and energy composing it in my absence. It was waiting for me in all its glory in my email when I returned... It not only cracked me up, but made me feel an odd sense of affection for people I'd never met in person. Internet communities are funny like that.
This past Memorial Day, a number of people pitched in with their stories of wars and military service. I am reprinting a few here.
Greg Brennan, who I met again a few months ago on line, and I had actually gone to junior high together when our fathers were preparing to go to Viet Nam in 1968 and we lived at Travis Air Force Base.
Leslie Strom (Yours Truly) threw in a bit on her own family, which got blown in the winds of (but not destroyed by) the military life.
David Bowles provided a story of how he learned the meaning of duty from his father and grandfather.
Rand Flory remained an odd brand of pacifist while at war.
Mark Suszko watched it on teevee.
Bill Otterson wrapped things up with a fine summary.
All are grateful for the contributions of those who served.
My brother flew A-6s - part of the Green Lizards from Whidbey - in the evac. A classic example of the bright people running the war... My brother and his colleagues weren't allowed to return fire unless there were three other parties who could confirm that our planes were being fired upon.
We lived in Japan from '62 - '66. I remember our classrooms filling with American children of families evacuating from Cambodia.
The deepest memory was during Christmas (had to '65, I'd guess) when I was at Rob and Dick Bentley's house. Their dad was in Saigon with the Army. He was staying in a hotel that -- according to an Armed Forces Radio report we heard -- was blown up by a planted bomb. The house was quiet as their mom kept calls short from friends who meant well as she anxiously waited to hear from anyone about her husband. We were looking out the front window as a staff car pulled up, two Army officers got out and began walking to up the Bentley's sidewalk. We were in fifth grade and old enough to know what that meant.
Until one of my friends realized... It was their father. He made a surprise trip home for the holidays, and hadn't even heard the news about the hotel bombing. For them - and for all of their neighbors - it was a Christmas filled with profound meaning.
My father, career Air Force, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam (six visits in four years). My cousin pulled his helmet down tight in Tet in '68. His father drove amphibious assault troop carriers in the South Pacific. His father's brother never came home from the Pacific. My other uncle, part of Merrill's Marauders, lost his toes of all things (they were the last part of his body in the air) when a surprised camp of Japanese began returning fire.
What they did counts.
- Greg Brennan
Greg Brennan and I shared a bit of time at the same junior high school at Travis Air Force Base in 1968. The next year my dad went to help run things in Saigon, and my mom and I went to San Diego to wait for him to come back. We got little reel-to-reel tapes in the mail from him with his "letters" during the Tet offensive... you could hear the "friendly fire" in these tapes, then something considerably louder, and the he would comment that the only danger he was in was a spider biting him when he was required to pull his flak jacket out of the closet. Liar.
Dad was a pilot in WWII at Guadalcanal, then left the military and did a few years with the airlines, then went back to the Air Force and did the Berlin Airlift, then Viet Nam. Survived it all unscathed due to constant preparedness, and a bizarre sense of humor.
Brother Bill was Naval Academy and nuclear subs, married a woman from a Navy family herself. Sister Carol married a career marine who was at the Mayaguez and in Viet Nam. My dear friend Frank was one of only two marines who didn't get sent overseas in WWII. He worked at decoding and typing. Me, I spent a few years in Civil Air Patrol doing search and rescue, then went to college and discovered a whole world away from the military, which suits me far better. Nonetheless, I am grateful for those who serve, and also acknowlege the sacrifices of the families who only stand and wait. It's actually a frustrating feeling, that standing and waiting, knowing there's not a whole lot you can do to alter events.
- Leslie Strom
I never went. I became of age at or near the
end (18 years in 1972). My number just never came.
But Dad was a 21 year old coal miner in 1941. He went to enlist as he should have. Even though here at home he was not allowed to drink from the same water fountain or eat at the same lunch counter or even pee in the same toilet as regular Americans. Still, he had a since of duty. He taught me that duty is something you do even when an inequality exists. They told him he was needed to mine coal that would fuel the burners on the big ships with the big guns. He was one of only a few who could operate underground loaders and such.
Grandfather was in France during WW I, laying his life on the line while his brother was found here hanging from a tree because he challenged a man stealing his crops. That murder was never solved.
These men are to be remembered too! They did their duty in regard to foreign lands even when injustice was so prevelant on their birth soil. It was for their progeny.
We shall EVER remain vigilent!
- David Bowles
I volunteered for the Army during Viet Nam. I was a college student, good standing, Quaker school. But I had to know what was going on. There seemed to be so little factual information that I considered reliable.
I learned to fire a rifle and a pistol. I did not learn how to kill. I learned to fly helicopters and loved it. I graduated in the upper 10% of my class and was offered Cobra school, a school to train gun pilots in the coolest aircraft the Army had at the time. I turned it down. I was a pilot, I would help to the best of my ability, but I would not kill. I tried to get into medevac, but the school did not start for a long time. I wanted to go to Viet Nam. I volunteered and was the only pilot in my flight school class that went directly to Viet Nam from school.
When I arrived, they asked me where I wanted to go. I looked at the map and wanted to go up north to I Corps. That's where the mountains were, and that's where I felt I belonged. When I arrived at Chu Lai, they asked where I wanted to go. Again I looked at the map and chose the small town: Duc Pho.
While there, I knew maybe five guys really well. My buddy, the first lieutenant, took a round through the head. It was real hard to strap on a helicopter the next morning. But I did. We all did. The war did not stop because of the death of a friend.
After I made aircraft commander, I volunteered for a mission that included teaching another guy to fly in Viet Nam. We were always breaking in new Peter Pilots, and this day was no exception. He blew a landing to a hilltop and we had to had to go around and come in again. The other team was waiting for us. They opened fire and I gave the order to "go hot" (open fire). I may not be able to take a life myself, but I would not take away the right of others to protect themselves. It was not a decision I enjoyed making. I took a round through the arm during the approach. The helicopter took many hits, but it kept flying. I kept the arm, but I spent six months in the hospital getting it to work reasonably well again.
After I left the hospital, I was buying something at a grocery store. A sweet young thing asked if I had been in Viet Nam (soldiers had a different haircut than the rest of the world). I proudly answered that I had been. She said to me. . . "KILLER!" That hurt. She didn't understand. But then I didn't either.
I never did learn the "reality" of Viet Nam.
- Rand Flory
I was only 7 in '68, but my Mom had it all planned out my brother and I would join the Coast Guard if it came to that.
My memories of Viet Nam boil down to watching Huntley/Brinkley at the dining room table and seeing the nightly graphics of us-versus-them killed and wounded stats... looked just like freakin' football scores. I'd ask Dad: "so, who's winning?" He'd just look at me, long and hard...
- Mark Suszko
Bill Otterson followed up the few days of moving Memorial Day messages with this:
There are several things about these internet mail lists that are beyond merely excellent. They are amazing marvels.
For one:
Only the words matter.
We can't see each other, so we can sit unshaved in our underwear and spin great thoughts---and small ones---unviewed.
Only the words matter.
We have to select them carefully to communicate just exactly the right subtle shade of meaning we intend, or we will start a hollering firestorm of misunderstanding; because only the words matter. This is good, because thoughts should occasionally prove to be dangerous if miscast.
...and if you're black or white or have round or almond eyes or are anything else either in fashion or out---none of that matters.
Only the words---the thoughts---the ideas..... matter.
Real Regular Life should live up to this same blindness to all but the words and the thoughts that is the assumed norm here in cyberspace.
This thread just winding down now has been a marvel. It has touched me several times. I feel Educated.
I hope I never meet ANY of you. The pictures of you in my mind - especially after the last few days on here - could never be more clear, more accurate, more pure essence than they are right now.
You know, this internet thing really is a basic new medium, a new publishing venue, a new village well.
Everybody is Gutenburg... No filters. No sponsors. No approval committees. No boss. Not headquarters transmitting The Official Doctrine to the many; but the many talking to the other many. Marshall McLuhan was right---partly. The reality of it is so much better.
If I was a government, I'd be damned scared of this thing, and I damn straight get control of it and gently regulate it quickly - before all these rubes discover just what they've got!
...and you see that's the connection, right there, right now, to all those folks we think about once a year. They didn't die for just a country---they gave Everything for a slightly more subtle but larger idea.
Freedom.
Because free words matter most when exchanged by free people. Those who would subjugate us must first subjugate our words and their free flow.
----What we're all doing right now.
Because only the words should ALWAYS be ALL that matters.
I am privileged to know you all. Thank you.
- Bill Barrett StudioOne-CT.com