Memorial Day

Annville, PA

“Our nation owes a debt to its heroes that we can never fully repay,” Barack Obama

 

Several Facebook friends posted messages about loved ones who served our country.  Mike Certa wrote this message: “This Memorial Day, I'd like to remember my godfather, Joe Certa, who was killed in action in Korea in 1950. I also want to thank all those who have served their country in the armed forces, whether in war or peace.”  As people flocked to beaches, often not heeding warnings about social distancing, Pat Wisniewski posted a clip of troops landing at Normandy Beach on D-Day and wrote: “Memorial Day is more than just a day at the beach.”  Stevie Kokos remembered his father (below), who served with the 82^nd Airborne and passed away within the past year.

For Hoosiers Memorial Day weekend traditionally means patriotic parades and the Indianapolis 500, often referred to simply as “The Race.”  Once widespread, visiting cemeteries with wreaths of flowers still takes place for many families honoring loved ones.  In fact, initially the holiday was called Decoration Day to honor casualties of the Civil War, with May 30 designated as the date because it was an optimum time for flowers to be in bloom.  Historian Ray E. Boomhower posted this quotation by Hoosier President Benjamin Harrison, grandson of “Old Tippecanoe” (William Henry Harrison) and a colonel during the Civil War” who fought under William Tecumseh Sherman.

    I have never been able to think of the day as one of mourning; I have never quite been able to feel that half-masted flags were appropriate on Decoration Day.  I have rather felt that the flag should be at the peak, because those whose dying we commemorate rejoiced in seeing it where their valor placed it. We honor them in a joyous, thankful, triumphant commemoration of what they did. We mourn for them as comrades who have departed, but we feel the glory of their dying and the glory of their achievement covers all our great country, and has set them in an imperishable roll of honor.

 

Changing Decoration Day to Memorial Day was similar to renaming Armistice Day, commemorating the end of the Great War (World War I) to Veterans Day, encompassing all who served in combat regardless of what war, or, for that matter, replacing Lincoln and Washington’s birthday holidays with President Day. July 4 still  reminds us of when in 1776 the Founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, but Columbus Day has been de-emphasized in the wake of revelations about the explorer’s mistreatment of native Americans.  One wonders how long Martin Luther King Day will endure. Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving seem safe in their commercialized form, as does Halloween, which has pagan roots and was banned by New England Puritans but celebrated by Irish immigrants who began arriving in America during the potato famine of the 1840s.

 

World War II was the last noncontroversial war, and those relatively few veterans are succumbing in shockingly large numbers in assisted living facilities.  So, too, are Vietnam veterans, now senior citizens (childhood buddy Paul Curry would be 77 had he survived Vietnam) often receiving inadequate care in veterans’ hospitals and homes.  On this day I not only mourn those who made the ultimate sacrifice in needless wars but those who survived combat but whose nation let them down upon their return and in their old age. Vince Emanuel posted this bitter commentary:

    I used to get angry when people would 'thank me' for my 'service.' These days, it just makes me sad. So many of my friends have died as a result of America's illegal and immoral wars. Millions of our brothers and sisters in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Palestine, and beyond have either been killed or displaced.  I have lost more guys from my platoon to suicide, cancer, and drug overdoses than we lost during the war. Imagine the stress and uncertainty you're feeling in the midst of this pandemic, multiply it by a thousand, add foreign troops kicking in your door, killing, kidnapping, and torturing your family members, then destroying your home, only to have it happen again in a few weeks, and you'll have a small idea of what it's like to be on the receiving end of Uncle Sam's madness. Imagine foreign troops bombing, shelling, and shooting up your neighborhoods just for fun. Imagine those troops mutilating the dead corpses of your relatives and friends, taking pictures and laughing. That's war. That's where your tax dollars are going. That's what I testified to U.S. Congress about back in 2008 (no one cared). That's what's being done in your name while you and your family eat hotdogs and fret about a non-existent baseball season. There's nothing courageous about flying halfway around the world and killing innocent peasants and unemployed workers with mechanized military equipment. There's nothing brave about serving U.S. Empire. That's why 22 veterans kill themselves every day in this country. They're not proud. They're ashamed. - Signed, USMC Veteran (2002-2006) 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, Alpha Company, 3rd Platoon, 1st Squad, 3rd Fireteam.

My late IUN colleague Jim Tolhuizen, grievously wounded when ordered to participate in Nixon’s 1970 Cambodian “Incursion,” never talked about his war experiences until learning I was teaching a course of the history of Vietnam. He began speaking to my students and never brought up his platoon mate Paul’s death but wrote about it for my Vietnam veterans Steel Shavings (volume 39, 2008).  During an R and R trip to Bangkok, Paul had bought the Beatles’s “Abbey Road” tape.  He’d play that tape over and over, and Jim’s last memory of Paul is their squad coming under attack on night guard duty and Paulosing his life trying to retrieve that tape.  After his week in Bangkok, Paul also returned with a photo of a Thai girl who’d been his “escort” and asked Jim to get rid of it should he be killed so his parents and fiancé wouldn’t see it.  Tolhuizen wrote:
    I packed that picture of Paul and his Thai girl away and haven’t seen it in years.  Sometimes I think I should find it and maybe send it to his family if I could find them.  It’s hard to believe anyone would care about the Thai girl anyway.  I don’t know, I made a promise, so I’ll keep it to myself.       

In “They Marched into Sunlight (page 45) David Maraniss wrote about a similar attack in 1967 near Vung Tau: “A squad of Viet Cong guerillas slipped past the listening post and the ambush squad and launched a surprise attack on the night defensive position with machine gun fire and claymore mines, killing one soldier, who had been sitting atop his bunker rather than inside it, and wounding eight others.”

Anne Koehler recalled growing up during World War II in the small farming village of Damendorf in the north of Germany:

    Nearby was the site of torpedo experimentation. They would shoot them into the bay and it was not safe to be on the beach, because some would go astray and surface there. All around the area were barrels which in times of imminent bomber attack would emit smoke to cloud the area and make targets invisible.  We were directly in the flight path of Allied bombers from England to the city of Kiel, where submarines were being built and thus a strategically important target.  We would hear the drone of the engines by the hour during the night. The sky would light in colors over Kiel from "Leuchtkugeln" or flares, dropped to make targets more visible. We called them Christmas trees. (I read once that Jimmy Stewart flew those missions). Sometimes bombers on their return flight would drop extra bombs into the fields nearby. We made a field trip with our school to look at the huge crater. Our village was never hit but toward the end of the war dive bombers flew right over our farm. An anti-aircaft batter or FLAS was on the way to our county seat, the Baltic seaside resort of Eckernfoerde.  I do not recall the end of the war on May 8, 1945, 75 years ago or how it was greeted in our village. I was only 10 and it was my mother's birthday. Prior to that time, I do recall hearing Hitler on the radio. He was screaming and I did not understand what he was saying. Hopefully WWII will be the last world war.


Our weekend routine didn’t change much.  Friday a violent storm left many Lake County residents without electricity or flooded basements, but we escaped except for large puddles in our back yard.  Dace’s family came over and brought homemade egg drop soup and the makings for spring rolls.  Toni provided shrimp, corn on the cob, and other ingredients.  Afterwards, we took pictures with Becca wearing her commencement robe, and I played space base with Dave and James.  I got in some computer bridge, including partnering with Carol Miller.  She had bought plane tickets to visit her son, who’s serving in South Korea, but the pandemic put the kibosh on that.

What a Guy!

"What a guy!   Buddy Guy!”

    Inside joke of Phil and Jimbo

 

Ever since the family saw Buddy Guy live in Merrillville, whenever Phil or I use the phrase “What a guy,” the other says “Buddy Guy.” We have other expressions that only we find funny, such as saying “dirty rubber” when a policeman drives by, a reference to something my buddy Paul Curry said in Terry Jenkins and my presence when a cop pulled over and accused him of muttering “Dirty copper” as he drove by.  Paul claimed he had said, “Dirty rubber,” which made no sense but the cop drove off. When one of us makes pancakes, we inevitably say, “nobody doesn’t like hoecakes,” which we (and nobody else) finds hilarious.

 

Though in his mid-80s, Buddy Guy is still performing, often in his own club, buddy Guy’s Legends.  The son of Louisiana sharecroppers, he moved to Chicago in 1957 and became a session musician for Chess Records.  The last of an era, Buddy’s 1991 CD, “Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues” leads off with his so-named biggest hit and includes the Willie Dixon classic “Let Me Love You Baby,” the Eddie Boyd standard “Five Long Years,” Buddy’s own “Remembering Stevie,” a tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan, plus “Mustang Sally,” the Louis Jordan hit “Early in the Morning,” and more – even a John Hiatt number “Where Is the Next One Coming From?” - all made unique due to Buddy’s guitar solos.  In 2012 Guy played at the White House and persuaded Barack Obama to sing along to “Sweet Home Chicago.”

 

B.B. King’s chapter “Heavenly Music” describes services at a sanctified church that his family, complete with hand-clapping, foot-stomping, shouting, and rocking back and forth in time to the music, as Preacher Fair played a guitar and a relative the piano.  When B.B’s Mama had Preacher Fair over for a Sunday dinner of fried chicken (which B.B. had caught, wrung its  neck, and plucked off the feathers earlier that day) and chocolate pie, he let B.B. play it.  Mama had a cousin, Bukker White, who recorded for RCA Victor and called himself “king of the slide guitar.” B.B. loved visiting his Aunt Mima, who owned a crank-up Victrola and had records by Lemon Blind Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson.  Their Blues numbers, such as Johnson’s “Bow-legged Lady” (“who wears her dress above the knees”), constituted excitement, emotion, and hope for future possibilities.

 

Another important person in King’s life was Uncle Major, virtually blind from cataracts and with a stutter so bad few folks could understand him.  He’d take B.B. fishing, bolster his confidence, and teach him patience.  On the way home Uncle Major would lean of him as B.B. described the fields, birds, and other things near them.  B.B.’s mother and grandmother died, leaving him alone at age 10.  He became the plantation owner’s houseboy and bought a Stella acoustic guitar for $15, two month’s wages.  As he wrote, “My guitar gave me a new life.  It helped me cope.”

 

The season finale of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” reminded me of how “Seinfeld” ended, which critics panned but appropriately made the cast pay for its selfish past actions. In other words, you get what you deserve, reap what you sow. Mocha Joe and a secretary Larry mistreated in season ten have the last laugh as Funkhouser’s F to M transgender former daughter’s big penis wreaks havoc with a watch Larry borrowed and intended to have repaired and causes a fire that consumes the “spite store” he opened in competition with Mocha Joe.

 

Ray Smock wrote about Trump’s erratic leadership during the pandemic:

    The only part of the stimulus package that seems to appeal to the president is the half-trillion dollars that will go to corporations. He said in a news conference that he would personally oversee how this money is dispersed. Congress thought differently and set up a review process and an inspector general with subpoena power. Can you imagine Donald Trump having control of a half-trillion dollars to dole out to billionaires—like himself?

    The  president’s top priority in this pandemic is to save business, and, of course, in the process to save jobs. This is a legitimate priority. But it is not Priority Number One. All humans on the entire planet are threatened with a plague of historic proportions and it must be stopped before workers and businesses can get back to what will pass as the new normal. This is a health crisis first and an economic crisis second. They go together, for sure. But nothing will be right until the virus is gone. Trump keeps talking about opening the nation by Easter. It should be criminal for him to even suggest such blind optimism in the face of scientific knowledge and of the dire crisis faced by our healthcare system nationwide. His false optimism encourages some governors to be reluctant to act, leaving it to mayors and other local officials to make important heath decisions, like social distancing and home confinement.

After D.T. called for things to reopen by Easter to save the economy, Dr. Fauci said, "You don't make the timeline.  The virus makes the timeline."

Trump seems to infect everything he touches.  During the 1980s, unable to buy an NFL franchise, he became an owner of a USFL team, the New Jersey Generals.  After two seasons Trump convinced the owners to move from a spring schedule to the fall, then sued the NFL, claiming it was a monopoly.  He was hoping for a merger but instead the ploy destroyed the league. Houston Generals owner Jerry Argovitz told author Jeff Pearlman: “Donald didn’t love the USFL. To him, it was small potatoes. Which was terrible, because we had a great league and a great idea.  But then everyone let Donald Trump take over.  It was our death.” Since that experience, Trump has disparaged the NFL at every opportunity.

 

IUN’s HELP desk staff, now working from home, has enabled me to get into my blog and Facebook with a minimum of trouble.  Paul and Julie Kern arrived back at The Villages after a cross-country trip from California.  He wrote: “On the final lap, restaurants were open only for drive-through so their restrooms were inaccessible, no small matter for traveling old people.”  Lois Reiner, commenting on Trump’s impatience to end social distancing, wrote: “Old people, Unite.  Tell D.T. we will not die for the economy unless he volunteers to be the test case.”

 

Country pop singer Kenny Rogers died.  Most famous as “The Gambler” in TV movies, the song of that title includes the line, “Know when to hold them and know when to fold them.”  Dave sang “Coward of the County” on Facebook that got many likes and comments.  It’s contains the line, “You don’t have to fight to be a man.”  Behind him was a poster of his former band, Voodoo Chili and a photo of guitarist Big Voodoo Daddy.

 

Long Way Home

“There are so many wars that just can’t be won
Even before the battle’s begun.”
Wilco

Most of our troops deployed in Iraq have concluded their long way home for Christmas. Bombs exploded throughout Baghdad yesterday, killing scores. The Shiite Iraqi government wanted us out (thankfully), so they’ll have to deal with disgruntled Sunnis without our help. The next domino in the Mideast cauldron appears to be Syria, whose president, Bashar-al-Assad, is responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of protestors. If a Republican wins in 2012, chances are we’ll be pulled into another war, perhaps with Iran. Admiral William H. McRaven, the SEAL team commander who organized the raid that took out Osama bin Laden and a runner-up as Time magazine person of the Year, praised Barack Obama as a steady, brave, knowledgeable commander in chief. I shudder to think what might happen if someone like Gingrich replaces him.

Because I work in IUN’s library as CRA co-director, I got invited (first time) to their holiday lunch. A highlight was chatting with Lois, former director Bob Moran’s secretary whom I hadn’t seen in years, and Jackie Cheairs, whose brother-in-law just returned from Iraq, hopefully for good, after multiple deployments. Because the vice chancellor wanted the library open even though the semester is over, Tim Sutherland ordered food from Strack and Van Til’s. The chicken and ham were good and the ribs tough, and the mashed potatoes a pleasant surprise. I ate so much I skipped my normal yogurt before bowling. At Cressmoor Lanes my Engineers won five of seven and would have swept the Dingbats had Bobby McCann not doubled in the tenth of the third game.

Upon arriving home, I was greeted by Phil and Diamond, out for his final pee of the evening. When the others retired for bed, I watched Letterman, who had John Huntsman on (he’d make a great Obama cabinet member). Dave worked two viral YouTube excerpts into his monologue, one of monkeys riding dogs and the other of a FedEx employee tossing a package containing a TV over a fence.

Thursday my nuclear family (Toni, Phil, Dave, and I) spent the day together. It was great. Normally Dave does not like music on while playing games, but he had no objection to The Decembrists, Arcade Fire, and Wilco. After Amun Re and Acquire, we played seven pinochle games. The guys were all smiles after winning the first two, but the old folks took the next four out of five. We finished with an abbreviated Texas hold ’em match.

Vandals have desecrated the Marquette Park Pavilion, which is undergoing a multi-million dollar facelift. Not only did they steal copper pipes, they started a fire inside and smeared graffiti on the walls. Dave and Angie got married there. Poor Gary. How many black eyes can the city survive?

Yesterday I paid $2.99 a gallon filling up the Corolla. Today the price had jumped to $3.39.

The Congressional fight over extending tax cuts and unemployment benefits appears over, with Republican House members apparently caving in the face of almost universal criticism, even from Senate Republicans. Judge Louis Rosenberg decertified Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White for fraudulently stating his residence. State Rep Charlie Brown, meanwhile, is stepping up his drive to ban smoking in public places in time for the Superbowl, taking place in Indy in six weeks.

Driving to the library on its last day open until January 3, 2012, I heard Supertramp’s “Take the Long Way Home,” which contains these lines: “When the day comes to settle down, who’s to blame if you’re not around?” I worked on the Maggie Comer chapter of “On Their Shoulders.” Like Marie Arredondo, she sacrificed so that her children might have an opportunity to fully develop their talents.

At Gaard Logan’s suggestion I Googled artist Bo Bartlett, who gave to the Tacoma Art Museum a painting entitled “Brooklyn Crucifixion.” A comely woman in a pink bathrobe is hanging by ropes that have caused her wrists to bleed. Flanking her are an artist and a bearded man who resembles Chain Potok whose novel about rebellious Hasidic Jew, “My Name Is Asher Lev,” inspired Bartlett. Gaard’s book club is currently reading the novel, which I had never heard of. Here’s a quote from Asher’s teacher: “As an artist you are responsible to no one and nothing, except to yourself and the truth as you see it. Do you understand? An artist is responsible to his art. Anything else is propaganda.”

On Facebook Pat Zollo mentioned getting together with Tom Curry, and we exchanged messages about Paul Curry, whose C130 was shot down in Vietnam. It caused me to shed a tear thinking about finding Paul Curry’s name on The Wall in Washington. It took a little time because I hadn’t realized Paul was his middle name. Terry Jenkins, whom I’m still close to, was probably Paul’s best friend and a pallbearer, I believe, at the funeral. When we were kids, the three of us were out with our sleds trying to catch rides on the back fenders of cars that stopped at a Summit Avenue intersection near Kirk’s Store. A police car came by, and Paul muttered, “Dirty copper.” The car screeched to a halt and the officer said, “What did you say?” Without batting an eye Paul replied, “Dirty rubber.” It made no sense, but the policeman said something like, “Well, watch what you say” and drove off. From then on saying “Dirty rubber” is an inside joke with us that evokes memories of Paul.