On the Road Again

My trip from Chicago to Albuquerque via Borger can hardly be used in the same sentence as The Bataan Death March. Nevertheless, the journey that got me where I am today has included the heroes of the march; their words, their photos, their drawings, their memories.

My writing and research have been done. My middle-school workbook proof has been printed. And, my PowerPoint presentation for the Descendants of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor is ready to present to the grant committee.

I thought I knew a lot of my grandfather's story. What I didn't know where the stories written about him and the prisoners who participated in The Mighty Cabanatuan Orchestra and Art Players - true artists all.

Who could know the indomitable spirit and survival instincts that allowed these men to share with each other their talents.

The conference in Albuquerque begins tomorrow; I have no idea what to expect, but I'm sure I'll meet survivors and other descendants like myself. I'll hear stories, see images, and be touched in ways I cannot imagine. I only hope my small contribution does the same.

Wounded Warrior

Those of you who have been following my Facebook posts over the last several weeks know that I was wounded in the battle called Chicago Winter - I slipped on ice, fell, and broke my right wrist. My write/right wrist and lower arm are currently ensconced in their fourth cast/splint. But things are improving - this particular cast is plastic, removable, and allows for occupational therapy to start immediately. All this means I should be as good as new . . . sometime.

Since I'm also working on a middle school project about the Bataan Death March and Cabanatuan prisoner of war camp, I cannot help but compare my medical incident and accompanying care with what must have been 100s of like and worse wounds and breaks than I suffered. These men would not have had the advantages of a taxi to the ER, or in many cases, even a doctor. They were forced to march 80 miles and were executed if they faltered.

Photo Credit: National Museum of the Air Force

I know the disfigurement of my wrist post-break; I had 7 hours in the ER to stare at it before it was set and splinted. I also know that while I had pain (I'd say 500 out of 10), I was given pain medication to ease my torment. I would venture to say that any wounded soldier on Bataan fortunate to only have an arm fracture kept his mouth shut and his feet moving lest he be deemed too damaged to continue and summarily killed. I suspect that men with broken legs or backs kept themselves as upright as possible in order to take even one more step.

I write this entry to put my wrist into perspective, to put a lot of my life into perspective. I often fear that I take for granted the simple and expedient ways to "fix" my life, to make myself more comfortable. Perhaps I can recall this post the next time I complain about being out of Motrin, or having to walk to the bus in the rain, or yes, even the battle I call winter.

Hoarder or Collector

In my writing workshop, we were asked to write about things we've saved that perhaps should have been thrown out. In the ten minutes we were allowed to write, I came up with:

• Every postcard anyone has sent me
• Every letter ditto ditto ditto
• Every card celebrating every event in my life
• Most emails since 1995
• Many bad photographs of other people's children*
• Many photos, good and bad, of other people's vacations
• Most [Houston] Chronicle Sunday brides from the last 20 years
• Boxes of books I will never read, but will go in my someday library to fill shelves
• Every thing that has ever been on a refrigerator of mine, including the magnets 

I guess I save words and images.

For what? Because I can? Or because of the multi-volume biography that someone will write about me someday?

Postcards are understandable; I keep them in a big basket, and long-time friends and family pick through them to read about others' travels. Postcards once spawned one of my better essays - published even.

But really? I used to save every art magazine I had, every canister of sequins, every craft kit known to man because maybe . . . someday . . . I'd be an art teacher and I would need all of this for class projects. Guess what? I am never going to be an art teacher; at least not an everyday 9-5 kind of teacher, and anything I plan to teach at this point has vastly outgrown a canister of sequins.

Am I saving cards and letters as proof that people care about me? Proof that I exist for someone? Now as I wander into every-other-week-therapy topics, I think I'll stop.

And did I mention that I also save dead roses?


*If you are reading this and you have sent me a photograph of your child, I am not talking about you.

Math and Art: Word Problems for the Visual Learner

My math education did not go well at all. When, in 3rd grade, we learned "times tables", I had such problems that Miss Finch, a first-year teacher, called my parents in to let them know they had better think of technical school for me rather than college. While calling a 9-year-old an intellectual loser is a bit presumptuous, Miss Finch had me dead to rights on my math skills.

Miss Finch's Class Photo

 I would also guess that I have thought of Miss Finch over the last [you figure it out] number of years about a bazillion times more than she has ever thought of me. It's time to rid myself of the resentment at last.

While I'll go on to say that not only did I finish college, I did so in 4 years, one summer, and 8 majors. In addition, I went on to get a Masters in Fine Arts in Photography. You wondered when I'd bring in the art, didn't you? So here's the deal, while math scares me and those who know me who no longer ask me to add numbers, I do use math - complicated algorithms - on a daily basis. Most of my art takes place on the computer in a program called Photoshop. There I can create images, manipulate them, assemble photomontages, and ready photos for printing on textiles.

I will confess to not knowing one single complicated algorithm, but the point is, I can use them to my advantage - take that Miss Finch. I also know that I can ask the scientists with whom I work to draw a simple flowchart or diagram to clarify their research for me in order to better edit it.

Where is this all going? Let's call it a short essay on recognizing that skills of any type range along a spectrum and it's important to know how you learn as well as how to explain what you know to others. I'm getting ready to impart some WWII art/theatre/history knowledge to some really smart middle-schoolers and I need to remember that some of them will be good in math and some in art, and that all of them will most certainly teach me something.

Daughters, Sisters, Friends

I took my family to the Vietnam Wall on Friday, November 11, 2011.

There were a lot of "relatives" and "friends" along. I use the quotes because while the Vietnam Vets had their brother Vets with whom to share the occasion, I am not a Vet. I am a daughter of a name on the Wall. I couldn't share stories of war, of injuries, of death. I did know what SOS meant as a breakfast meal.

I did find other daughters, who I find are now my sisters. We had never met before Friday, but we found we had stories to share; similar stories of war and of death. Who knew? When you're the only person you know who has a Father killed in a war, you're the only person you know - there's typically no clubhouse.

As for the friends I mentioned in the title of this post . . . I have two new ones as well. One is my bus seatmate. A man about my age, did his duty in Vietnam and moved on with his life. Friday was the first time he had ever seen the Wall. I don't know if he was scared; he was sometimes quiet and sometimes very talkative. We sat together during the ceremony and made the occasional comment to one another. He reminds me of me, my husband, my father. The second new friend is a high school classmate. I have not seen her in over 40 years, but she made the over one hour drive into D.C. to attend the ceremony and meet me at the wall. If that's not friendship, then I don't know what is.

There are good good people in this world.

No One Wall is Big Enough

to list even one name of a soldier killed in war . . . any war. I'm talking about several walls, some large, some small, but each carrying the names of men and women killed in Vietnam.

The photo above is from a Wall here in Chicago, just south of the river, almost touching the river; lots of green, lots of traffic noises, and the occasional jogger. Today it was the scene of a celebration of remembrance - for the men and women of Illinois who made the "ultimate sacrifice." There are more than 2900 from Illinois and 900 of those from Chicago.

Today's celebration, The Call for Photos, is a collaboration between The History Channel and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. This initiative has as its goal a photograph for every name on the Vietnam Wall - over 58,000 of them. These photographs along with other memorabilia will be housed at the soon-to-be-built Education Center at the Wall.

Readers of this blog and those of you who know me probably know by now that my Father was killed in Vietnam in 1967. His name is on Panel 25E, Line 94. I wasn't much interested in Vietnam until I got closer to the age he was when he was killed. Then, it became imperative to find a way to make sense of someone my age dying in a war; I use art and writing - it probably makes less sense now than it did. I'm almost 20 years older than my Dad was when he was killed. One of the speakers at the ceremony today was born the year I graduated from high school; his Father fought and came home. It wasn't until after the son had served three tours in Iraq that he could sit and have a beer with his father and understand. The son said that he still doesn't feel like he gave as much to his country as his father did. He's a nice young man, I met him, he's the same age my Father was . . . time has its own sense of humor and irony.

So, along with the art, I've been involved with a group called Sons and Daughters in Touch. These are all kids, and now grand kids, who are related to a name on the Wall. In Houston in 1992 there was a huge celebration. It was close to the 20th anniversary of the end of the war and the 10th anniversary of the Wall. I got to ride in a parade, I got to represent a lot of kids. I heard people cheering for the same men and women who were disregarded when they came home from Vietnam. Now we're closing in on the 40th anniversary of the end of the war and the 30th anniversary of the Wall.

I'm still not quite sure how I got involved in today's event except that I answered a notice for The Call for Photos and someone called me back. To be honest, I didn't know there was a Wall here in Chicago until three weeks ago when this all began to unfold. But if I can share my photos and my stories I will. Today there were lots of those around. A group of maybe 30 people, mostly Vets, and me with a caring friend, sat in the pouring rain to listen to speakers, mostly politicians - but interestingly enough, most of them Vets. They got to sit under a tent, we sat under enormous umbrellas provided by The History Channel.

I was impressed and moved by a lot today - the Chicago Army Recruiting Battalion Color Guard who presented colors (they didn't have large umbrellas) and the 85th Army Band from Arlington Heights who played The National Anthem (no umbrellas) - but ultimately by a woman who sat in the back row of speakers. She was an Army nurse. She served in Vietnam. She was at the field hospital in Pleiku where my father first went after he was injured. I showed her a photograph and told her I didn't expect her to remember. She was silent for a moment before she told me that every soldier who came through her hospital was loved.

When Will They Ever Learn?

                                             Photomontage: Gail F. Wilson

I have never considered myself a particularly political person, but my views on war are becoming more concrete and clear as I get older (and wiser?). I recently became involved in a cool project, sponsored by History and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, whereby every name on the Vietnam Wall will have a photo associated with it. A gentleman involved with the project called to interview me about my experience of losing my dad in Vietnam. He then went on to question me about our more recent conflicts. While it's difficult to answer the question, "Knowing what you know now, would you still have supported [fill in the blank]?" what I can answer is there has got to be more thought given to our intentions, our expected consequences, and any potential unintentional consequences.

I recently heard a reporter state that Iraq and Afghanistan can never happen again, as in, they won't because we'll talk things through. Based on my increasing jaded and cynical outlook on war, I don't believe that and here's one reason why. In 1958 my Father was sent to Vietnam as an "Advisor", he went back 10 years later and was killed. Our country just sent 100 "Advisors" to Uganda . . . what are the consequences? Are they there to "talk"? Or are they there to stay and escalate in numbers?