Debt of Gratitude to our Veterans

Veteran’s Day is always a bittersweet kind of day for me. Veterans of our armed forces have a very very special place in my heart. I’m not really an emotional person but shaking a veteran’s hand can reduce me to tears in an instant, before I can even blurt out an awkward, “Thank you.”

They do what I know I cannot do. They have given up their very lives – not just those whose bodies are left overseas – but even those who return – for me and my countrymen and -women.  There’s so much about what they do and endure that I know I am entirely too much of a wimp for. Start with the physical training. Ugh! Yes, I’m old and decrepit these days, but even when more youthful – I know I would not have been able to endure the 20 mile pack marches or the hundreds of pushups. Most of all, I know I would not do well with someone screaming orders at me. I could not obey without talking back or without question. A good soldier I would not make.

I am grateful that my work and my outside of work interests often bring me in contact with veterans. I have learned and continue to learn so much from them. They make so many of our noble pie-in-the-sky American ideals real. Loyalty, honor and camaraderie are something special, manifest in very real ways in these men and women’s lives. I am always humbled when I get to work with them. I very often feel that “I’m not worthy” to even keep company with them – they are superhuman, in my book.

But I also know from my experiences in working with them that there are those who struggle. Some in obvious ways, others in more subtle ways. I often hear about how skills that served them well overseas in a combat zone (like hypervigilance and quick reactions, for example) make life really difficult for them when they come home. I see it and hear it many times.

Today, I think of the men and women who served our country with honor and distinction, who got good educations through the military by becoming electricians, mechanics, radio operators, or learning many other skilled trades.  But who this evening are spending a cold winter night on the street, under a bypass, on a grate, or on a doorstep or in an alleyway. Some people say homeless – especially homeless veterans – are to blame for their condition. But I say – look what they did for our country – and that means, what they did for me, personally, by volunteering to serve. So what have we done – as a country, or me, personally, for them? Have I helped them in any way by saying Thank you, by giving them a cup of coffee, by referring them to places that can help them by providing food or shelter – maybe even a job? Everyone’s having difficulty finding work these days – why blame the victim?

Why do so many of our returning veterans find life so difficult once they return home that they believe suicide to be their only solution? What can we – as individuals, but perhaps more importantly, as a nation – do to help them? Why must they wait months to receive appropriate counseling and aid at VA hospitals – the very institution that is supposed to help them?

Thankfully, there are organizations out there to help. And not just aid to those veterans who find themselves homeless, but all veterans who need assistance – especially in areas no warrior wants to admit to needing help in – mental health. I saw a sign once that said, “It takes the strength/courage  of a warrior to know when to admit that you need help.”

Here’s some places that I know are helping others:

Ed Tick, author of  War and the Soul, leads healing journeys and seminars. Much of his work has focused on Vietnam veterans, but has now been expanded for the current generation of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Numerous cities have programs called Stand Downs, where homeless or near-homeless veterans can receive aid and comfort in a warm friendly place with their fellow veterans. It is a tragedy that nearly 200,000 veterans are on the street – and that there are so many out there that there is an organization called the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. It’s great that such an organization exists to provide aid and support – but wouldn’t it be wonderful if it no longer had to exist?

Finally, there is an online project called NotAlone.com which is designed to be a website for veterans and family members who are struggling to cope with the upheaval and adjustment of coming back to the United States after having been overseas. Some of the areas of tension might be unnoticeable at first – like the spouse who has remained at home and who has taken on the responsibilities normally shared by both parents of the children, and has difficulty adjusting back to having the soldier-spouse back in the household. Other areas might be more obvious – quick violent rages or quietness merging into deep depression. NotAlone is designed to help both the soldier and the family member who remained at home. They do this by providing an online forum where people can listen to interviews with others who have gone through the same experiences. It is a way for people to understand that they are NotAlone in their suffering, in their bewilderment, in their uncertainty – and even their pain. It helps people understand that there is hope and healing out there, and lets visitors to their website learn more about how others coped with and got through, and got help, in similar situations.

To all of our veterans, THANK YOU with deep gratitude for all that you do, have done, and will do. There is no way we can ever repay your sacrifice. Our nation and we as individuals owe you so very very much.

© writingreading, 2009

Famous Women You’ve Never Heard Of #4 – Melba Pattillo Beals

If you know about the Little Rock Nine and the events of 1957, then you already may know this famous woman. But I imagine that most Americans would not recognize the name of Melba Pattillo Beals.

In 1957,  Melba Pattillo was just fifteen, and she was one of nine young African-American students to integrate Little Rock High in Arkansas. Her story is told in her memoir, Warriors Don’t Cry.

At the end of the school year before, she raised her hand when her teacher at her all-black school asked if any students were interested in attending all-white Central High. Melba did not tell her mother, so it came as a shock when she was selected to attend Central High the next year.

The courage and cruelty that Melba writes about in her memoir is moving and personal. She was threatened with hanging, rape and violence, and people hurled words at her that no child – no person – should have to endure. Such hatred. People threw rocks through her windows at home, and her grandmother sat watch more than once with a shotgun poised for defense.

The Arkansas National Guard closed the doors of Central to the Nine, keeping them out, until Pres. Eisenhower ordered in federal troops of the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the desegragation orders. The situation was so tense and violent that each black student had their own soldier who guarded them against extreme violence, but who could not interfere when the students were called vile names and otherwise tormented. Thumbtacks were placed in seats, people walked on the back of Melba’s heels until they bled, she was tripped, and every day, every hour, was a battle.

Her story would be impressive and inspiring, regardless, but to realize how terribly young all of the Nine were – and to know that they changed the world – is awe-inspiring. Ms. Beals’s story is one that could give any teenager inspiration, strength and comfort, and one that can educate any adult about the price paid by those brave young students all throughout the country who desegragated schools in the 1950s.

All of us are in her debt, and those of the rest of the Little Rock Nine: Thelma Mothershed, Minnijean Brown, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls, Gloria Ray, Ernest Green, and  Elizabeth Eckford.

© writingreading, 2009

Remembering Haymarket

It is the end of the Labor Day weekend here in America, and many people (including myself) had the day off today. Unfortunately, like many 3-day weekend holidays – the origin and significance of the holiday itself has been lost. These days, it’s all about football, hot dogs, and getting away. That’s fine, all well and good. But I believe it is important to remember what price was paid so that we could have this holiday.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Haymarket Riot.  May, 1886, Chicago. Workers marched in protest, advocating for an eight-hour workday. In the events that followed over the next few days, 2 workers were killed, seven policeman died, and seven labor leaders were sentenced to death, though only four were executed.

Haymarket is a complex story, and one that I am still struggling to grasp and understand, myself. But what is important to me to remember this Labor Day weekend is that people died so that I could have the things I take for granted today. I count all of the people who died in the Haymarket events to have paid the price for benefits that I enjoy today – so many of which I take for granted. Like the eight-hour workday. And a holiday off.

The battle for the eight-hour day did not end at Haymarket, and in fact, was entirely derailed because of the violence and controversy surrounding those events. It wouldn’t be until after World War II that the eight-hour day became law.

Resources:

The Dramas of Haymarket from Chicago Historical Society – lengthy and detailed essays about the history and significance and lasting impact of Haymarket, and links to digitized materials.

Super short summary and links from Kent State.

Episode on the PBS program, History Detectives about Haymarket.

History of Labor Day from U.S. Dept. of Labor

© writingreading 2009

Famous Women You’ve Never Heard Of #3 – Ruth Brown

Librarians are demure, quiet, old ladies with buns, right? Well, not exactly.

Although Ruth Brown fits much of the stereotype – a little bit frumpy, a single woman, plain in appearance – she took a stand for Civil Rights in her library in Bartlesville, Oklahoma in 1950 that cost her her job. What she did took courage and conviction. Her story is told in the book, The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown: Civil Rights, Censorship, and the American Library by Louise Robbins.

Don’t let the “library” aspect of this one throw you. It is full of intrigue, community infighting, passionate defenders of the status quo, persons willing to take great risks in an attempt to awaken a new social consciousness and justice among their fellow townspeople, class warfare, Red Scares, fabrication of evidence, issues over power and gender, and more. It is, in fact, a bit of a thriller.

Brown had been a librarian for many years in Bartlesville, leading a somewhat true-to-stereotype existence. But as the horrors of the Holocaust during WWII were revealed, she and other like-minded individuals formed the “Committee on the Practice of Democracy” to fight discrimination.

Bartlesville was very much a segregated city in the late 1940s. African-Americans were allowed to use the library and did not have to use a separate facility, but their use and access of materials was under different rules and conditions than white customers, at least prior to World War II.

But when Brown walked into a diner on night in 1950 with two African-American friends who were teachers, she crossed the racial line. The campaign to label her a subversive communist – and thus, oust her from her position, was underway. The American Legion, the D.A.R., and corporate magnates from Phillips Petroleum mounted an overwhelming effort to have her dismissed. She was accused of distributing “subversive” literature, although the books in question were actually recommended by the national professional library association as proper to have in a library, in order to represent a diversity of viewpoints on various subjects. One was even written during WWII when the Russians were our allies, but now it was labeled “subversive.”

Ruth Brown knew when she walked into that diner that day that her act would be provocative, and that her membership in the Committee on the Practice of Democracy could get her fired. She did it anyway.

As a single woman, she did not have much to fall back on after a job loss, personally or financially. She ended up leaving town of her own volition. But her cause was taken to the courts, the national library association made important innovations in their practices and policies, and even Hollywood got into the act. A few years after the actual events, her story was thinly fictionalized and turned into a movie called Storm Center. Hollywood had been through the mill with the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the producers saw in her story a reflection of their own.

One of the things I enjoyed most about this book, besides Ruth Brown’s story, is that it unveils so many aspects of American society that we are still struggling with today, particularly in recent years. “Terrorism” is the “new Communism” – and actions are taken today by our government and individuals in the name of “fighting terrorists” that 50 years ago, were used to defend America against the threat of communism. Although the events described in the book happened 50 years ago, much of it is very relevant to today. The book deals with issues of racial equality and justice, women’s power (or lack thereof), censorship, class and economic issues, and more.

Learn more about this brave woman, and be inspired! You’ll never think of librarians as “boring” again.

© writingreading, 2009

Page Smith’s Sweeping History

I’ve been meaning to write for sometime about Page Smith’s huge and sweeping multi-volume “A People’s History…” series.

First, let me say that I’ve only read one volume of this eight volume work. Each book is massive. Vol. 4, entitled The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years weighs in at slightly more than 1000 pages. Umph!

But let me tell you why you should read it, or any of the other volumes in this series. Forget the boring history textbooks of high school or college. Smith’s work is both vast, and detailed. He covers all of the basic historical ground – politics, presidents, wars, economy, exploration and so on. But he also has fabulous chapters about cultural life – theatre, literature, religion, and more. He impressively combines narrative of larger historical events with eyewitness history, built from diaries, letters, newspapers, and other first hand sources. These first hand accounts breathe life into the old dusty facts that died in a history class long ago, and are now revived with vigor in Smith’s work.

Sure, it is a massive tome, and one that may take quite some time to read. But I found it interesting, educational, and a helpful way to quickly dig into specific subjects and areas of interest, even if I wasn’t interested in the whole thing.

However, I did have two small problems with it. One, is the lack of an index. This means if you happen to recall reading about something several hundred pages ago – but can’t recall which chapter, there’s no easy way to go back and find it. The second problem I have is a related one – and that is a complete lack of footnotes. The good news is that he is pretty good about including at least a general source citation within the text, like “So-n-So wrote in his diary…”, but I miss having the specifics.

© writingreading, 2009

The Cost of Voter Apathy

Because of the historic occasion of Barack Obama’s nomination, I’ve been reflecting on the legacy of the past 50 years in Civil Rights. In 1950 in the South, black and white children could not attend school together, and could not even drink from the same water fountain. Sure, it’s taken too long, but what a historic and momentous occasion this is for our country – regardless of which political party you belong to or which candidate you support.

If you’re fed up with politics, too cynical to believe either of the candidates, or just plain tempted to give up and sit this election out, just remember this. Men (and probably some women) died trying to exercise their constitutional right to vote. Read about Freedom Summer in Mississippi in 1964, and learn the cost of those brave individuals who refused to be turned away from the polls.

No matter what party, no matter which candidate, honor those who have come before and exercise your right to Vote!

(I’ve avoided making political posts on my blog – that’s not what this blog is about. However, knowing the cost of gaining the right to vote is important, and we all owe a debt to those who went before us. All comments on this blog are moderated. No comments that are stridently and obnoxiously endorsing one candidate over another will be accepted, due to a desire to avoid political flame wars. There’s enough of that elsewhere. Besides, if you feel that strongly about your candidate, then obviously you can be counted on to cast your vote! I’m just trying to do my tiny part to try to keep civility in the debate.)

© writingreading, 2008

Fact, Fiction, or something in between?

It’s odd how recently, over the past couple of weeks, I’ve encountered a number of things that have blurred the line between Fact and Fiction. I’ve encountered them often enough, that it seems like it is one of those “themes,” – where the universe is trying to tell me something – and like always, I’m pretty clueless about what that might be.

For starters, of course, there’s my writing group. There, the line between the two is deliberately blurred, with such intent that it is a ground rule. “Everything is assumed to be fiction” – even if it is not. Even if the author herself proclaims it to be fact. We still treat it as fiction. This is one area where I am used to the lines being blurred, and am comfortable with it that way. It serves its purpose within the group, and we all agree on the same “rules.” It works.

However, other things have popped up lately. A book that appears to be a WWII memoir – but when you read the fine print in the introduction, the author advises “treat this book as fiction.” The fact that there are photographs, battle reports, and other things which lend an air of authenticity to it make the author’s statement even more jolting. So – perhaps the maps and scenes shown are not of the fighting in France after all. Maybe they are from an Armed Forces Day mock battle instead. Who knows? This blurring in this particular case was alarming to me, because unless the reader slows down to take the time to read the disclaimer at the beginning, the book could easily pass as fact. And, to be truthful, it does seem like much of the book is factual, maybe even 80%. But because there is no clear “THIS CHAPTER IS FICTION” or “THIS CHAPTER IS FACT” notice, one never knows where the line is, so everything is suspect.

I encountered a similar situation maybe a month or so ago, as well. This time it was a made-up Civil War diary. Again, interspersed throughout were quotes from reliable historical sources, such as the Official Records and other works, and what also were probably legitimate excerpts from actual historical letters. Still, and again, the author said near the beginning, “I have fictionalized Joe’s (whatever the soldier’s name was) thoughts and feelings based upon my readings of what others wrote at the time.” or something like that. As one who reads and researches in Civil War history all of the time, not only did I feel cheated, but I had to dismiss in its entirety the entire book. That was truly disappointing, because until I had it in my hands where I could read and look at it closely, it had initially appeared to be a very valuable resource to my research. Instead, it was a waste of time, and I had to consider the entire work as totally unreliable.

I read mostly history, so that’s where I’ve encountered this situation the most, lately, although there have even been things in my casual reading where the line between fact and fiction has been deliberately questioned or blurred. As it relates to history, I’m not sure why people feel the need to insert fictionalization into situations where the “real” story has its own significance and worthiness. Someone writing about their own experiences during WWII, or an ancestor’s letters from the Civil War? What’s wrong with that? Is not the fact that the individuals served and wrote about their experiences sufficient? Why feel the need to embellish?

Perhaps such hybrid works are entertaining to read. Maybe they have their appeal to people who read W.E.B. Griffin or other historical novelists. But for someone who is looking for “true” accounts of historic events, they are worthless, since the reader never knows what is fact or what is fiction.

Remember a while back the outcry over the “fake” memoir by James Frey? And why was there such an uproar? Because it was embellished, more fiction than fact.

Just as we have the term “docu-drama” in TV, when a true story is taken and embellished for “dramatic effect” – so too, do we need a new term for these written works which mixup the previously separate worlds of non-fiction and fiction. Perhaps the terms “factual fiction” or maybe more accurately, “fictional fact” might be in order.

I am grateful, however, that at least the first two authors that I mentioned had the courtesy to inform their readers that fiction had entered their stories, though one had to read the front matter closely to catch this distinction. Mr. Frey, in contrast, did not admit his fictionalization until he was exposed. So it seems there are varying degrees even to this matter.

Reader beware. What passes for truth – or even one individual’s perception of the truth – may be nothing but a fabrication.

© writingreading, 2008

Thomas Paine’s “American Crisis”

In honor of the Fourth of July holiday, I picked up Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis. Even if you’re not familiar with the title, you probably will recognize at least one of its quotes. This is where the famous quote, “These are the times that try men’s souls” comes from.

And if you’re not familiar with any of this, Thomas Paine is more commonly known, today, I think, as the author of Common Sense. He was an American printer at the time of the American Revolution, and his incendiary Common Sense called for the establishment of an independent country, separate from the British, in January 1776 – a full six months before the Declaration of Independence made it official.

I feel certain I must have read The American Crisis, long ago, in an 8am college history course, though I remember nothing but sleepiness from that. But rereading it now, many years later and much more conscious, I am struck by not only Paine’s eloquence and passion – but how much of our fundamental American ideals are contained and elaborated in this series of essays.

He talks about colonialism, royalists efforts to suppress the will of the common people, economic instability, the folly and costs of war (and sometimes its necessity), honor and deception among leaders, the willing sacrifices made by American citizens, and so very much more. I found it not only a surprisingly easy read – but also fascinatingly relevant in many many ways to today’s world. It truly took me back to the most fundamental aspects of our American democracy – our virtues and our faults – and maybe most importantly at this time of year, our ideals.

The essays are short enough they can be read on a short bus or train ride while commuting, or an hour without TV, or maybe while you are waiting for it to get dark enough to shoot off fireworks on the Fourth. Get back to basics, read about American ideals and freedoms, and take a look at this American classic.

© writingreading 2008