Archive for September, 2007

October, 2007

The lights came up in the theatre and the credits for Across the Universe were playing over the multicolored faces of the actors and actresses spinning weightlessly. For over two hours, kitten and I had watched the stories of young people as they lived through five years of the 1960s, sung to the tune of no less than 33 Beatles songs. I turned to her, said, “Darling, I know you like to sit through the credits, but please, just this once, we need to leave. I’ve got a white-hot light burning its way out of my brain. If I don’t get this down in print, I’ll scream.”

I drove home quickly, because I wanted to write this while the music was still echoing in my head. The movie had touched on the war in Vietnam in juxtaposition with Beatles music and memories came back so hard and so deeply that I almost had to leave in the middle. To a certain extent, what you are going to read now is a catharsis for me.

So often, people talk about the Vietnam War as something to compare other things to. They talk about it as a bad example of how well-meaning people can destroy nations. They speak of it as the great cause where the people made a difference. It was more than that. It was something that overwhelmed our lives for ten years, reached into the heart of my community and changed us forever.

Small towns are one of the places where soldiers come from. The parts of big cities where tenements crowd closely together are another source, but when you read the casualty lists of a war, you see the names of places like Sedan, Kansas, Lula, Georgia or, in our case, Tonica, Illinois. Every Memorial Day, we would gather as children at the Civil War cemetery on the hill overlooking the grade school and listen while Wilson Warrner read the Gettysburg Address in a deep, resounding voice that needed no amplification whatsoever.

We didn’t think much of war, or going to it when I was a kid. Korea was in a stalemate when I was born. All of our fathers, of course, had been in World War 2–my father had met my mother when he returned from Europe and his best friend had taken him to a cabaret to see their new torch singer. When the mood struck, my father would talk about the good times that he had while he was in Europe–building airfields for the Brits, sneaking into town after it had been declared off-limits. He told me of watching aircraft come back from their bombing missions–the American B-17s at dusk and the British planes at dawn.

It was accepted that, while war was an event that happened far, far away from Tonica, participation was a duty that would occasionally fall to young men from the town. As I grew into my teens, I, like everyone else in my generation watched war unfold in real-time. By the time I was thirteen years old, we saw nightly news reports from Vietnam with video footage of our brave soldiers saving villagers from the enemy. Two hours later, my father would point out that the soldiers in the Combat! TV show had been trying to take that town in France for two months longer than he had taken in real life.

One of the first soldiers to return from Vietnam after he finished his tour was asked to speak to a school assembly. I was fourteen at the time–it was 1966. He spoke of the camaraderie of the troops, of the good work that they were doing. He presented a slide show with photographs of the countryside. There were muddy, muddy roads–we all knew about them. The poles carrying electricity to the villages there were tilted from the vertical as badly as the ones going down US 51. There were all manner of trees, though, in the photos that were unlike anything that we had ever seen. At the end, there were two slides showing enemy bodies. He apologized for not planning properly, “I’m sorry kids,” he said, “I should have taken those out–don’t mean to upset any of you.”

Two of the Seniors in the back watched the slide show with a great deal of interest. Mike Puetz and Cody Calkins were inseparable.

I didn’t know Cody very well at all, which was surprising, since his father, Ray Calkins, was the man who farmed my grandmother’s land over in Deer Park township. I knew that he was in the FFA and he, being a senior, got to dance with all the girls at the sock-hops. Mike was the older brother of my buddy, Jim (who was my age). Mike played varsity basketball with a fervor that would incite the team to legendary feats when he’d swivel and then shoot unerringly. He was so thin that opposing team members would dive out of the way when they saw his elbows coming–we said that they were as sharp as railroad spikes. He resembled Gomer Pyle, a comic caricature of a Marine private, more than anything else.

All through my high school years, there would be graduates leaving for the various branches of the service and then returning. Most of the time, they didn’t wait to be drafted–they volunteered in the hope that they’d get the sort of jobs that would help them when they returned to the farm since there wasn’t a lot of call for trained killers in north central Illinois. Cody and Mike both graduated in the Spring of 1967.

As time went on, the war escalated. Some people began having doubts about whether or not the whole thing was a good idea or not. At the same time, my father’s post-traumatic stress from his war began to take a toll on his personality and his relations with me. We had shouting matches over the politics of Johnson and Nixon that would sometimes last for up to an hour. As 1968 progressed, I spent more and more time away from the house and over at the Puetzs’ place. Mike and his buddy Lowell Beenenga loved to fish at a pond Lowell’s father had dug at the southern end of Ticona Road (the road which ran beside my house and connected to the Lowell Road, which led into Tonica.) That summer, at the pond, they taught me about Playboy centerfolds and how to drink beer. I only had a bike, so there was no danger riding home except for DeHasque’s dog, which would lurk by the side of the road and wait for me to wobble by.

By September, it was pretty obvious that Mike was going to get drafted. He decided to volunteer for the artillery, since he was big enough to lug the equipment around, and he heard that they got better training. It was the end of summer and I had just started my junior year.

He stopped back after basic and we had a huge party for him and by dark, I ended up way too drunk to walk or bike home, so Mike and his brother drove me up to the house. We didn’t want the night to end–the next morning he’d head back and it would be a long, long time before we saw him again.

Occasionally, during the school year, his sisters would receive letters from him and bring them to school. They weren’t particularly eloquent, but they were consistenly funny. Winter turned to spring, then summer. In the middle of July 1969, we heard that Cody had been killed in action. This surprised us, since we hadn’t really thought a lot about him since he had left town. He had been so quiet compared to his buddy Mike that it never really sunk in that he was overseas. I was absolutely ashamed that I had never bothered to get to know him well.

Mike finished his first tour and came back to the farm. He was changed. Where there had been a vivacious life-of-the-party fellow, there was now a serious man–a good soldier, but an angry one. He had been offered the chance to serve the rest of his term of service in the states, but he confided to us that he wanted to go back. He felt truly sorry that his best friend had died and wanted to make absolutely sure that Cody’s sacrifice would not have been in vain.

I was becoming more and more sure that the war was not going to end well. I had been studying history in preparation for college and had found volumes on guerilla warfare in the Pacific. I talked to Mike, asking him if he really thought all this was worth it. He said that he thought it was–that the people there seemed grateful that the Americans were helping them out, especially since the Viet Cong had all but vanished by the time he had gotten there and that that they were fighting the North Vietnamese for the most part.

Early in 1970, Nixon sent US troops on incursions into Cambodia in an attempt to block the movement of supplies to enemy units operating in the areas around and south of Saigon. Mike was acting as a forward observer in an OH-6A helicopter that was shot down by enemy fire. It took them a long time to recover the body and ship it home.

I got to his wake early and was invited to sit with his brothers and sisters, since I had been virtually adopted by the family. The coffin was a shiny medium-brown with a flag draped over it and his basic training photograph next to its head. His mother came to me when she saw me begin to tear up and said, “I know that you say that you’re an atheist, but if you want to, you can kneel and pray with me–it won’t hurt anything, and you might feel better about everything.”

She was right about that.

About twenty-five years later, I was at the Mall in Washington, DC and had a chance to go to The Wall. It’s so quiet that you tread as softly as you can, lest you make a sound that would disturb the somber locale. The granite is mirror-smooth and in front of it are offerings that visitors would bring–a photo of a child, flowers, a little book of poems. Near the entrance to the ramp which leads to the center of the memorial, there’s a notebook with torn, plastic-covered pages, in which you can reference the location of the fallen soldier’s names:

Panel 21W, Line 106–PFC Cody Ray Calkins

Panel 14W, Line 128–Sgt Michael Duane Puetz

They were both 20 years old, and will be forever.

–Tom

I read a remarkable book yesterday. It is called “The Matchlock Gun,” and was written by a guy named Walter Edmunds. It was awarded “The American Library Associations’ Most Distinguished Contribution to Children’s Literature,” in 1941. It is an illustrated kids book, written at about the 4th grade level. Imagine, a kids’ book about a GUN.

It gets better.

Mr. Edmunds was a Harvard Grad, and probably his most famous work was “Drums Along the Mohawk.” It was made into a pretty good old black and white movie with Henry Fonda.  Read more…

Hillary Rodham Clinton is a curious creature. Her critics claim she is enormously petty, valuing winning as a prize rather than an opportunity. Her supporters struggle to provide concrete reasons why Hillary is their candidate; as often as not, her supporters’ support seems rooted in opposing those who oppose her: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

I am struggling with the growing inevitability that Hillary Clinton will be the nominee, but slowly, and begrudgingly, liking her more day by day. She exudes a discipline and competency, that stands apart from the field, including Senator Obama, despite his vision and unifying capacity.

The big question between now and February is who will attack her, and how will they attack her. In the mid-90s, Republicans eventually learned that those who attack Hillary Clinton do so at their own peril. Newt was among the first to remember the schoolyard maxim that it’s not nice to hit girls. GOP operatives are figuring this out, and her opponents should pay attention to this article. It discusses, though not in much detail, the strategic decisions on what kind of attacks will work and what attacks go to far and backfire, ala “General Petreas or General Betray us.”

What will work for attacking Hillary? First, whisper campaigns. Think McCain’s black baby, Goldwater’s sanity, etc. Claiming she’s a lesbian isn’t enough. Second, documentaries that use her language, her footage, and purely indisputable records against her. When I was 7 or 8, my Uncle Bud used to grab my hands and make me hit myself. Hitting her with herself is forgivable in a way that outright slander is not, and the GOP will be able to get away with a certain amount of distortion, that’s almost expected, but primary challengers will have to be much more cautious. Third, use humor, mocking and parodying her rather than outright insulting her.

One of the biggest reasons she’s likely to win the general is that she is just too attractive of a target for Republicans. GOP operatives simply will not be able to rein themselves in. The attacks will be beyond hateful, they will be personal, they will bring up scores of Bill Clinton’s infidelities and even attack Chelsea. The GOP attack machine will “cross the line” at least twice, sprinting in straight line all the way around the world to do so. They will only be limited by their imagination, and by the time the realize they went to far, it’ll be too late.

John Edwards has been an extreme disappointment. He isn’t fooling anyone claiming populist principles are behind his accepting public financing.

The underlying problem is one that liberals are afraid to talk about: John Edwards seems too feminine too often. Ann Coulter’s attack, while providing a short-term fundraising lift for Edwards, got folks (rather than people) asking themselves whether or not Edwards might be, or could be, a homosexual. At a minimum more people are noticing his femininity. This goes well beyond a haircut, and he didn’t help himself in a recent debate when he commented on Hillary’s wardrobe.

Imagine, for a moment, if the Edwards campaign secretly planted an actor to come up to Edwards, insult his wife or his family, and the provoke a fight with Edwards and take a dive and have Edwards beat the hell out of him. A radical dream, I know, but it would help him a lot more than it would hurt him. American picks Presidents the same way schoolboys pick Quarterbacks. We want tough leaders, a manliness that ironically Hillary has and Edwards lacks.

Tragically, the brightest point of light in his campaign could begin to fade soon, as her controversial new video reminds us. I thought Elizabeth Edwards’s video was both courageous and savvy, more and more these attributes seem like part of her character, but not his.

Belgium might break up. And I think that’d be a shame. Because what about mostly French-speaking yet located in Flanders Brussels? And what about the EU and all the progress in Europe it stands for? Call me idealistic, but here’s hoping she pulls through and keeps it together.

And I meant to post last week’s column as well, which my best friend suggested I title Pro-life: Not just for Jesus Freaks. I rather wish I had. It’s a fairly obvious message yet one the media, the pro-choice side and unfortunately even the pro-life side mostly ignore.