In honor of Memorial Day

For Memorial Day I have a reading recommendation for you: Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front, in the Words of US Troops and their Families. It’s not an easy read, which is why I heartily commend it to you. 

It’s the result of a project by the NEA, sponsored by Boeing; Andrew Carroll is the editor. NEA sent writers (including Tom Clancy, Stephen Lang, Jeff Shaara andTobias Wolff) to teach writing workshops. The sessions were held in country, on Navy vessels and at various locations around the US. The result was thousands of pages of essays, short stories, poems, letters, journal entries and emails.

If you ever want to explore the nature of war from the most granular human level, this is your introduction. You get everything, from the banality and stultifying boredom to “pink mist” (someone who steps on a land mine and explodes in a shower of flesh and blood); the sand, snakes and spiders in your tents; and having to walk a thousand yards out to the latrine in the middle of the night over rocks and stuff you don’t want to think about. And;, of course, there’s the fighting and the destruction. You won’t get closer to it—without being in it—than reading these pieces.

The book starts with an account by a Navy captain at the Pentagon on 9/11 and moves on from there. It’s not precisely chronological, because the editor didn’t want to imply that the wars went to a certain point and stopped. As we know, mission is not accomplished.

One of the last was an essay by a Marine colonel who accompanied the body of a 21-year-old Marine killed in Iraq home to his funeral in Wyoming. From the staff at the mortuary at Dover AFB, Del., who prepare the body (including X-raying the coffin before opening—they found a live grenade in one) to the people at the various airports who treated the coffin with such respect—the same baggage handlers who think nothing of heaving your stuff around, but they took such care with this cargo—to the funeral held in the gym of the local high school, that if you can read it without crying then you’re way tougher than I.

One of the early entries is from a doctor on a Navy hospital ship, 27 March 2003, waiting for casualties. I loved this comment: “Mike from Massachusetts thinks an attack on our ship is a near given, with a 50 percent chance of success. However, he is a proctologist and Red Sox fan and naturally pessimistic.”

There was another account by a Guardsman returning on a charter flight after his tour in Iraq. Their plane developed mechanical problems in Germany and they had to wait for the next flight, which wasn’t until the next day. Here’s what he relates:

“Thirty-six hours after our scheduled arrival, we landed in Bangor, Maine. It was 3 a.m. We were tired, hungry, and as desperate as were to get to Colorado, our excitement was tainted with bitterness. While we were originally told our National Guard deployment would be mere months, here we were—369 days later—frustrated and angry.

“As I walked off the plane, I was taken aback; in the small, dimly lit airport, a group of elder veterans were there waiting for us, lined up one by one to shake our hands. Some were standing, others were confined to wheelchairs, and all of them wore their uniform hats. Their now-feeble right hands stiffened in salutes, their left hands holding coffee, snacks, and cell phones for us.

“As I made my way through the line, each man thanking me for my service, I choked back tears. Here we were, returning from one year in Iraq where we had portable DVD players, three square meals, and phones, being honored by men who had crawled through mud for years with little more than the occasional letter from home. A few of them appeared to be veterans of the war in Vietnam, and I couldn’t help but think of how they were treated when they came back to the U.S., and yet here they were to support us.

“These soldiers—many of whom had lost limbs and comrades—shook our hands proudly, as if our service could somehow rival their own.

“We later learned that this VFW group had waited for more than a day in the airport for our arrival.

“…Looking back on my year in Iraq, I can honestly say that my perception of the experience was changed; not so much by the soldiers with whom I served—though I consider them my saving grace—but by the soldiers who welcomed us home. For it is those men who reminded me what serving my country is truly about.”

The saddest thing about this book is that the people who sent these men and women into harm’s way without a strategy, without adequate tools and without a clue will never read it. The man who stopped news photos of coffins arriving at Dover, who doesn’t read newspapers and whose idea of wartime sacrifice is giving up golf has neither the courage nor the compassion to look into the reality of the consequences of his decisions.

But you should read it. Really.

Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, & the Home Front, in the Words of US Troops & their Families
Andrew Carroll, ed.
Random House, 2006

More pits than palms

A story in today’s Washington Post travel section caught my eye. Well it actually stopped me in my tracks.

Twentynine Palms as a destination. Of all the places in California—even of all the places in the California desert—Twentynine Palms… Color me gobsmacked.

If you’ve ever been through there you’d be hard pressed to find a reason to pause—except, as the article’s writer points out, to “replenish their liquids”, presumably petrol & water. Then you’d haul ass on out towards Death Valley or Palm Springs.

But there are a couple of things about this story that just crack me up:

For blathering about how the 18 murals constitute a raison de visite, it’s interesting that Randall neither describes in detail them nor photographs them, other than a single picture—with the alleged artwork hidden behind signs, scraggly bushes & about 50 yards of Highway 62. Not even a link to the Chamber of Commerce’s site, where they obviously reach for the stars.

(BTW—if you go to that site, you have to drill down a considerable distance before you find the “Oasis of Murals”, which web site, as you’ll notice, is grainy & for sale.)

In fact, it’s interesting that the article’s “photo gallery” consists of but two pix, a view of Joshua Tree National Park & the aforementioned bizarrely composed picture. That tells it all—unless you’re into pix of the seedy sort of establishment that tends to encapsulate any large military installation or you really like cacti, there’s just not much to shoot.

As it happens, I do enjoy taking photos of such ventures:

Twentynine Palms Culture, May 2007.

(To tell you the truth, Randall doesn’t appear to be much of a photographer—that Joshua Tree shot doesn’t give you any sense of the expanse of the park, which is worth a visit, or the stark beauty of the vegetation there. Perhaps she was in a hurry to get back to the Bowladium.)

That insistence on the silence is a hoot—at night, perhaps. During the day, it’s somewhat compromised by armor & air maneuvers at the Marine base. Which facility is probably the only reason Twentynine Palms hasn’t completely blown away in the second half of the 20^th century.

MCAGCC also accounts for the town’s culture. Randall refers to barbershops & furniture rental stores. How she could leave out the bars, the tattoo parlors, the fast food joints & the practitioners of the Oldest Profession I don’t know. Not too many tourists would care about haircuts & dinettes; but a tap beer's a tap beer the world over.

Even the aerospace engineer she quotes retired to Yucca Valley.

I’m not sure what possessed the Post’s travel editors to print this story. Can the travel section have a slow news day?