Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Seventeenth Podcast
The seventeenth podcast is up. Thanks to freemidi.org for the audio files. Eric and Matthew try to lighten the mood during a not so light week of news.
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The seventeenth podcast is up. Thanks to freemidi.org for the audio files. Eric and Matthew try to lighten the mood during a not so light week of news.
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Poor John Mayer of Bridgeport.
ReplyDeleteAfter we got off the podcast, I remembered one morning playing with my neighborhood friend Rodney and our being so scared of eclipses that we ran across the yard with our faces turned to the ground. I guess that was the 1979 eclipse.
ReplyDeleteOh, my ... be still my beating heart ... Rachel sounds FANTASTIC! This is by far the best episode we've ever had. I can't believe I get to be married like a regular big shot.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'll get on Facebook and tell Kevin and Mina you'll be waiting for them behind the Paducah library on Monday.
ReplyDeleteThat was a sweet and salient point I made about the rarity of moments where one gets to talk to the two people one has most talked with over the course of one's life at the same moment.
ReplyDeleteThere is no freaking way I'm going to read Gone With the Wind.
ReplyDeleteOh, my word, you really should've edited out this whole Canada deal ... even I want to wretch over the seriousness of my voice here.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry but in the moment I got completely lost with where you were going. I should have bailed you out but I figured I would just leave you hanging out there.
DeleteVery excited to see Jay Cutler Thursday night.
ReplyDeleteYou know, it's so hard to talk precisely off the cuff, and I misspoke some at the end of this podcast. And I'm sorry for misleading, and mostly I'm sorry for misrepresenting Dad and the other combat veterans I've met. What I was trying to get across was that Dad could never really celebrate his participation in war or even, really, the victory against fascism. His experience was so horrifying and lasting that he just never wanted to celebrate it or even the good that came out of it. And that's what I've seen in most of the combat veterans I've talked with since then. Maybe I've just heard what I wanted to hear in order to confirm my dad's experience and feelings, but I just don't know that I've ever met one who didn't want to temper any sort of enthusiastic celebration of "victory" with a reminder of just how awful it really all was.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you misrepresented that, I got that. I think you were right as well to point out that there is a big difference between those that participate in combat and those that don't. When I was in college I worked with a couple of brothers who were both in the war, but they were never in combat. And so it had a completely different effect on their lives.
DeleteHere's part of what Dad wrote about his experiences ...
ReplyDeleteMy trip back east was much different than my trip west the year before. I rode a pullman car on my way out but going home, I was assigned a standard tilt back seat in a passenger car. That ride home would not be as enjoyable as was my first. Not only because of accommodations but mostly because I was not that same excited young man as when I first went to California. Another reason being; aftermath of my horrible war was evident throughout that troop train.
My seat was a window seat only because the right foot of a corporal sitting to my left was missing, he depended on crutches. An Army sergeant, in the seat directly in front, had a missing hand. Scattered throughout my car were a number of other such casualties. Seeing those dismembered was a sobering experience, it was then and there I realized how lucky I had been. As has been said before, war is truly hell.
Those fellows about were engrossed with their own problems and therefore we socialized very little. Each time I tried conversation, those men seemed not interested. It was evident they wanted only to be left alone. Our car porter, sensing I needed relief from misery about, moved near and whispered in my ear. He suggested if I cared to, I could walk a number of cars to the rear, and ride the outside platform of the train caboose. He stated he himself did so quite often. His suggestion proved to be great except that to get to that caboose, I walked through a windowless boxcar which contained caskets stacked one on the other. Those caskets contained bodies of men who didn't make it. Once again I caught faint whisps of that odor of death. Gosh, I wondered, will this thing never end? ...
... When at the caboose, a flagman offered me a cup of hot coffee, and I exited through the rear door out into much needed fresh air. I sat myself on a fold-type wooden chair, raised my feet and rested them on the platform railing. I rode that platform well into darkness and most likely late into that night.
ReplyDeleteUnder a full moon, riding that caboose platform hearing clickity clack of train rails, my mind drifted ... I had little interest to return home and to my family. I was visiting home only because I believed it something I had to do. Why my non-interest? ... Time and again, I told myself how nice it would be to see my family again--but to no avail. On the platform of that caboose, at that particular time, what I personally needed was a haven of peace and quiet ... time to quiet my own emotions and decide that which was best for me.
That first night of my train ride home I slept on a bench inside that caboose. In fact, other than to use a toilet or eat my boxed food, I would spend the rest of my trip either inside that caboose or riding its rear platform.
While riding that platform that second night out I wanted to somehow generate interest to see home again. I silently scolded myself, told myself how long it had been since seeing Mom and Dad, and how nice it would be to once again visit. Try as I did, nothing seemed to work. The thought crossed my mind that maybe if I forced myself to remember the old days, remember as far back as possible, then maybe such recollections would change my attitude. In solitude, I forced myself to remember far back as possible ... even to the only memory I had of my grandfather. Back to when I was 6 or 7 years old and living on Princeton Pike, to when I learned to milk a cow and draw water from our water well. I conjured up visions of Munn's School and Miss Mabel Feagan, hunting quail with Dad and that first time when Mom showed signs of illness. I visioned living on Princeton Pike, the little white house, raising chickens, going to see the 1937 flood with Dad, and when we moved in town to our new house on Sugg Street. I focused on when Mom, Charlene and I sang on the radio and at fairs. Of camping with my brother Billy and when Judith Ann was born. I remembered how hurt I was when we moved to Henderson ... then to Evansville ... then, without warning, the face of that dead Japanese ...
I leapt from that wooden fold chair, leaned over the rail of that caboose platform, and vomited all over the state of Colorado. I cried, dried my eyes, straightened myself, found strength and walked back inside that caboose. In control again, I promised myself not to remember anything for a while--to just relax and let things come as they may.
I cut out some of the more gruesome details from what Dad wrote, and I wish I would've edited myself in speaking on the podcast yesterday. Sorry. The imagery sticks with you, even second-hand.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I should've never talked about Dad's feelings in terms of whether, "on balance," he felt like the tragedy of war was worth the gains. He had mixed opinions about all of that. What he was consistent on was that he never wanted any untempered, glorified celebration of World War II or his role in it--I think he would say that it was at least as awful as it was necessary and must always be talked about with that nuance.
ReplyDeleteIn that sense, I don't think Dad would've much diverged from anything else said by his fellow combat veterans. Such as President Eisenhower:
ReplyDeleteDuring the long lane of the history yet to be written, America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations -- past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of disarmament -- of the battlefield.
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent, I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war, as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years, I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.
Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.
So, in this, my last good night to you as your President, I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and in peace. I trust in that -- in that -- in that service you find some things worthy. As for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.
You and I, my fellow citizens, need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nations' great goals.
To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration: We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its few spiritual blessings. Those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibility; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; and that the sources -- scourges of poverty, disease, and ignorance will be made [to] disappear from the earth; and that in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.
Thanks for sharing those writings from your dad.
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