Memorial Day (1)
As part of his therapy while trying to recover from a head wound suffered in Vietnam my father used to make the poppies that the American Legion sells on Memorial day.
Here is the poem that was written three years after the famous In Flanders Fields that most of us know….
We Shall Keep the Faith
by Moina Michael, November 1918
Oh! you who sleep
in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead
.Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We’ll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.
Retrieved from an earlier post:
I had the chance to mountain climb with an aging PRC Army Veteran of Tibet and Tiananmen Square. He had that “thousand yard stare” soldiers who have been amidst senseless death can see in the eyes of another.
Years ago, as a corpsman at the Army’s Academy of Health Sciences, I was almost detailed to collect bodies in the Jonestown Massacre. Many of my friends went and are forever changed. I know medics, who went to Vietnam as conscientious objectors, and came back morphine addicted. It was one way, albeit not a good one, to cope.
Soldiers and Paramedics in New York, Iraq and New Orleans have acknowledged that there was a self before the tragedies and a different human, with a different world-view, that emerged from the devastation.
When most of the school children of a Chinese rural village, dozens, drowned in their classrooms, and left these hand prints on the windows trying to escape, it was the army who first saw the prints and then had to search through the mud for their bodies….
When I traveled, during Vietnam, in uniform I was vilified by many as part of the Military Industrial Complex. I did not get too many salutes.
As the war becomes more unpopular in Iraq, as the world increasingly calls us a police state, remember this: Governments declare war. Officials deploy troops. Hurricanes and earthquakes obey no warnings. And it is the soldier, and the victim, who carry with them, forever, the stench of death. It is like a house fire: you can never seem to rid yourself of the smell of smoke.
Love the soldier. They all write poetry and letters of longing home to their loved ones.
Hate the war, hate the floods, hate the notion that we are not close to getting it right, socially or environmentally, just yet.
Pray for the men, like my father, and soldiers of all nations who gave up sleepless nights and often, like my father, their lives, before and after battles, for you and the missions that they were asked to fulfill.
Salute them all with words and deeds today.
With special good wishes to the Wed. Heroes crew/blogroll. Most of you are not accessible from China, so I cannot get to you and often cannot receive mail or link out to you properly. Keep up the good work.
Posted 28 May, 2007 in Vietnam, 中国, Violence, Veterans, 中文, Holidays, In the news, Poetry, Intercultural Issues, Homeland Security, cartoons, Tibet, War
Heartsongs: The Library Project…. (3)
“Children’s books are a luxury to have in Asia, and a rarity in an orphanage.”
–from The Library Project
Guest Post by David DeGeest
Thomas Stader has a vision to build libraries for children living in orphanages and rural areas around Asia.
Stader, is one of those rare people who come to China with big plans and a bigger heart. He came to help and began to put his plan into action in 1993. To accompany Stader’s big heart, is a well organized plan rife with several clever ideas. Instead of trying to organize all of the complex processes that would be required to build libraries, Stader uses pre-existing supply chains and forms cooperative agreements with local NGOs and corporationg for funding and logistics. These tactics, combined with the lower overhead costs in Asia, allow him to build libraries for $150-$300 USD each–without comprimising the structural quality or integrity of the libraries. Welcome to an age when quality NGO work combined with smart marketing and good business sense can transform a philanthropic daydream into a sound reality.
The Project has made remarkable progress. In 2006, Stader was able to create two libraries for approximately $300 USD and some help from Aston Education, JinaLive, and the Dalian Charity Federation. In 2007, The Library Project will expand to do work in Xian and Jinan. By the end of the year, the project plans to create 15 new libraries to schools and orphanages with a total project cost under $15,000 USD.
Here’s a list of the typical costs from one of the recent library projects:
Hard cover book, 100 pages: $3
Soft cover book, 100 pages: $2
Harry Potte Series: $15
Color comic book: $1
Black and white comic book: .5
Book shelf: $25
Table and chairs: $50
Plants, posters, mats: $25
The Library Project plans to have 80 libraries running in China, Cambodia, and Vietnam by 2009. You can help by clicking here.
Note: all pictures featured here come from The Library Project’s site.
There will be follow-up articles on this worthy endeavor soon…..
Posted 25 April, 2007 in Vietnam, Human Rights, Charity in China, Heartsongs, 中国, In the news, Teaching in China, China Editorials, Personal Notes, Photos, Intercultural Issues
40 Years Beyond Saigon… (0)
The Wall Between the Names
– I don’t know if you have ever noticed, but if you stand
at the base of the wall at the apex when it is quiet you can
feel a warmth ….It’s as if you’re being surrounded by all the
spirits of the wall.
—The Last Firebase
There is a wall between the names
It is the color of residue in driftwood pockets
The shadow in the soft pocket of a head wound
It is their hair and their eyes dark and full of falling
The oil on worthless roads. Factory smoke and ashes
It is charcoaled faces. Shapeshifting under night flares
The toothless smile of a man who no can longer move his legs
A million fragmented hearts pulled below its granite suface
The veils of widowed girls, telegram ink, short bursts of words
It is the color of disappearance and passing
There is a wall between the names.
– On the 40th Anniversary
of the mortar attack near Saigon
that eventually took my father’s life
For those of you who did not go to Vietnam I know that you too, as said by David Lehman, planned your lives around it just the same. And for those of you who know war, or are obliquely affected by it, I hope that you can one day dismantle the worst of weapons: memory…
Posted 11 March, 2007 in 中国, Vietnam, Personal Notes, American Poet in China, War, Poetry, Asia
Found: The Lost Girls (0)
Fulfilling a wonderfully crackpot dream the Lost Girls are doing what I intend for the next year in China! Carrying along great hearts, good looks, and journalistic talent hey have already been to Africa, Peru, India, Vietnam….
In their own words:
“It was in New York City, dead-of-winter 2005, when we—Amanda, Jen and Holly—found ourselves in the midst of a collective quarter life crisis. Sure, 20-something burnout may sound a tad to silly to anyone born before the advent of MTV, Atari or Guess jeans, but seven-day workweeks at stress-driven offices had taken their toll. Despite having creative gigs that fueled our passions, we were exhausted and frustrated that our careers had become our identities. Constantly linked to work via cell, text, blackberry and e-mail, we were starving for real connections with family, friends and significant others (who wants to date a woman already married to her job?).
It turns out, we weren’t alone. Like millions of young women in our generation, we were plagued with doubts and fears about the paths we were choosing. Though 12-hour workdays left us little time for contemplation, we couldn’t quiet that inner voice asking: What exactly were we doing with our lives? Could we ultimately commit to one career, city and lifestyle (and man), when so many opportunities lie before us? On our own, with no parents, advisers or a syllabus to guide us, you could say that we were a little, well, Lost. Okay, very Lost. So before making the ultimate choice of which way to go as (gulp) adults, we decided to take a major detour, one we hoped might provide a little insight into these questions and just maybe, a road- map to our futures.
Kissing our jobs, boyfriends, apartments, families and our beloved Manhattan goodbye, we officially became “The Lost Girls,” and started making plans for a yearlong, 35,000-mile journey around the globe. Loosely building an itinerary that begins in South America and crawls eastward through Africa, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia and Australia, we plan to explore the cultures, mindsets and lifestyles of our international counterparts, getting to know thousands of strangers so we may better know ourselves. ”
You now have a new “stranger” as a fan. I am deeply envious, but cheering you to the finish line–if there is one….
Visit: LOST GIRLS