Had an amazing "coffee" the other day with Gerald Nicosia, author of the exceptional "Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans' Movement." What I thought would be a quick meet-and-greet with his signing my copy of his remarkable book turned out to be an almost four-hour marathon of information sharing and gathering about the players in his exhaustive, highly-readable record of what went on with the Vietnam veterans' movement. The book took him 12 years to write, went through four publishers, involved 600(!) interviews with participants, and still needed 800 pages cut before its current length, 800 pages in paperback. Remarkable. And it's put me very much in a "Vietnam" frame of mind ever since, following up on threads of what Nicosia talked about in person and remembering yet again how much the Vietnam veterans gave, for so little -- in the way of public acknowledgement and support for their contributions. I always get a little wistful -- even more than a little wistful -- wishing they had so much more recognition for their true generosity of spirit, and character...
So I've been chasing down Memory Lane here -- more Nicosia's than mine -- learning more about some of the Vietnam vets who had such worthwhile points of view, and made such a difference. Some are still alive, some sadly gone before their time.
Ironically, two of the ones who've captured my attention are, not surprisingly, Marines. Marines occupy more than their fair share of this site, maybe because in so many ways they embody the "tip of the spear." They see so much and do so much. Very often idealists, frequently combined with a balls-to-the-walls attitude, they come in for more than their fair share of difficulty. Is their incidence of PTSD higher than other branches? Perhaps. They've done so much for so long with so little they've just learned to live with it, but their numbers seem over-represented in both trying to get some help, and also in trying to do for their fellow veterans, both then and now. (I'll omit the examples here for now, but it's been true in my experience so far that this is the case.)
One of the Vietnam vets I've been trying to learn more about is National Book Award-winning Larry Heinemann, whose quote about war and the veteran's heart we highlighted the other day -- followed by a quote of his wife about the man she married, before and after war.
Another is Jack McCloskey, a Marine medic in Vietnam, who's talked about at length in Nicosia's book, but who died an untimely death at 53 from heart disease, perhaps brought on by both his exposure to Agent Orange and also his tireless work on behalf of other Vietnam vets, not to mention a few bad habits.
Photos of McCloskey are still on the Web, here and here, taken by his longtime friend, Eric Schwartz. And there's a wonderful obituary of him as well, here, though it doesn't talk about how he was shot on the street, and almost killed -- perhaps by someone trying to suppress his activism -- which is mentioned in Nicosia's book. I loved the obituary, and I loved the photos, but more than those, I loved the story conveyed in poetry about who McCloskey really was, and how deeply he loved his fellow veteran. When I read those words, they resonated not "just" about McCloskey -- who I never knew -- but also about another Vietnam vet, Marine, the subject of "Eyewitness to Combat," here -- who's also taken the guns out of the mouths of countless (hundreds? thousands?) of other Vietnam vets, over the years. He's been the one the wives have called, and he's gotten there, mostly, in time -- but not always. Sometimes he's gotten there too late. McCloskey knew that pain himself.
Allen Cohen wrote a poem, "Three Lines and Some Hippy Truths," about McCloskey's death and two others. It should resonate with us today because things aren't very different now. Only a few stand up for the many. "After the war," Cohen writes about McCloskey, "he learned the necessity of healing the mind that survived the broken bodies, and then the souls that were left helpless before the void of meaningless pain. In this way he gave his heart away to the veterans who needed it." From the poem:
Sometimes I get the feeling that I'm disappearing behind the glaring spotlight of media- the political circus, TV, and Sports, and Movie heroes In this world of 6 inch and 20 foot tall images who do nothing for humanity except sell sneakers or make empty speeches, or appear in the dream world of sex and violence, and get paid millions of dollars despite their marginal and illusory existence, in this world our own lives, the lives of those whose acts come within the scope of their talents, their intelligent daily decisions, their unrewarded kindness and love. seem to dissolve in frustration and toil against the silence of the calculus of history. But look closely at those lives with their true heroism of every moment, fulfilled through the sustenance of friendship, the love of the children and one another. For each other they become larger than life, far larger than movie screens, in the singing of a song the reaching out of a hand across the emptiness, the drawing of a picture, the writing of a poem even in the washing of a dish, the repairing of a fence or car, the sewing of a loose button. I am sitting at the memorial for Jack McCloskey, at the Family Dog Ballroom. Jack was the Vietnam Veteran counselor whose life starting in that war that so defined our era, was given to reaching out to others. First to their bodies when as a front line unarmed medic, he gave aid to the wounded. He would overcome the fear of witnessing death's witless massacres each time he hurled himself into the line of fire. After the war, he learned the necessity of healing the mind that survived the broken bodies, and then the souls that were left helpless before the void of meaningless pain. In this way he gave his heart away to the veterans who needed it. There was no People Magazine for Jack McCloskey No "Jack McCloskey dies News at Eleven." Country Joe McDonald is playing Sweet Lorraine. The light show vibrates the air and his friends dance.
