ALWAYS LOST: A Meditation on War Western Nevada College From the Pulitzer Prize collection • The Dallas Morning News/Cheryl Diaz Meyer
ALWAYS LOST: A Meditation on War
Nationally Touring Arts & Humanities Exhibition Second Edition, 2013
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From the Pulitzer Prize collection • The Dallas Morning News/David Leeson
ALWAYS LOST: A Meditation on War The poignant memorial that brings home the costs of war and honors those who made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan In fall 2008, Western Nevada College sociology Professor Don Carlson was stopped in his tracks by The New York Times’ Roster of the Dead. “Four thousand faces of American military who had perished in Iraq stared at me,” he said, “and I realized that this war has been perhaps one of the most impersonal wars the U.S. has ever fought.” With that in mind, Carlson and English Professor Marilee Swirczek envisioned a photography and literary exhibition to personalize Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom. Professor Swirczek’s creative writing students embraced the idea, and other Northern Nevada writers joined the effort. Kevin Burns, Major, USMC (Ret.) titled the exhibition from an observation by American writer Gertrude Stein: “War is never fatal but always lost. Always lost.” 2 | ALWAYS LOST: A Meditation on War
The heart of Always Lost: A Meditation on War is the Wall of the Dead, a memorial depicting individual photographs and names of U.S. military service members who perished in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since September 11, 2001. As casualties continue to mount, the Wall of the Dead continues to grow. Courtesy of The Dallas Morning News, the exhibition also includes the 2004 Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of Iraq War combat photographs (Breaking News Photography) by photojournalists David Leeson and Cheryl Diaz Meyer. Accompanying each combat photograph is original literary work by WNC creative writers, veterans and their family members, the Lone Mountain Writers and others from the Nevada writing community. Observations about the nature of war, from Greek philosophers to modern-day generals, serve as thoughtprovoking meditations concerning the effects of war on each of us and our obligations to those willing to serve in harm’s way on our behalf. WNC student veteran photographic portraits and interviews represent the service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. SPC Noah Pierce, who took his own life after serving two combat tours in Iraq, represents the thousands of military suicides through his personal story and original poetry. Installed at Western Nevada College-Carson City in spring 2009, the original exhibition generated an unexpected and overwhelming response. One guest book comment read, “A national treasure.” By word-of-mouth, the story of Always Lost began to spread, and inquiries came from across the country. The Nevada Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts, and local donations funded the creation of a traveling exhibition. Following its national debut in Marinette, Wisconsin in 2010, Always Lost continues to bring its message of awareness and unity to communities across the nation. In spring 2011, U.S. Senators Harry Reid and Dean Heller signed a Congressional letter in support of the project. The Daughters of the American Revolution, John C. Fremont Chapter, recognized Always Lost with their Medal of Honor in May 2012. What began as a classroom project at a small college in a small American town has become a sacred space in which to contemplate the personal and collective costs of war. Always Lost: A Meditation on War is dedicated to those who gave their lives and those who made it home. The photographs and literary work in this booklet are excerpts from the Always Lost: A Meditation on War exhibition.
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FRIENDS OF THE PROJECT ______________________________________
Nevada Department of Veterans Services
GRAfx 8 Media Group
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THE 2004 PULITZER PRIZE WINNERS Breaking News Photography Courtesy of The Dallas Morning News
Awarded to David Leeson and Cheryl Diaz Meyer of The Dallas Morning News for their eloquent photographs depicting both the violence and poignancy of the war with Iraq. — The Pulitzer Prizes, Columbia University (www.pulitzer.org) David Leeson was a senior staff photographer with The Dallas Morning News when he covered the war in Iraq as an embedded journalist attached to the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, Task Force 2-69 Armored out of Fort Benning, Georgia. He was with the troops for six weeks and saw twentythree days of sustained enemy contact in frontline action. Leeson’s work from Iraq, which included still and video, received global recognition that nationally included The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Time and Newsweek magazines, as well as MSNBC, ABC, and CSPAN; his video was featured on ABC’s “World News Tonight.” Cheryl Diaz Meyer was a senior staff photographer for The Dallas Morning News when she covered the war in Iraq as an embedded journalist attached to the Second Tank Battalion, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, of the First Marine Division, out of Camp Pendleton, California. Diaz Meyer later returned to cover the aftermath in Baghdad. Her work from Iraq was published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek and Spiegel magazines, as well as MSNBC, ABC News, and CSPAN.
From the Pulitzer Prize collection • The Dallas Morning News/David Leeson
From the Pulitzer Prize collection • The Dallas Morning News/Cheryl Diaz Meyer
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother. — William Shakespeare HENRY V (IV.iii.60-63)
After the Ambush As smoke lifts, voices drop; the sun rains relentless heat that cracks the desert floor. Bodies lie covered as the sergeant surveys the scene, a cigarette pinched between his thumb and middle finger. Bound to sand, several privates rake dusty ground in search of distraction, trawling for truth and tags. No one else has come yet, no one else will ever come. This sun won’t set for years. — Amy Roby
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Noblesse Oblige Regal politicians, clothed in the splendor of Brooks Brothers self-righteousness, preach and scheme in gilded backrooms; they move pushpins on elaborate maps to smite the evil, godless hordes, then congratulate each other on their patriotism and noble judgment over Courvoisier and Havana cigars. While frantic bands of brothers splash through streams of blood and acrid clouds of sand and smoke, in futile attempts to stem the oozing essence from the orifices of bodies with vacant eyes, staring from shattered minds and shredded bodies, littered about the shithole under one of those damned pushpins. — Kevin P. Burns Major, USMC (Ret.) 1978-1993 Operation Desert Shield/Storm
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From the Pulitzer Prize collection • The Dallas Morning News/David Leeson
I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. — ALBERT EINSTEIN LETTER TO HARRY S. TRUMAN, 1948
I Miss Everyone in Amarillo (Sentiment on a card sent from a U.S. Marine) This boy misses the smell of tortillas, his mother’s thick arms stretching to serve, to clean, to refill, to care for. A woman in Seattle misses her man, his full-lipped face, the way he leans against the sink, drinks milk. A man outside St. Louis misses his wife, how her face falls to one side as she sleeps, how she carries the fragrance of soap, of bread. A girl lying down to watch clouds pass above somewhere in Nevada, believes she sees her father, MIA for months, and closes her eyes. This, then, must be the season of lost things: lovers, children, leadership, and hope, all the dustings of love. This is the season to miss, to lose. You know, I’m not always a sentimental girl, but goddamn it. — Gailmarie Pahmeier
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The Pure Form of Counting The numbers of dead do not align with the corpses scattered across countries we temporarily inhabit. Percentages are not themselves unless taken from a whole. Who counts them, calls out, like a bingo lady, the current number, waits in the cool dark of a pause for the wailing to begin? Who decides what’s recorded: the woman ladling out bingo numbers? a machine whirring contentedly, its metal heart beat-less? a man alone in a long room, underground scratching with a pencil each new line of blood? A limb is worth one million dollars, scalding coffee three. And somewhere we’ve priced a life, check delivered as though a forest’s thin memory could reinvent the ashes. I want to believe in numbers: in the pure form of counting and calculation, in events that make sense, negative and positive symbols for the same value— where child equals child, laughter suggests someone’s smiling and soldier equals more than this gritty wind, rising. — Teresa Breeden
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Predator Behind closed doors, iridescent computer screens glow in a dark Las Vegas control room. The air-conditioner maintains a comfortably cool temperature. Tonight the air smells of earth from afternoon rain showers. Silent peaks roll across the bank of monitors in rebellious grandeur. The sun’s reflection against stone cliffs creates a second zenith and turns the hazy April sky opalescent. A bellymounted camera sweeps granite walls, barren slopes, rippled gravel ridges. The thread of a primitive trail serpentines down a gulch and disappears into a bay of crescentshaped shadows. Beyond the narrow valley, the darkened terrain gives way to light, and once again details become visible. The ubiquitous spy reveals a band of goats and a caravan of trucks edging its way toward protective caves. The consol operator lifts a telephone, and the drone circles back. The convoy stops. Doors open. Unsuspecting men and women stretch. Hellfire fulgurates brilliant white. Behind closed doors in Las Vegas lies Afghanistan. — Joy Phillips
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From the Pulitzer Prize collection • The Dallas Morning News/David Leeson
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy? — Mohandas Gandhi Non-Violence in Peace and War: 1942-1949
Dress Blues For formal occasions, for the silent drill, For the ceremonial inspection of the rifle, (The bayonet gleaming in the sunlight, Brim-shadowed eyes: sharp under white hats), For the men who would be perfect, standing Just so, poised on a green field: this is how The uniform is worn with a pair Of polished black shoes. For our inspection, And the state’s, the spotless order of war Is achieved by wiping the shoes clean. Yes, so many pairs of shoes, Wiped clean. — Chad McCully
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The Battle Within
Kiff! It’s finally done The soldier yells A “self-inflicted” wound The girl keeps walking closer to the checkpoint Blood pulsing out through the tiny hole in the skull She is young only about four years old Hot lead tearing through flesh and bone It looks like explosives are strapped to her body Squeezing the trigger The soldier thinks, but can’t really tell Hand trembling The soldier screams Kiff!! Stop!! Against the hot sweaty head The girl hesitantly looks back toward where she came from The cold steel Someone might be hiding in the distance eager to push the button Shoot it away! The soldier’s fingers fumble on the trigger One more battle within the head Getting a good sight picture Tick tock on the clock Squeezing the trigger Time feels like a curse Regret Liquid courage fills the veins Why make her walk to the gate? One night alone in the room OH MY GOD! A constant battle They strapped explosives to a child? Demons in the head What happened? Everyday regret consumes An innocent life taken Every night the same horror Why? The liquor only numbs the pain Blood on the soldier’s hands The only relief is from what is in the bottle Guilt fills the soul Pain replaces the heart Pain replaces the heart Guilt fills the soul The only relief is from what is in the bottle Blood on the soldier’s hands The liquor only numbs the pain Why? Every night the same horror An innocent life taken Everyday regret consumes What happened? Demons in the head They strapped explosives to a child? A constant battle OH MY GOD! One night alone in the room Why make her walk to the gate? Liquid courage fills the veins Regret Time feels like a curse Squeezing the trigger Tick tock on the clock Getting a good sight picture One more battle within the head The soldier’s fingers fumble on the trigger Shoot it away! Someone might be hiding in the distance eager to push the button The cold steel The girl hesitantly looks back toward where she came from Against the hot sweaty head The soldier screams Kiff!! Stop!! Hand trembling The soldier thinks, but can’t really tell Squeezing the trigger It looks like explosives strapped to her body Hot lead tearing through flesh and bone She is young only about four years old Blood pulsing out through the tiny hole in the skull The girl keeps walking closer to the checkpoint A “self-inflicted” wound The soldier yells Kiff! It’s finally done — SPC AMY Smee, U.S. Army Iraq/Afghanistan, 2003-2006
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From the Pulitzer Prize collection • The Dallas Morning News/David Leeson
The dead of the battlefield come to us very rarely, even in dreams. We see the list in the morning paper at breakfast, but dismiss its recollection with coffee. It is like a funeral next door; it attracts your attention but does not enlist your sympathy. But it is very different when the hearse stops at your own door, and the corpse is carried out over your own threshold. — “BRADY’S PHOTOGRAPHS: PICTURES OF THE DEAD AT ANTIETAM” THE NEW YORK TIMES OCTOBER 20, 1862
Coffee for Two This war isn’t yours or mine nor our fathers’ but we are pawns on kings’ boards It hurts to know we never will meet because a bullet has hit the center of our souls and the dreams of traveling free as birds are passing toward an unknown place and time It’s sad to know we never will share the songs our parents sang in summertime that we’ll never gather on the beaches of friendship and see the moon with its melancholy or dawn’s colors and getting drunk to the sound of our hearts — R. A. Chavez
Café para dos Esta guerra no es tuya ni mía ni de nuestros padres pero somos peones en el tablero de los reyes Duele saber que jamás nos conoceremos porque una bala hirió el centro de nuestros espíritus y los sueños de viajar libres como las aves están pasando hacia un lugar y tiempo desconocido Es triste saber que nunca compartiremos los cantos que nuestros padres cantaron en el verano que jamás nos reuniremos en las playas de la amistad para ver a la luna y su melancolía o los colores del alba y emborracharnos en la confianza de nuestros corazones — R. A. Chavez
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There is one memory… Fallujah A harvest waits. It’s not seen. And it is very dark. That bullets are blossoms, stilled in the grey soil of Allah. Did I tell you? The harvest has a name, buddy, has a smell. And as we battered down each door, the smell and the name became more intimate and more like a ruthless bitch, one that would turn you out into the bright relentless Iraqi light to become target, game and amusement. Only the dew on the sniper’s scope saves you. There is one memory…Mosul Rudy’s Humvee becomes a fiery blossom, spitting body parts like seeds of astonishing shrapnel. As my world slams silent, his flower morphs into many hard-forged pieces that will be Marine officer—accompanied all the way back to some small town in Idaho. I have nothing of Rudy’s to send back to his folks. I can’t hear his last name. There is one memory… Fire Base Charlie Higher than the Afghan hills, distant, squats an Eastern sun. Tempered by ancient sands and dust, its glow skims above two thin cows in a field, finds the splayed Toyota truck, waits slight above the sleeping Afghan family two klicks distant from the Americans. Alhib Muhammad snuggles with Aldira, her lips parted, perhaps she is speaking in a dream. There has been no fighting for two months. The Americans have brought them irrigation supplies. Poppy seeds are near blossom and he hopes these will make market. He has promised his young wife new sandals and a new cooking pot. He falls back into an agreeable dream, one that sometimes visits when he is hopeful. — Douglas L. Deacy Boiler Technician 2nd Class, U.S. NAVY 1969-1972 Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam War USS FOX DLG 33
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From the Pulitzer Prize collection • The Dallas Morning News/David Leeson
In war, truth is the first casualty. — Aeschylus 525 – 456 B.C.
Listen These soldiers were all children once: smooth faces, fat thighs, sleep so complete, anxious mothers listened crib-side to ensure they still breathed. First smiles—intentional, accurate— bled spring into winter’s grasp. Eyes and fists, they wrestled tomorrow from now, rolling crawling knowing, like light precedes sound, the nature of things, the decency. They stood in that first pair of shoes, released supports, leaned into the wind of unknowing, wobbled that first step toward war— toward sleep so complete, mothers still leaning, listening. — Teresa Breeden
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War Daze (After “DayStar” by Rita Dove) He wanted a fort for pretending; but he heard sniper pings off a Humvee, saw the soldier still slumped over the steering wheel. So he crouched lower into their shadowed bunker to wait this dream out. Sometimes there were things to watch— smoldering rubber, smoke spiraling into a shrill blue sky, the noon heat rippling off rubble. Other days he stared only at his feet, stayed burrowed under the shade of his armpits until he’d smell only his dark coursing fear. He had days of carving tick marks inside his helmet subtracting in his head how many months left before his three-year-old daughter would wrap her arms around his neck and ask what he had done in Iraq. I built a fort, he would say. — Kathy Walters
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Home of the Brave (Dedicated to my son, Captain Adam T. Gross (retired), U.S. Marine Corps 1986-2008) Who lives in the house of freedom? Do you? Do you celebrate your expansive view? With a microbrew or fine chardonnay do you raise a toast on this holiday to our grand old flag: the red, white and blue? We count on our rights, on our liberties. We say what we think. We pray as we please. If we don’t like what our leader’s about, we sign our John Hancock, vote the boss out. Ballots – not bullets – bring chiefs to their knees. In this house of freedom, why be alarmed when we feel the wind of a rising storm, notice the din of a distant battle? We watch TV as storm windows rattle, assume that our ramparts are safe from harm while dead heroes watch, from rows on the lawns: the fallen, beloved daughters and sons, with their crowns of bone and weapons of rust. They died assuring the freedom we trust and now they lie, voiceless, in groves of stone. What might they tell us if they still could talk? Freedom! To keep it, you must walk the walk. Consider with care each choice to be made, given the ultimate price we all paid. Citizen, do not deserve our rebuke! From the mountain, to the prairie, to the ocean flecked with foam, the ground can teach us to remember blood. The brave remind us why we call this house home. — Rita Geil
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From the Pulitzer Prize collection • The Dallas Morning News/Cheryl Diaz Meyer
I think a curse should rest on me— because I love this war. I know it’s smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment—and yet— I can’t help it— I enjoy every second of it. —Winston Churchill, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER, WORLD WAR II Letter to a friend, 1916
Wishes of a Wife Whose Husband has Returned from Iraq (After Tim O’Brien After George Santayana) I want to be the fire that incinerates nightmares into rubble, reduces them to powdery ash Let me be the water that soothes shrapnel scarred skin and flushes dust from blinded eyes I long to be the wind that lifts the laughter of our children high above the screams inside your heart Yet you tell me there’s something to be said for remembering; that only the dead have seen the end of war. — Amy Roby
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The stars are out over Mosul After Specialist Colby Buzzell, U.S. Army ”Operation Homecoming,” America at a Crossroads As the Perseid meteor shower performs its annual dance, I know that soon in your night, eons away, you too will count the fallen ones. I wonder if you will watch from the road where we used to park your dad’s Chevy pickup and make love in the back. Remember: we took turns being on the bottom so we could both watch the stars fall. We laughed as we kissed with our eyes wide open, not wanting to miss the perfect one. — Carol Kalleres
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The Nothing Space I longed for a space apart, but the children clung to my legs like static electricity. Cries of Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home! Two boys buzzing ‘till I brushed them off like so much lint. My wife built invisible fences with a wave of her hand. Go on, boys, out of Daddy’s study, shoo, shoo, outside with you both. She knew what I was looking for, though she couldn’t imagine what had already found me. Later, when the boys were lost in sleep, I could hear her sniffling, a secret little sound that slipped through the wall between my study and our bedroom. Night after night after night after night. Sniffling, as my beard grew thick and mangy. Night after night after night after night. Sniffling, As I rubbed away the patina of the Purple Heart I can’t put down. The kids don’t peek from the hallway anymore. They’ve forgotten the sound of their father’s voice. They can’t hear the silent screams or tearless sobs that echo in the quiet of a soldier’s shattered mind. And the children, they don’t see the things I see, as I stare at the ficus or the shimmering motes of dust; No one sees the things I see in the nothing, nothing, nothing space I’ve built so carefully for myself. — Josh Galarza
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From the Pulitzer Prize collection • The Dallas Morning News/David Leeson
Even in the deep bush, where you could die any number of ways, the war was nakedly and aggressively boring. — Tim O’Brien U.S. ARMY, Vietnam War The Things They Carried, 1990
A Brother’s Junk Box The white moon seeks the bosom of the dark hills. The air is thick with sage. The seasons continue their moment-by-moment march. I can’t stop them with my hands. There are few things that I can stop. I cannot stop my mother’s grief. I pause outside my father’s carpenter’s shop. Any busy sounds are stolen by the breath he won’t take. I cannot open the door. I turn, go upstairs to our room. I slide open the nightstand drawer, pull out the bent, rusted tin box and pry open the cover. A dried, papery frog stares through parchment eyes. Mickey Mantle swings a fine hickory bat for a photographer long dead; I dare not slip the fragile card from its brittle cover. Two shiny medals hide reluctant in a corner. A dozen wasps lay sleeping quiet in a glass vial. A scratched magnifying glass still waits to roast more hapless victims. I finger the small ring and a picture of a Hollywood actress whose face is familiar. A yellowed newspaper article crowns the state wrestling champion. Only now do I reach into my left pocket and feel for the tag. I place the stamped metal and chain over his last letter to me. I don’t look at his name. I return the box to the drawer, back silent in the dark of those years. I can‘t stop the white moon as it nestles in the dark hills. — Douglas L. Deacy Boiler Technician 2nd Class, U.S. NAVY 1969-1972 Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam War USS FOX DLG 33
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Post Tenebras Spero Lucem (After “In Ecclesiastes” by Marilyn Abildskov ) After darkness I hope for light. —Book of Job So let me tell you about my life before Iraq, a life I can’t release: the smell of Bullseye gun powder, polished leather boots, Ponderosa pine. A switchback hiking trail on a chilly spring morning, outstretched arms on a mountain top. The look of pride in my father’s eyes, sweet stinging slaps on the back. Meals without medications. No wheelchair. No phantom pain. No doctors. A girl’s eager kiss. — Joy Phillips
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Why The soldier smiles, gapped front teeth exposed. It’s only fourteen months. The young wife, yellow and green sundress, quizzes, Why? Outside, the sun melts into the Pacific. The smile now gone, he whispers, Because. Far from home, the soldier readies— dusty roads, diesel fumes, arid winds are his world. Once gentle and kind, the azure sky now drops metal and fire; an ancient road erupts in a brilliant flash of orange. Take cover! Sniper rounds defy gravity, piercing dirt, metal, flesh, bone— a changeless moment: wife with no husband, unborn child with no father. The sergeant, sunburned face and sandpaper stubble, stares at nothing. A tear falls, collecting dust; lips, chapped and dry, tremble. Words do not come, only the unanswered question. Flies buzz and swarm for the feast. Medics arrive— a single hole, miniscule and benign, above the right eye— the back of the head gone. Ooze puddles in the dirt, thick like grits, dark red with glints of mercury. Nineteen years of dreams and memories drain into desert. Home now, the soldier rests— the sun is bright; marshmallows float in afternoon sky. It is hot; God sighs, a breeze consoles. The casket is placed on a wooden pedestal; a brass horn glitters in the sunlight; the bugler plays Taps. Two soldiers, dress blues crisply pressed, remove the flag, fold it into a triangle, present it to the wife. A four-second salute delivered, the pastor speaks. The wife cannot hear. Her hands, gloved in white lace, cradle the flag. The simple black dress, swollen and full, does not conceal the unborn child. Though many are here, she is alone. She asks… — Jack Piirainen, Jr. 2ND LIEUTENANT, LOUISIANA ARMY NATIONAL GUARD 3RD BATTALION, 156TH INFANTRY BRIGADE 1978-1986
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From the Pulitzer Prize collection • The Dallas Morning News/David Leeson
Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war. — Otto Von Bismarck Prime Minister of Prussia, 1862–1890 SPEECH IN BERLIN AUGUST 1867
All Ash The soldiers are still, fingers in mouths, they spit no blood— the setting of war only just escaped, leveled and charred churning the razed soil, its black-gummed teeth, eyes protruding like ink let loose, like summer fires in a windstorm stammer across the fields, smitten with the texture of the thin, unburnt skin they consume. The ash is half roses and half corpse— so much is covered in discourse that only the soldiers are left half to spread over the street corner, the crossing where they first met, blood marking the hands of the women who knew them, half to dust the fields where they first loved staining the earth of the villages that set them to fight. Envious of life. Obsessive. Half flower, half death, all ash. — Teresa Breeden
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Already Gone When the news came, I could not cry, but scratched at my face like my grandmother did when my father, her favorite son-in-law, died— so primitive, I thought then as I watched her, saw those bloody welts follow her claws. Now I understand. Crying is for others, but I, the mother, must feel pain and draw blood. Today, I cut irises to fill the house, my cheeks rough with new scabs so that I cannot smile. I try not to think about his face— but what mother cannot wonder about her child’s face? In the news reports, there are never flowers in that place of sand and rusty metal, dry buildings and black dogs, people hurrying to market, to work, wherever they go carrying the scent of dying on that gritty wind. Irises will never be the same now, their open mouths and throats streaked with scarlet. I cut them quickly, plunge them into water, but they are already gone, bending under light to earth, and even with my ear close enough to gather their sweet amber dust, I will never hear their dying whisper. — Marilee Swirczek
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From the Pulitzer Prize collection • The Dallas Morning News/Cheryl Diaz Meyer
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. —Dwight D. Eisenhower Supreme Commander, Allied Forces, World War II 34th U.S. President SPEECH TO AMERICAN SOCIETY OF NEWSPAPER EDITORS April 16, 1953
What We Carry in Our Hands Buckets of water wait next to the bed. No sooner do the covers release our feet to the hardness of floor than our hands reach out to carry our share. These are tears saved up, swept up from hospital waiting rooms, bar rooms, courtrooms, wiped up from kitchen tables and off shirt fronts, scraped up from flushed cheeks and out of eyelids struggling to hold them in – not all for loss but mostly so. Shady images of corpses, decaying finery, moldy cake. Sometimes a whispered no, hate, or gone slosh up as we take our daily run. We know we’re like salmon: We’ve come upstream against strong currents. We know, too, that we have our chance to rise, suck air, fall to the future. So give us those buckets, muscle-building, heart-conditioning weights of the buried dead. A thousand silent heroes cheer us on. — Virginia Starrett
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These Eyes These eyes cry every night for you. These arms long to hold you again. — Burton Cummings/Randy Bachman The Guess Who These eyes, indeed. Nearly 7,000 pairs of eyes, at last count, stare at me. I don’t need their photos anymore to see their eyes. I see them in my sleep. They stare at me from television screens and car windshields and windows. They bore into me from walls. I am obsessed with their photos. I scan the Internet until 3 a.m., looking for photos to match a name. They have to be on the wall. Intellectually, I know we have to go to production, but I want to find—no, I need to find—just another and another… . We started downloading photos of the Iraq/Afghanistan war dead in February 2009. We tasked a work study student at WNC with the mission. As the days turned into weeks, I talked with her about the process of downloading photos, one by one. She was feeling depressed and having difficulty sleeping. I joined her in gathering the photos and immediately felt the same emotions. The sites we researched often showed more than the standard boot camp graduation photo. They showed our dead service members playing Little League baseball, graduating from high school, getting married or holding their newborn children. They showed them embracing wives and husbands, girlfriends and boyfriends and partners. They showed our dead service members in their homes celebrating holidays. Often, they were smiling in the photos. Knowing that they will not smile again is difficult to comprehend. Time became an issue. Students from Professor Swirczek’s creative writing class volunteered to download photos. Additional students from WNC’s Graphic Arts Department formatted the photos for printing. After over one-thousand hours of research, downloading, and formatting, it was time to go to production. Warriors do not line up on the parade deck, dress-right-dress, and die in an orderly fashion. War is chaos. To organize and structure their sacrifice seems obscene, so the faces of our fallen warriors are not in alphabetical or chronological order. To find one, you must look them all in the eyes. We will continue to search for photos as long as we are still engaged in combat. We will find each fallen warrior. And I will look them in the eyes and thank them. I hope to God it was worth their sacrifice. — Kevin P. Burns Major, USMC (Ret.) 1978-1993 operation desert shield/storm
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From the Wall of the Dead • Nevada Legislative Building/Anne Hansen
The Wall of the Dead depicts the photos and names of U.S. military war casualties in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since September 11, 2001. ALWAYS LOST: A Meditation on War | 37
Finding the Needle or Me & Andy C. Your name is SGT Andrew C. Perkins and, um, you’re not alive anymore. You died on March 5, 2007. I don’t know much about what happened except that you didn’t die alone. There were six of you, engaged in combat operations in Samarra, Iraq. A roadside bomb did what roadside bombs do and now you’re a picture in The New York Times. You probably know all of this by heart. You don’t need me, a stranger, to recount any of it for you. Sorry. But please know that your life—what you sacrificed for others—matters to one more person than it did yesterday. You matter to me, Andrew. Here is our story: My face was buried in the New York Times, in “The Roster of the Dead.” My scone sat un-nibbled, my coffee cooling, forgotten. As I looked through the photographs of our war dead, their heads no more than an inch tall, I started to feel a bit woozy. There were just so many! I closed my eyes, took a breath, counted to ten. It didn’t help. I wanted to fling the paper—to purge it from my sight—but I searched on, fervent to actually see these guys. And I needed 38 | ALWAYS LOST: A Meditation on War
to find you, Andrew. I needed to find you because I needed to understand, I needed to know, one of these fallen warriors, someone whose life was so different—or maybe so similar—to my own. Tired of being mocked by a colorless and disobliging newspaper, I realized it was time to find a website. It was time to formulate a plan. Yes! Plans are always a comfort, aren’t they? First, I would only look at the faces of twenty-seven year olds. That’s how old I am and I thought I could know you better if I could imagine dying, right now; if I could imagine how fucked up that would be. Next, I’d only consider people who were smiling or seemed kind-hearted and fun-loving. For some reason I can’t quite explain, I needed you to be friendly. I needed your little picture to say, I play pranks on my barrack mates. These things in mind, I found my way to CNN’s website for our war dead and scanned the page, searching for just the right face. I was anxious. I was eager. I was skimming… and there you were! Andrew C. Perkins, Sergeant in the 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division. I had very little idea what the hell that meant, Andrew, but your face! It was perfect! For starters, you were smiling, one of those Mad Magazine sort of grins, mischievous and disarming. You were clean-shaven and under a combat helmet. I bet it was sweaty under there, and itchy. You were reddened by the sun. Oh, and this might be my very favorite thing about you: you had these yellowtinted-but-still-totally-see-through-goggle-slash-sunglass-things on. That’s what really won you my attention. I mean, maybe these were just some sort of weird desert sunglasses, but I’d like to think of them as sporty-paint-ball-eyeprotector-gear. Not that the weapons we’re dealing with here are toys, but who doesn’t like a guy who comes prepared for paintball on any occasion? And that’s it. I’ve found you. I have so many questions, but, of course, this is as intimate as you and I will ever get. Perhaps it’s better this way. I mean, as it stands, you have no flaws. You’re mythic, Andrew: above judgment or reproach, regardless of what mistakes you may or may not have made in your tooabridged life. You’re a role model, a hero. You make me wish I’d accomplished something in my twenty-seven years worth weeping over. And here I realize just how badly I wish I’d never met you. I wish that now, today, you were somewhere warm, but not a desert. I wish you were enjoying coffee and scones with someone full of vicarious curiosity about how it felt to almost get blown up. I wish all of these things, Andrew, but some of us draw the short straws in life and I haven’t the answer as to why.
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You have power in your death, though. After all, you found me, Andrew. It was you who captured my attention, you with your space goggles and mild sunburn and your I-didn’t-do-it,-I-was-just-an-innocent-bystander,-honest-I-was grin. You’ve got me, and you’re not letting go; you’re putting down roots in some corner of my mind, residing and remembered there for all the years the straw I drew gives me. — Josh Galarza
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Armer N. Burkart Specialist, U.S. Army Rockville, Maryland
1st Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division Killed In Action 11 May 2006 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee during combat patrol operations. lucent as a slip of moon, your six-year-old skin must have glistened slipping your toy battleship into sudsy water, colliding on your mother’s toes splash landing on her belly all the while you sputtered engine noises and bombs how your lips pursed, tongue quivered, and how she gazed at the magic explosions you knew even before her womb you must have leaned your willowy arms against her knees—mottled birch bark, never to bleach clean—and she must have slithered lower water rising to her ears, immersed in warm murmurs and babbles wanting that moment to stretch like soft taffy from then until when her turn was over, not yours she must have gazed out the bath window, an October field rippling, bronze and coppers bent in, and as if to remember your hair as wind-blown gold, or as if to loosen some burden from you, or from her, she combed her damp fingers through your too long hair, tugging strands into furrows, and in that burnished sun flecks of chaff drifted down, stuck to the window, freckles on your nose now she lets the faucet gush too hot, burning her porcelain fingers her red blood now running clear from too many scalding tears, her skin shrink-wrapped on bones, her womb, a gnarled prune she must need to write with her charcoal-nubbed soul until perhaps what is blurred on the paper is a voice, a thin din of you, sounds of a toy soldier explosions and gun fire, echoing down old hall walls — Kathy Walters
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It Starts with the Listening
Petty Officer 2nd class Cody Loveday, U.S. Navy
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Portrait and interview by Doug Deacy Western Nevada College, Carson City, Nevada, 2009
e walks with the aid of a cane, backpack slung over his shoulder, making his way to his English class. You’d never know that he’s an exNavy Seabee. With long brown hair and a beard, he’s a Texas boy who now makes Nevada home. If you ask him about family, his eyes light up. He speaks, great affection
in his voice, of his wife and three children. We spoke about family and military service. Cody’s uncle served in the airborne during WWII. His grandfather performed duties during the Vietnam conflict that Cody referred to as line-hauls, the actual transport of vehicles that would be shipped to combat or support considerations.
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Cody also has friends currently serving performed on his shoulders and the in the military. Despite his full schedule, injuries have limited the range of motion he tries to get out the emails, to stay in in his arms and shoulders. Recreational contact. activities that Cody used to enjoy are now When I asked him why he had enoff-limits, such as golf. Yet he is able to listed, his answer was brief, humorous. continue his love for firearms and shoot“Something to do.” Laughter bubbled ing. He prides himself as an accurate between us. marksman, both with rifle and pistol. At that time in his life, Cody was The question of physical and emotional twenty-three years old and had wanted care for veterans such as Cody came up “other things to do besides changing next. Cody thought his physical rehab tires.” He enlisted in had gone well, but the Navy at Corpus not so for his emoChristi, Texas, tional rehab. His His response was in June, 1999 for psychiatrist was a definitive. “Don’t two years, then retypical over-worked enlisted for six more. caregiver with a pressure. Don’t start In the two years crushing caseasking them all kinds before he shipped load. As a result, of questions.” Some out for Iraq, besides Cody was given his regular duties, short visits of only things, difficult he also performed thirty to forty-five things, he said, were tsunami relief. He minutes every three slow in coming. He enjoyed his duties months. Though and time in the the sessions were acknowledged that military. positive, they were enlistment meant After sustaining lacking in duration living with all the injuries in combat and frequency. while in Iraq, he consequences, however Cody believes the worked “in the military is making troubling. back” (a rear holding the attempt to But he didn’t shirk from provide additional area) performing repairs on military services, such as the consequences, vehicles. Cody peer counseling. didn’t try to avoid referred to his work Most people the realities. as “salvation” of who know Cody vehicles damaged in keep a low profile combat, especially as far as Iraq is conparts and systems cerned. Friends say that could be recycled back into service. that Cody is “kind of the same,” but they He viewed this six-week period as “O.K… acknowledge that there is “something difthe guys, they were O.K.” Despite evferent about him” now. I asked him what erything he had gone through, the times that something was. His response was and the people were, in his book, O.K. rapid and focused. There wasn’t resentment or bitterness in “Oh, I know what that something is. Cody; only the simple acceptance of what Pulling the trigger.” He didn’t elaborate. military service brings. He married his fiancé after coming Cody has had multiple surgeries home. She’s provided him with the lion’s
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share of moral support. The nightmares still come. But his wife is there, constant, to comfort and reassure. An average day in Cody’s life is making that college class, playing with his kids, being married. He looks forward to his schooling. He looks forward to his life. I asked, “What would you tell Americans about the war, about those who come back?” His response was definitive. “Don’t pressure. Don’t start asking them all
kinds of questions.” Some things, difficult things, he said, were slow in coming. He acknowledged that enlistment meant living with all the consequences, however troubling. But he didn’t shirk from the consequences, didn’t try to avoid the realities. Cody suggested that we be patient and let the vet come to his or her decision first. Behind the clarity in his words was a certainty. In other words, perhaps it starts with the listening.
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Supposed to be There Specialist Amy Smee, U.S. Army
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Portrait and interview by Doug Deacy Western Nevada College, Carson City, Nevada, 2009
n Amy Smee, Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, one discovers a pleasant mix of shyness and good manners, tempered by humble reserve, and underscored by quiet determination. Since early childhood, Amy had
wanted to be a Marine officer. In 1999,
she contacted the Marine recruiters. Her impression was that they weren’t too “female friendly.” Though polite, they discouraged her, so she went in another direction. The Marines’ loss would be the Army’s gain. Amy recalls basic training with humor and the occasional smile. Soldiering
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wanted to make a difference. with some of the military’s first females, All the while, the Taliban was carrying Amy realized that women had to do out IED attacks, though they rarely fired everything better than the guys. It was upon the convoy and bases, opting not succeed at Fort Sill or not at all. to take on the superior firepower of the She succeeded. Nine weeks later, ReAmericans. cruit Amy Smee was training for Heavy Amy spent seven months in AfghaniConstruction Equipment Operator. stan. Then, in a turn of bad luck, she She’d found her niche; she liked playing broke her hip and was shipped out for in the dirt. medical treatment. She had hoped to But with 9/11, something changed in Amy’s life. Like many others, 9/11 would receive care in Germany so she could quickly return to her outfit. But the become the real reason she joined the Army sent her stateside for convalesArmy. One year later, after additional cence. training, her outfit received orders for “All my battle buddies were in AfIraq. ghanistan.” This Amy had set of circumstancnever been in es clearly troubled combat. That Amy understands the Amy. “That was changed too. cost of war. Like a bill, my job. I was supShe discovered it has to be paid. If she posed to be there. “ D-10 bull She was has to pay it, then so dozers with barely off the ballistic glass be it. Amy feels that we crutches when in them, or, as had a job to do, and the she re-joined her she quipped, removal of a dictator was outfit. That was “Armored up.” part of that job. Amy’s best day in The reality Afghanistan. became close Her worst and personal. days there, as she put it, were “miserable.” “This was it. You write those letters All the support and money were going home that you don’t want anyone to to Iraq. Afghanistan seemed a forgotten read.” war. Then orders came to deploy home. So she worked to construct buildings Amy got off active duty three months and roads while a war raged on around later. her. Her outfit went home for more I asked what she missed most when training, then re-deployed to Afghanishe was gone. She missed the news, and stan. There they built more roads, more bases. They created highways where there “Mom’s cooking.” A daughter’s shy grin, followed by easy laughter. had just been Afghani dust and dirt. After her tour, Amy began to see and Amy observed more poverty in Affeel things differently. Her experiences ghanistan than in Iraq, and she realized had touched her deeply. When she that theirs was as much a peace-keeping returned home, it was another Amy who mission as a war. And these soldiers
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walked off the plane. Her mom saw the difference, but could do nothing about it. Amy understands the cost of war. Like a bill, it has to be paid. If she has to pay it, then so be it. Amy feels that we had a job to do, and the removal of a dictator was part of that job. Protesters were missing the mark. I posed my last question: “If you had a voice to the world, what would you say
about Iraq, about Afghanistan?� Her humility fueled the silence. Her last response spoke volumes about this young veteran. In her way of thinking, all the arguments about this war fall short. Regardless of who said we were
not supposed to be there, Amy felt, she was supposed to be there.
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How Green Could the Trees Be? Lance Corporal Alexander M. Malm, USMC Portrait and interview by Doug Deacy Western Nevada College, Carson City, Nevada, 2009
Y
ou’d want him to marry your daughter. The blue eyes, steady. The look, kid next door. The haircut, distinctly Marine. You’d like him immediately. The legacy of military duty came early in Alex’s family. In WWI, his greatgrandfather was a runner in the trenches
of Europe. During WWII, Alex’s grandfather commanded the USS Vicksburg, a light cruiser, in the Pacific Theater. His grandmother, a nurse, served during the military occupation of Japan. Alex’s father served as a Machinist Mate in the Navy during the Carter Administration. It was natural that Alex would follow in
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were as high as a hundred-thirty somehis family’s tradition. thing. Even after the HVAC guys worked In 2005, the family moved from the on the air conditioners, they only lasted greenness of Erie, Pennsylvania, to the a day or so. Humvees turned into ovens.” neon and sage of Nevada. The next year, And other things. Alex graduated from high school. Five The military had Quonset huts for grades earlier, planes had fallen from the sky to tall towers, a pasture, and the Pen- off-time. You could get some Internet time in, play pool, work out. Censortagon. He’d watched in silence as 9/11 ship? Yeah, the military made sure of made its way into our lives. On that day, that. But as a foot soldier, you owned service became more than a word. your own kind of Alex enlisted censorship. For in July 2006, example, you left and was assigned The question made things out when to a mobile him quiet. He glanced you talked to reaction force in downward and away, the folks. Dad, Iraq—Marines being ex-military, who dealt with for the first time not knew what “one the unexpected. meeting my gaze. of those days” “If anything He recalled a fellow meant. To Mom, happened, we’d student who had spoken you spoke code, jump in the something imiof the military in a trucks and….” tating the truth. Alex’s voice derogatory fashion. She didn’t need tapered off. Alex could have to know about “Anything” was countered the student’s the Humvees a go-straightabsence of reason. blown apart by to-hell card out three artillery But, in the end, he of some strange shells strapped toversion of Iraqi chose not to. “That’s gether. You kept monopoly. why we fight.“ The space some things to His base was between us grew quiet. yourself, where, located in Anbar somehow, they province, a belonged. breeding ground Alex tried to explain the disconnect of insurgent resistance. The two battles between Iraq and home. Things were just for Fallujah would stay locked in the different there. He spoke without judgminds of many men. It was a city even ment. There was no fault-finding in his Saddam Hussein avoided. Now, the base and the province had been turned over to words. Things just were. But Iraq could be other than bleak. the Iraqi authorities. Alex felt the surge Iraqi food was great. Alex isn’t sure where had helped. their meat came from (where were the When he described a typical day, the dogs, the camels?) but he loved the food, picture was stark, unforgiving. “Temps
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which managed its way into many social aspects of Iraqi life. Part of the Marines’ duties was to provide security for a monthly meeting between Iraqi local leaders and American military. Iraqis brought their needs and Americans attempted to assist them. That’s where the great Iraqi food came in. Food was a social lubricant. Their country might have been war-torn; their culinary delights were anything but. I set my list of questions on the table. Alex smiled when I asked him what the first things were he had wanted stateside. “Coors Light and a triple Whopper at Burger King.” Then I asked the young Marine a tough one: “What would you say to those who have not lived through the experi-
ence that was Iraq?” The question made him quiet. He glanced downward and away, for the first time not meeting my gaze. He recalled a fellow student who had spoken of the military in a derogatory fashion. Alex could have countered the student’s absence of reason. But, in the end, he chose not to. “That’s why we fight.“ The space between us grew quiet. “What was the first thing you saw as you flew in stateside?” I finally asked. He grinned. “Flying into North Carolina—the trees below, around the airport. After Iraq, after the sand and the brown of war, I’d forgotten how green the trees could be.“
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Specialist Noah C. Pierce, U.S. Army December 5, 1983 – July 26, 2007 Excerpt from “Casualty of War”
The Mesabi Daily News, Virginia, Minnesota Aug. 20, 2007, by Linda Tyssen
A grieving family stood at the grave that would hold their beloved boy. Men in uniform fired a salute, taps sounded. The flag on his coffin was folded and placed in the arms of his mother. At his funeral she had kissed his face one last time. And so, on Aug. 1 in the Virginia veterans’ plot, a soldier of the war in Iraq was laid to rest, his troubled soul finally at peace. Noah Charles Pierce, age 23, had taken his own life. Noah Pierce suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. He knew it. His family knew it. Friends knew it. They tried desperately to help him. But to no avail. On a July day he left with his truck and his guns and never came back. He ended his life in the mine dumps near his favorite fishing spot, not far from his Sparta boyhood home. The words “freedom isn’t free’’ were carved in the dashboard. And in his final note, his mother said, he wrote that he had killed people in the war and now it was time to kill himself. The week after his funeral his parents, Cheryl and Tom Softich, and his sister, Sarah Snyder, shared their memories of Noah. “I know my son committed suicide, but as far as I’m concerned, he died for his country and I’m as proud of him as I was five years ago,’’ said Cheryl Softich, her eyes glistening. ALWAYS LOST: A Meditation on War | 51
Five years ago her boy announced he was joining the Army and would need parental consent. “He started talking about joining the military when he was 6, 7 years old. He signed up at age 17 right after 9/11 (the terrorist attack on the United States). He tells me, ‘I’m going to join the Army with or without you’... so I signed the papers to show I supported what he needed to do.’’ Tom Softich said he tried to talk him out of it. “I knew it was going to be a war.’’ His mother was frightened he wouldn’t survive. “I always knew my son would die young. The first time I held him in my arms, I knew I would outlive him.’’ Her son felt the same way, but told her he wouldn’t die in the war. But in a way he did. A family friend said, “When he come back from Iraq, Noah wasn’t Noah no more.’’ His mother echoed the words: “Physically Noah came home. Mentally he didn’t.’’ “You knew who he was by looking at him,’’ said his sister, whose picture he carried through the war. “Then he would start talking to you. He was a completely different person.’’ His mother said the life had left his eyes. “The spark was gone. The guilt just ate at him. He was too kindhearted.’’
“When he come back from Iraq, Noah wasn’t Noah no more.”
Spc. Noah Charles Pierce served with the Third Infantry Division, first in Kuwait. The war began, and he got his orders for Iraq. He would drive a Bradley fighting vehicle, he would be a gunner on a Humvee, he would enter Iraqi houses in search of the enemy. There were explosions, there were casualties. He turned 19 and 21 in Iraq. He called the war Hell on Earth. Noah’s mother knew the things that bothered him. His best friend had been blown up at his side. He worried about the kids, especially the 7-year-old boy who sat next to him on the Bradley tank. They shared food and water. “No English, no Arabic,’’ Pierce wrote in another poem. “Yet we still understand each other. Then it’s time to leave. He wraps his arms around me, crying. I say it will be OK. I still wonder if he is.’’ He was bothered, too, by the memory of the doctor. His sergeant had ordered him to fire at a suspected enemy. “It turned out it was an Iraqi doctor,’’ his mother said. He still had the picture of the dead doctor on his cell phone when he came home.
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“The guys don’t know who they’re fighting. Just like Vietnam, they end up killing innocent people,’’ said his father. “Noah wasn’t a bad person. He only did what he was ordered to do,’’ said Cheryl Softich. “People would ask me, ‘Did your brother kill anybody?’ It’s like, excuse me?’’ said his sister. On the Sunday before he did this to himself, he said, ‘Mom, you worry too much. I’m happy.’ How can you say that and then go do that? I’ve been worried that Noah was going to hurt himself,’’ Softich said. His sister would drive him to the Veterans Affairs hospital in Minneapolis for hearing and dental work. “But when it came to the big things like traumatic brain injury, he would make the appointment and then cancel. He knew he had the brain damage. He would tell everybody he had PTSD. One minute fine, the next minute he’s in another world,’’ Sarah Snyder said. A vehicle would backfire, and he would relive the car bombs. He would call himself a murderer and his mother would try to change his mind, telling him that “if you go into a gas station and start shooting, you’re a murderer.’’ His sister gave him a card saying he needed to forgive himself. He hung the card on his gun case. “He tried every day. He would have days on end that were actually good days and then anything could trigger it,’’ said his mother. There was nothing his family could do except encourage him to get help. “He’s of age. But if a parent knows their child, if you know there’s problems, why can’t they allow us to help? Noah might still be here,’’ Cheryl Softich said. She had wanted him to be committed for help. “The Army had no business letting the men and women go even if their deployment is up. They need extensive counseling and it has to be from somebody that’s walked in their shoes.’’ His mother is proud of his poems. “I was pushing him to think about writing a book or keeping on with his poems. They would help other people,’’ she said. “He got all excited. I told him I was going to bend over backwards to see that something happened to those poems.’’ Pierce talked about re-enlisting, for he felt the job wasn’t finished. He had told his mother, “If we pull our troops out now, we’re going to have a worse attack than 9/11.’’ He didn’t think the war was about oil, but about “freedom for everybody.” I believe if he would have lived, he would have gone back into the military. He
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would have been a lifer and probably would have someday published something. It was in his blood.’’ And now a family is left behind to move on. A mother goes through her boy’s things. She finds awards she never knew about. A certificate for “Outstanding Dedication to Duty during Combat Operations in the Sunni Triangle’’ that “contributed to the overwhelming success of Task Force 5-7. January 2005-January 2006.’’ A certificate for the Order of the Spur, a high honor given to troops of the cavalry. She drives home the truck in which her son died. “I felt like if anybody brought it home it had to be me. I gave my son life. It was his blood. That’s where his spirit left him. I wanted to be where his spirit had been.’’ She remembers the last text message she ever sent him. “Noah, you’re my heart.’’ She doesn’t know if he read it. “All he ever wanted was peace. He was our heart and he deserves nothing but respect, along with all the other veterans past and present.’’ If her son had been in his “U.S. soil frame of mind,’’ she said, “he might still be alive. But the guilt was too much.’’ Winner, 2007 Minnesota Associated Press Association Award (Features)
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Friends I feel bad for the kids. Can’t blame them for begging, Can’t give them anything; they beg more. This one is different. He is seven. I let him sit next to me on the Bradley, I give him water, He goes gets me food. It’s great compared to the MREs. No English, No Arabic, Yet we still understand each other. Then it’s time to leave. He wraps his arms around me crying, I say it will be OK. I still wonder if he is. — SPC Noah Pierce U.S. Army 2002-2006 Operation Iraqi Freedom
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Freedom Isn’t Free It’s dark and I sit at my .50 cal trembling 40 mph in a Hummer and I have déjà vu Just want to go home Then the bad feelings hit me again, Are my ears bleeding? Is everyone else OK? Goddamned roadside bombs We are fine Another truck wasn’t so lucky Back at base no food, can barely get a new truck ready in time for the morning Another day kicking in doors Find a cache and insurgents responsible for American deaths Frustrated because we have to be nice as we arrest them So when you talk to me I may not seem to pay attention I may forget to laugh at a joke Remember freedom isn’t free But I would do it all over for you. — SPC Noah Pierce U.S. Army 2002-2006 Operation Iraqi Freedom
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The story of Pierce’s service and suicide is featured in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Fall 2008, “The Life and Lonely Death of Noah Pierce,” by Ashley Gilbertson; the HBO documentary, WARTORN: 1861-2013; and Perspectives on Argument, Margaret V. Wood and James Miller (Pearson Education 2011). It is estimated that 22 veterans commit suicide every day (Department of Veterans Affairs, Suicide Data Report, 2012).
Blue Star mother at the Wall of the Dead • Nevada Legislative Building/Lisa Tolda
Only the dead have seen the end of war. George Santayana, Spanish-American philosopher
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Nevada Legislative Building/Lisa Tolda
FROM THE MEDITATIONS
I think there’s a false notion that we all ought to heal. There’s something to be said for remembering.
Tim O’Brien, author and Vietnam veteran
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