| A BROTHERS' STORY FROM CHILDHOOD BY AUGHTRY COOPER |
My best memory of my Dad had to do with how our house was populated with kids who weren't in our family. We had a joke growing up that the first one up was the best one dressed. But, the reality more than anything, was that we didn't have a clue when we got up who would be our temporary brothers and sisters.
Most came from the orphanage. My Dad went to visit often. Coming off the depression, many families simply could not care for their children and they dropped them off at the Orphan Home as it was called.
And, a common practice was that the farmers would use them if the children were big enough because they were very cheap labor. On occasion they kept some of the kids almost as slave labor I'm sad to say. My Dad hated it and crusaded constantly against what he called, "the poor kids" as if we weren't poor.
In fact, the story is told that my Dad became part of the Ku Klux Klan just to protect the orphans from those who would exploit them: not sure this is true, but more likely than not.
He would visit with great regularity and especially asked about the new comers, if they were going to school, that sort of thing. He always wanted to know if the Orphan Matron, as she was called, knew where the child came from. It seems on one occasion Dad was particularly struck with one lonely looking youngster who seemed so forlorn that he decided to let him come with us for a few days. He never left. Thanks Dad.
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| THOUGHTS ON THE VIETNAM WAR AND THE ANT-WAR MOVEMENT |
I was born in 1958 and came of age when the Vietnam War and the anti-war
movement were both in full swing. It has taken me years to put this into
words, but I believe that as bad as that war was, the legacy of the
anti-war movement was worse.
The anti-war movement gave rise to the moral
superiority of non-involvement and non-commitment. While that may have
worked to help draft-dodgers sleep at night, it's not much of a strategy of
how to go through life. Taken to its logical conclusion the message is:
don't commit to your county, don't commit to your spouse, and don't commit
to your kids, church, or community. Don't commit to cleaning up your own
mess or any cause that demands any more from you than rhetoric.
This was the mindset in which our country was firmly stuck until 9/11.
After 9/11, some woke up. Kids came down and joined the service. To the dismay of some of their teachers, parents, and the media elites, they came down to here(recruitment center) and raised their hand in front of the flag. And they are still coming to the shock of the non-committers. The Marines have more enlisting than their two boot camps can handle.
A voice from a soldier serving in Iraq
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| FATHERS DAY MUSING:BEING A FATHER BY JOHN HENRY LEE |
 Are any of us the father we want to be or wish we'd been? I doubt it. Most of the Dads I know do the best they can, relatively speaking.
The flip side of the coin is that there are some pretty sorry fathers. Amazingly, so many kids constantly are searching for their fathers, literally or figuratively, regardless if they were good or bad-something about wanting to know your real Dad: amazing.
I first encountered it when I was part of a group that started the organization, Vietnam Veterans Southeast Asia Children's Project, mostly working with Amerasian (mothers are Asian and fathers mostly American GIs) kids: all of them wanted to find their American fathers who didn't want anything to do with them. Pretty sad, but understandable.
I remember one vet I located --he was so outraged that I would contact him: he had his own life now, wife, kids,etc. Vietnam was over forever and he doubted if the kid was his anyway. I actually wrote a play about my encounter with him; and, if I ever get any big money, I'm going to produce it.
Let's face it, in a real sense, the greatest job or at least the second (Mother first maybe) one that anybody would ever have is being a father. My own Dad was terrific and even today, I hear many things inside my head from him.
Recently, I was in a situation, not so much me, but a friend and I said, "the only thing I know to tell you is an expression my dad used all the time: 'you might as well laugh as cry.' " I was amazed at hearing myself saying, "you might as well laugh as cry;" I had not thought of the expression in years; and yet, when I needed the cogent comment, there was my Dad.
Also, someone said to me recently, what was your first memory: Hands down it was when my Dad "whipped the daylights out of me" for cursing. I was about six.
There is a concept that we invent the parent of our childhood. I don't know. I do know that my older brothers and I have a somewhat different view of our Dad. I was the youngest, hung out with him lots, listening to his stories--he was a great storyteller and I listened over and over to the same one which always varied just a shade each time. From what I hear from my brothers, I got the best of him. When they were younger, putting bread on the table and making sure there was a future i.e.,in other words, surviving consumed much of my Dad's time. When I came along, those things were more or less secured. Maybe!
But, I am a product of my own Dad and my children are of me. Please God, I hope I've done a good job, the most important one I'll ever have.
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| MEMORIAL
FOR NATIONAL GUARD SOLDIER:FRANK CARVILL BY J.LEIGH |
 No one death is greater than another for sure. While the nation mourned the former President, who was 93, a New Jersey National Guardsman was 51 when they buried him in the Vets Cemetery near Fort Dix.
Frank Carvill was a buck Sergeant, an E5.
His rank as a buck sergeant is only significant as it is a part of his story that we don't know: to be in the National Guard at 51 and be a buck sergeant means possibly unusual dedication. It would be great to know why and how it all came to be.
Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:12, from the Bible and inscribed on the Vietnam Vets Memorial at the Presidio of San Francisco.
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| A FATHER ANGUISHES ABOUT HIS SON SERVING IN IRAQ BY J. MOORE |
 In the San Francisco Magazine section last Sunday, there was this personal story about a parent whose son is a Lieutenant in Iraq. He started it off with the sentence, "Somewhere there must be a parenting book with a section titled: When your child goes to war." It was very moving.
The Father went on to tell how he and his wife hang on every news account of Iraq and when soldiers are killed, how they die a little themselves, searching out the areas where their son might be; they basically know much more than parents did in past wars because of the Internet and email, etc.; "good and bad," he says.
He says so many things remind him of his son, the youngsters having fun in San Francisco while his own is out dusty, dirty, fighting, dodging bullets; He wants to scream out, "How dare you laugh when my son is doing what you should be doing." He told about sitting with parents at a high school track meet. They were anguishing about their children's upcoming SAT tests. He wanted to tell them he'd be glad to trade his worries for theirs.
I liked his idea of fear being replaced with pride. His son, an airborne ranger doing his duty, at least as he saw it. This was one of the best concepts of the article: when his friends asked him, what does his son think of the war. "How can I explain," he says, soldiers in combat don't ask such questions. They are there, doing what they've been trained to do, their jobs. This is a brutal truth he said, when U. S. soldiers are killed, I can only hope it's somebody else's kid. It gives me no pleasure to say that, but it's the brutal truth.
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