One Year Anniversary
Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my blogging debut. Lots has happened in twelve months--it's been good. To commemorate that and to acknowledge that today is a holiday, here's a reprint of my first real post (after the obligatory, "Hey, I'm new at this, let's see what happens").
Barber's Adagio and the Star-Spangled Banner
Today is July 4th, which is making it feel ironic to me that yesterday I was finally able to have a conversation I've been hoping for for a year. I have a friend named Bill who was in Vietnam 31 years ago, and I've been eager to hear his story since I first began to get to know him. The whole Vietnam thing has been compelling to me since Rob and Glen and Mike and I walked to the theater behind Rob's mom's apartment to see Platoon. I think it was 1986 and if it was, I was 13 or 14. We blabbered all the way there about baseball (Boggs or Mattingly?) and practiced our cussing. Mindless stuff about slurpees and video games. Non-stop noise from the time we left Rob's mom's apartment, all the way through the previews (yeah, we were those kids you hate) which I do not remember, right up until we heard, for the first time, Samuel Barber's adagio for strings, which begins the movie. From that moment, all the way through the movie, not a word (which was unprecedented for us). We were overwhelmed by what we saw, by what we felt, and by the fact that all of this had just happened to our fathers' generation (and to some of our fathers). There's never been a better marriage of a film and a piece of music. After the show we walked the whole way back in silence. We weren't as unwilling to talk as we were unable. Anything we could have come up with would have profaned the experience we had just shared and no one wanted to end the moment. Looking back, as we walked home, we weren't kids anymore. We certainly weren't men yet, but having seen that film, we would never quite be children again.
And so I've spent the years that have followed that Saturday afternoon eager to talk with--just to listen to--anyone who had really lived the things that Oliver Stone communicated to us so effectively in Platoon. Mostly I've just paid attention and looked for opportunities. I'm aware that there are lots of Vietnam vets who, for a long time, were unwilling or unable to talk about what happened over there and I respect that, but when the opportunities come, I'm rivited. A few years ago my friend Henry described stepping off of a helicopter and watching his buddy next to him have his head shot off. We were interrupted before he could go on, but I don't believe he was going to anyway. I once heard my Uncle Gary talk about shooting the monkeys that would come around his tent baring those big monkey fangs. Brief stories mostly, so when Bill seemed willing to talk yesterday at work, I couldn't have cared less that we were at work and that there was lots to do and that managers kept passing us as we stood there. Inventory prep has never seemed so irrelevant. Thirty years ago it all happened--he was 19 years old--and its all as clear to him as if it had been this morning. Told me about two of the three times that he thought his life was over. About being literally blown out of the chair he was sitting in and hiding under the desk with his buddy. About a time-delayed bomb that landed in the middle of their compound and terrified everyone. About the one that blew his barracks away. About being gassed in a bus and thinking that was it. About finishing his term and having to stay an extra week because his unit was too surrounded to get a plane to them. We talked longer than I've been able to with anyone else so far, but it still seemed too short. What a story.
Today the TV at my folks house will provide several renditions of The Star-Spangled Banner (which may be my mother's second favorite song, behind God Bless America) and I will listen with different ears to the part about the rockets' red glare and the bombs bursting in air, and I will wonder if Bill would consider Barber's Adagio a more appropriate selection.
Friday, July 04, 2003
Barber's Adagio and the Star-Spangled Banner
Today is July 4th, which is making it feel ironic to me that yesterday I was finally able to have a conversation I've been hoping for for a year. I have a friend named Bill who was in Vietnam 31 years ago, and I've been eager to hear his story since I first began to get to know him. The whole Vietnam thing has been compelling to me since Rob and Glen and Mike and I walked to the theater behind Rob's mom's apartment to see Platoon. I think it was 1986 and if it was, I was 13 or 14. We blabbered all the way there about baseball (Boggs or Mattingly?) and practiced our cussing. Mindless stuff about slurpees and video games. Non-stop noise from the time we left Rob's mom's apartment, all the way through the previews (yeah, we were those kids you hate) which I do not remember, right up until we heard, for the first time, Samuel Barber's adagio for strings, which begins the movie. From that moment, all the way through the movie, not a word (which was unprecedented for us). We were overwhelmed by what we saw, by what we felt, and by the fact that all of this had just happened to our fathers' generation (and to some of our fathers). There's never been a better marriage of a film and a piece of music. After the show we walked the whole way back in silence. We weren't as unwilling to talk as we were unable. Anything we could have come up with would have profaned the experience we had just shared and no one wanted to end the moment. Looking back, as we walked home, we weren't kids anymore. We certainly weren't men yet, but having seen that film, we would never quite be children again.
And so I've spent the years that have followed that Saturday afternoon eager to talk with--just to listen to--anyone who had really lived the things that Oliver Stone communicated to us so effectively in Platoon. Mostly I've just paid attention and looked for opportunities. I'm aware that there are lots of Vietnam vets who, for a long time, were unwilling or unable to talk about what happened over there and I respect that, but when the opportunities come, I'm rivited. A few years ago my friend Henry described stepping off of a helicopter and watching his buddy next to him have his head shot off. We were interrupted before he could go on, but I don't believe he was going to anyway. I once heard my Uncle Gary talk about shooting the monkeys that would come around his tent baring those big monkey fangs. Brief stories mostly, so when Bill seemed willing to talk yesterday at work, I couldn't have cared less that we were at work and that there was lots to do and that managers kept passing us as we stood there. Inventory prep has never seemed so irrelevant. Thirty years ago it all happened--he was 19 years old--and its all as clear to him as if it had been this morning. Told me about two of the three times that he thought his life was over. About being literally blown out of the chair he was sitting in and hiding under the desk with his buddy. About a time-delayed bomb that landed in the middle of their compound and terrified everyone. About the one that blew his barracks away. About being gassed in a bus and thinking that was it. About finishing his term and having to stay an extra week because his unit was too surrounded to get a plane to them. We talked longer than I've been able to with anyone else so far, but it still seemed too short. What a story.
Today the TV at my folks house will provide several renditions of The Star-Spangled Banner (which may be my mother's second favorite song, behind God Bless America) and I will listen with different ears to the part about the rockets' red glare and the bombs bursting in air, and I will wonder if Bill would consider Barber's Adagio a more appropriate selection.
Friday, July 04, 2003
5 Comments:
September is me anniversary
September is me anniversary
Won't be long.
Vietman was a hard time not only for our country, but for "our" generation. "We" didn't belong over there but "we" were there and dying, and those "we" were who we went to school with. Then when "they" came home we didn't really know what to say. It was a big empty void that nothing filled. So Barber probably filled it with about as good as it gets, like you said second or third to SSB or God Bless America, those are simple, and my mind processes simple, yet they are very heavy if you really know what they're saying. "And the rockets red glare....
Ma
That post reminds me how much I love reading what you write (and listening to what you have to say). Thanks, Ben.
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