"Every picture tells a story... don't it?"

A Poppy from the "Field of Flanders" 
and the symbol for Remembrance Day
It's unfortunate how soon we forget something so important.

Our friend Ben wrote to Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society in the anticipation of signing of the Paris Peace Treaty, ending the conflict between Great Britain and the nascent United States,

"...  there was never a good War, or a bad Peace.”

This is has been often quoted but generally out of context.  Franklin ever the practical man went on to say...

... imagine the Paradise, that might have been obtained by spending those Millions in doing good, which in the last War have been spent in doing Mischief; in bringing Misery into thousands of Families, and destroying the Lives of so many thousands of working people, who might have performed the useful labour!”

We call it Veterans Day here but Remembrance is more apt.
In every war there is sacrifice by many, just ask any mother.

Few can argue with Franklin's observation and yet like so many other things we know are bad for us, we can not resist the temptation to periodically run off and impose ourselves on another tribe.  

All of this came to mind when I considered the significance of today's date.  11/11/11, as any Numerologist can tell you is a rare and presumably auspicious calendar event.  And so it was hoped 93 years ago, when the world chose that date and time, to reflect on the what it had done to itself.  At the appointed hour 11AM local time, on the 11th of day of the 11th month, of 1918, the world stopped for 2 minutes. Surviving mothers, fathers, wives, sweethearts, families and veterans all bowed their heads and let the silence speak for the 35 million dead and wounded, lost in the carnage of the "War to End All Wars".  After the tears stopped, the politician's speeches began, and those responsible vowed to "Always Remember".  They promised to never allow the madness to be repeated.  Like so many other resolutions to improve ourselves, this one was soon broken.  It was so sudden that rather than come up with a catchy name for the next war, they merely assigned a number to it.  Let hope that 11/11/11 is more propitious, as well as memorable, this time around.

War, whether good or bad, appears to be as much a part of the Homo sapiens species, as rutting season is to the Moose.  Both are territorial in nature, testosterone driven and stressful to the female.   Yet in spite of a 10,000 year history of continual warfare, politicians still disingenuously condemn war as madness and vow "never again",  even as they are ginning up the next one.  To demonstrate how committed to peace the politicians are (most whom I hasten to add, have never served in a combat zone), our Congress designated a day that would provide them an occasion to make speeches in tribute to those who have "Served their Country", in "projecting" peace and freedom around the world.

Veterans Day or Remembrance Day, is the one day a year we set aside to honor those who do the actual "projecting".   The gesture clearly does little to retard the impulse to go to war but it at least gives us pause to reflect on the price of war, not in treasure but in blood.

That is what I would like to do today, pause and share a reflection of war with you.

"Peace Demonstration" - Mekong Delta, 1970
No one respects peace more than a combat veteran

This is a picture I took in a base camp located in the "Plain of Jars", in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, in the early Spring of 1970.

It is a picture, like thousands of others, that have been taken at other memorial services, in other wars.  What makes this one different is that I knew the young man, the soldiers in the picture are honoring.

The concept of war is an abstraction.  As abstract as the number 4,481.  It doesn't mean much, unless over the last 10  years you were the parent or spouse of one the 4,481 Americans killed to date, in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Then the idea of war and the number become real at the same time.


Like a number, this picture is an abstraction, but only if it has no meaning.  Here's the story and the meaning behind this picture.

"Go Devil" Patch

Three months before the photo was taken, I had been assigned to the 9th Infantry Division and went through a process center called, "The Go Devil Academy", Go Devil, was the 9th's mascot, (This was before it conjured up satanic possibilities.)  One of the nuBees I went through the academy with, was a young aspiring cowboy from Ft Collins, CO (or it might have been Ft. Laramie, it was a while ago). He had been trained as an RTO (RadioTelegraph Operator) and had taken advanced artillery training in Fort Sill, OK.  I wouldn't have known all this, if I hadn't pulled perimeter guard duty with him for several nights.

One of the few upsides to pulling perimeter guard duty is you get to make new friends.   10 hours of hunkering down in a hole with 2 other fellows, allows for ample opportunity to find out how they ended up in the same hole.  The odd thing is, you remember the stories long after you've forgotten their names.

Like his home town, I vaguely remember our boy's name as "Dusty", which he came by dint of his blonde hair.  I also remember his nick name, because he showed me a picture of his girlfriend holding a puppy of indeterminate breed, that his girlfriend had named "Lil Dusty".  I recall the picture vividly, as it was unusual.  Now showing a picture of your "Girl", is a time honored tradition with soldiers pulling guard duty.  This may be because it is a subtle way to assure the other guys in the hole that you like girls and they can rest soundly, when it's their turn to sleep.  The counter-part of the tradition, is for the guys looking at the picture to say, "Oh Yeah, she's nice!"  You have to say this, no matter how down to the bone ugly she is.  It's just a rule that all soldiers and sailors have lived with since the advent of image reproduction.

Typical Perimeter Guard Post

Turns out the girl in this picture, was as wholesome and cute as Dusty was winsome (you can't say handsome in a foxhole).  In the picture, she is brimming over with her love for Dusty and you can nearly feel her smile.   The girlfriend was holding the puppy close to her face and  I swear the dog was smiling too.   When exchanging these "My Girl" pictures, it can tell you as much about the guy showing it, as it does the woman you're looking at.  You look for clues, as to where and when it was taken.  In this one you could tell the puppy was a Christmas gift, as a bedecked tree could be seen in the background of typical middle class ranch house.  It didn't matter if it was Dusty's house or hers, it just told us where he came from and hung out.    As "My Girl" pictures go, this was a great one and Dusty had every right to be proud of it.

After it had been passed around and studied, we all unanimously agreed, she was a great gal and just as important, that was a fine looking dog he had given her.  (For some reason, Grunts studied the dogs in a picture, as much as the girl).   Dusty beamed, obviously pleased with our evaluation, thanked us, then ceremoniously wrapped the picture back up in its protective cover and returned to it to his wallet.  Thereafter, the conversation naturally turned to what was the status of their relation.  When he informed us she was still his girl.  the questioning narrowed to what were his expectations and intentions on returning home.

This is touchy ground.  Most of us had left "someone" behind and we all  feared the possibility of losing "her" more than we feared Charlie (Viet Cong).  As a result unless someone showed you the picture of a woman, 100 pounds overweight or plagued with a face only a father could love, you usually thought to yourself, there was a fair chance the object of his desire, was going to rip his heart out sometime over the next 360 odd days, your new found friend had left in-country.  Dusty's girlfriend's picture stands out in my mind to this day, only because she had the distinction of being painfully cute, while at the same time, giving me the comforting impression she would still be waiting for him when he got home again.  It was a rare combination and none of us were pained to hear Dusty say, , "I might marry her when I get back ... if she'll have me." .  We all nodded in complete agreement that she would be a wonderful gal (he referred to her as his gal) to get back home to.  After that, the conversation  drifted to pondering how long the mosquito season would be in Vietnam. (Turns out, a long time.)

A few days later, Dusty shipped out to an artillery battalion and was posted to a Forward Observer Team.  I never saw him again, alive.

In April of 1970,  I was assigned to photograph a memorial service out of a Base Camp named Gettysburg.   I flew in to camp on a Huey with some of the usual ceremonial brass.  (Colonels and Generals love getting their pictures taken, but on these occasions, I can assure you they hate it.)  I didn't know the name of the KIA until I heard it read by the Chaplin.  I asked the PIO officer with me if this PFC was a new RTO called Dusty.  He nodded, I started to blink back tears as I worked.  All I could think of was that picture Dusty had showed us that night.   I couldn't get that damn puppy out of my mind, knowing that "Lil" Dusty would be all that his girlfriend and family had left of their boy.

The Chaplin and the Colonel went on to explain how Dusty had been killed by an RPG round as he and his FO team called in fire on an NVA position.  At least thats how I remember it, but mostly I remember that puppy Lil Dusty, smiling.

I gave the film canisters to the PIO officer and asked if he would make sure that Dusty's family got some of the pictures.  I didn't see film or the contact sheet until I returned back to Division several days later.  When I saw the job had been filed and close out, I did something I shouldn't.  I removed the contacts and negatives, and sent them home Stateside.  It was one of the few pictures I kept from my tour.

For years I kept the print hidden away, as it was a painful reminder of the horrific price we paid for a flawed foreign policy.  As time went by, I began to think that as a nation we had learned something from our Vietnam experience and that the lesson, dear as it was, would be some small consolation that our troops had not died in vain.  However, after we invaded Iraq, the second time (If there is an exception to Franklin's rule, the 1st Iraq invasion, Persian Gulf War, is a most likely candidate.)  I realized how naive I was.  I printed and hung the picture of Dusty's Memorial Service, as a reminder that war has a price.  As convenient as it is for us to put war out of our minds it is far too pernicious and destructive, by any measure, to ever forget.


To those who knew and loved the boy being honored in my picture, as well as, the surviving families of every picture like it, I know you won't forget.  Bless you all and thank you.
Happy Veterans Day.