29 May 23 War #01 – Memorial Day

The Soldier Beyond Time

Today is Memorial Day.

This post is the first under the theme of “War,” perhaps an appropriate theme considering the previous theme was “Heroes.” War and Heroes are intimately linked in the archetypal human psyche. Celebrating “heroes” in wartime is both beneficial and harmful. Some come home to jeers and demeaning displays of disapproval. Any time nations and tribes go to war, the only result is horror, desecration, and defilement of our species. No matter the so-called purpose of any war, be it saving making a nation and its citizens “safe,” (e.g., “make the world safe for democracy,” or conflicts between large personalities (e.g., Hitler, Putin) the machines of war always end up with thousands to millions dead, and often no one any safer at all. Wealth is destroyed except for those who are “smart” enough to profit from conflicts, e.g., arms dealers.

Yet, within wars, noble acts occur: the soldier who charges into an impossible battle to save his/her fellow warfighters. The military mission to assist in rebuilding a war-torn country. Those who speak out against making war a solution. Those at home who support their family and friends, not as warriors, but as valued human beings.

War has long figured as a theme in poetry – often long poems, many about wars and “heroes.” After all, some of the world's oldest surviving poems are about great armies and heroic battles. But while Homer may have idealized his combatants and revered their triumphant, incessant fighting, the treatment of war in poetry has grown increasingly more complex since then. Heroes and villains get harder and harder to tell apart. Ancient epic war poems tend to come in black and white. Consider:

Iliad and Odyssey

Gilgamesh

Paradise Lost   

Mahabharata   

The Cantos (modern)

Deities associated with war are common throughout history. Here are a few:

Odin & Valkyries Norse and Germanic

Athena, Ares Greece

Mars Roman

Horus Egypt and at least a dozen more

Neit Ireland; over 20 more Celtic war deities

Futsanushi Japan; also, Hachiman (Shinto)

Yahweh         Hebrew

Jesus, the Lord, God. Christianity, Old and New Testaments*

Rome and Greece in ancient times both had reputations as having supreme military forces, certainly no worse than some, and probably better than many at creating death and destruction by which most scholars would agree developed into something like “civilization,” depending on how you define that word.

Whatever the case, Romans borrowed heavily from the Greek’s Ares profile and fashioned the Roman war god, Mars, as more level-headed; the colonizing Romans revered Mars as a virtuous entity. Maybe the Roman motto was, “Come with us, and be conquered.” If this was true, they may not have mentioned the attendant slaughters.

A somewhat gentler, perhaps more compassionate (or at least, more insightful) war god was Ares, the Greek god of the “spirit of battle.” He represented the terrible aspects of warfare, mass killing, with a dash of philosophy on why war isn’t as necessary as others believed. Still, Ares was known to be impulsive and disruptive. He also had a young male lover. (a conflict of values within one man?).**

The accomplished military person is the epitome and cultural icon of those who follow(ed) the gods of war, the deities that protect and serve warriors, while the warfighter sometimes lost as much as life, sometimes came home as a hero, and in other circumstances, the warrior is reviled. It is interesting to note that poems associated with war are usually written before or after the conflict. The “during” may well be too hard to bear and too shameful to be noted. Alfred Lord Tennyson would disagree as is clear from his poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” which is very much in the middle of things. (If you are interested, this poem (in the public domain) is located at the very end of this post.)

Here is an excerpt from Rachel Engel’s essay, “The War Before the War” which gives a contrarian view of war.

"It’s the scent of summer and the aroma of steaks on the grill that fill the air at the end of May, when everyone spends a long, lazy, three-day weekend with friends, relishing the longer days. Memorial Day is the unofficial start to summer and a highly anticipated federal holiday.

Except that it’s not a holiday, and all over America, millions of families are staring at a shadow box of a folded flag that holds more meaning than they ever thought a simple triangle could. On that last Monday in May, what was once a celebration for them, too, with pool parties and cookouts, is now a reminder that someone they love is gone.

There are so many poignant and beautiful ways to remember and honor a fallen service member's memory. 
It’s not easy being somber on Memorial Day, as the rest of the country — untouched by war and loss — celebrates a day off work, and it can make remembering a loved one even more difficult.

But it’s necessary."

 

POEMS

RED SILK

by CatherineStenzel

                                   

                                                For one I know, dying

                                                            is red silk above a charcoal portrait

                                                            Silk sheer as the borealis and ghostly vast

                                           The wood-gray body rests paper-light on fiery poppies            

                                                Red silk billows close on the face at rest

                                                            almost caresses the ivory parchment

                                                            amid black-frilled poppy breasts

                                                

                                                Whorls of red petals shadowed by the black strokes

                                                            of the hard cross of Malta thrust into

                                                 a sea of bloodied soldiers rooted to their final posts

                                                Beneath the wind-blown crimson silk

                                                            yellow-eyed familiar faces flower

                                                           bodies prostrate for any boot to trample

                                                Aloft, the silk veils the trampling

                                                            and the truth of after

                                                

                                                Each dying differs from the rest

 

                                                One travels rabbit warrens

                                                            looking for the promised light

                                                The doe’s death bow signals the dance

                                                            to the eager predator

                                                Another dives unexpected, without horizon,

                                                            into a black-frigid northern lake

                                                Mohammed, Christ, Kuan Yin, and Buddha

                                                            All arrive at the slightest call 

                                              

                                                A raindrop pierces a still, green pond

                                                            expanding ripples from the sword

                                                A relentless fly buzzes against a broken pane

                                                A lone Canada Goose sounds a high, homing call

                                                            A drop of black ink

                                                            Twenty-nine bells

 

                                                All gladness that the end has come

                                                Red silk flicks specks of charcoal

                                                            off the portraits in the poppies

                                                            lifts weightless particles up

                                                            agitating slender red threads

                                                                        thin as air

 

                                                No more matters, except the next beyond

                                                Sheer cloth patterns signify no sounds

                                                            Unknown but for red silk hints

                                                            against the fire turned dark

                                                            gone once more into the westward breach

 

                                                Returned to silence

                                                Glad the end has come

                                                            Wrapped in red silk

                                                            Lifted by red-poppy soldiers

                                                            toward the last glacial sun

Not to Keep

by Robert Frost

They sent him back to her. The letter came

Saying... and she could have him. And before

She could be sure there was no hidden ill

Under the formal writing, he was in her sight—

Living.— They gave him back to her alive—

How else? They are not known to send the dead—

And not disfigured visibly. His face?—

His hands? She had to look—to ask,

“What was it, dear?” And she had given all

And still she had all—they had—they the lucky!

Wasn’t she glad now? Everything seemed won,

And all the rest for them permissible ease.

She had to ask, "What was it, dear?"

                                                              “Enough,

Yet not enough. A bullet through and through,

High in the breast. Nothing but what good care

And medicine and rest—and you a week,

Can cure me of to go again.” The same

Grim giving to do over for them both.

She dared no more than ask him with her eyes

How was it with him for a second trial.

And with his eyes he asked her not to ask.

They had given him back to her, but not to keep. 

The poem below is an excerpt from an essay, “In Memory of Larry Levis”, that originally appeared in the fall 1996 issue of American Poet, the quarterly journal of the Academy of American Poets.

one morning with a 12 gauge my brother shot
what he said was a linnet. He did this at close range
where it sang on a flowering almond branch. Any-
one could have done the same and shrugged it off,
but my brother joked about it for days, describing
how nothing remained of it, how he watched for
feathers and counted only two gold ones which he
slipped behind his ear. He grew uneasy and care-
less; nothing remained. He wore loud ties and two
tone shoes. He sold shoes. He sold soap. Nothing
remained. He drove on the roads with a little hole

in the air behind him.

The War After the War

by Debora Greger

for Greg Greger

I

Where were the neighbors? Out of town?

In my pajamas, I sat at my father's feet

in front of their squat, myopic television, 

the first in our neighborhood.

On a screen the size of a salad plate,

toy airplanes droned over quilted fields.

Bouquets of jellyfish fell: parachutes abloom,

gray toy soldiers drifting together, drifting apart— 

the way families do, but I didn't know that yet. 

I was six or seven. The tv was an aquarium: 

steely fish fell from the belly of a plane, 

then burst into flame when they hit bottom. 

A dollhouse surrendered a wall, the way such houses do. 

Furniture hung onto wallpaper for dear life. 

Down in the crumble of what had been a street, 

women tore brick from brick, filling a baby carriage. 

II

What was my young father, 

just a few years back from that war, 

looking for? The farm boy from Nebraska

he'd been before he'd seen Dachau? 

Next door, my brother and sister fought

the Battle of Bedtime, bath by bath. 

Next door, in the living room,

a two-tone cowboy lay where he fell,

too bowlegged to stand. Where was his horse?

And the Indian who'd come apart at the waist—

where were his legs to be found? 

A fireman, licorice-red from helmet to boot, 

a coil of white rope slung over his arm 

like a mint Lifesaver, tried to help. 

A few inches of ladder crawled under a cushion, 

looking for crumbs. Between the sag of couch 

and the slump of rocker, past a pickle-green soldier, 

a plastic foxhole, cocoa brown, dug itself

into the rug of no man's land 

and waited to trip my mother. 

III

Am I the oldest one here? In the theater, 

the air of expectation soured by mouse and mold— 

in the dark, a constellation of postage stamps:

the screens of cell phones glow.

And then we were in Algiers, we were in Marseille. 

On foot, we fell in behind a ragged file 

of North African infantry. Farther north 

than they'd ever been, we trudged

straight into the arms of the enemy: 

winter, 1944. Why did the French want to live in France, 

the youngest wondered while they hid, 

waiting capture by the cold. 

They relieved a dead German soldier

of greatcoat and boots. Village by muddy village,

they stole, shadow to shadow, trying to last 

until the Americans arrived— 

as if, just out of range of the lens,

the open trucks of my father's unit 

would rumble over the rutted horizon.

Good with a rifle, a farsighted farm boy

made company clerk because he'd learned to type

in high school—how young he would look, 

not half my age, and no one to tell him

he'll survive those months in Europe,

he'll be spared the Pacific by Hiroshima.

Fifty years from then, one evening, 

from the drawer where he kept 

the tv remote, next to his flint-knapping tools, 

he'd take out a small gray notebook 

and show his eldest daughter 

how, in pencil, in tiny hurried script,

he kept the names of those who died around him.

BACKGROUND

A short history of “Red Silk,” by CatherineStenzel, based on a true story. When I was a Price Waterhouse consultant, I landed in a project with all five branches of the USA armed forces. The project’s focus was to map and measure the performance of the “warfighter.” During that work, I met and became friends with a US Marine Colonel who I later helped with a book he wanted to write about his experiences in Iraq, having done three tours of duty. Through my time with him, I was honored to be granted an inside look at the Colonel’s world which was similar to in What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes. This true story is a hard-hitting portrait of the experience of war and its effect on the human psyche. The Colonel and I stayed in touch for many years working on his book. During that time, he shared with me the experience of “what it is like to go to war,” a journey that for me was as marvelous as it was terrifying. 

About Philip Levine: The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Philip Levine grew up in industrial Detroit during the Great Depression of the 1930s. In The Bread of Time: Toward an Autobiography Levine deals with his experiences as a factory worker, his family and friends, his mentors John Berryman and Yvor Winters, and his fascination with the Spanish Civil War and Spanish poets. The book shows among other things that his childhood and later heroes were not only those who struggled against fascism but also ordinary people who worked at menial jobs to stave off poverty.

EXPLORATIONS

1. Do the allusions in “Red Silk” capture the essence of “after the war”?
2. Wars make a place for heroes to arise. What is your opinion of this statement?
3. Make a short bullet list expressing your attitude toward war.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!” he said.

Into the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

II

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew

   Someone had blundered.

   Theirs not to make reply,

   Theirs not to reason why,

   Theirs but to do and die.

   Into the valley of Death

   Rode the six hundred.

III

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

   Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of hell

   Rode the six hundred.

IV

Flashed all their sabres bare,

Flashed as they turned in air

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

   All the world wondered.

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right through the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reeled from the sabre stroke

   Shattered and sundered.

Then they rode back, but not

   Not the six hundred.

V

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

   Volleyed and thundered;

Stormed at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell.

They that had fought so well

Came through the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of hell,

All that was left of them,

   Left of six hundred.

VI

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

   All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

   Noble six hundred!

*A biblical concordance offers over 400 references to war in the Bible. Break these down, and they include examples of military conflict and of interpersonal conflict. Scripture tells us that there is “a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace” (Ecclesiastes 3:8). Whereas the Old Testament reveals a more wrathful God, the New Testament downplays the military, and emphasizes the “spiritual warrior,” especially Jesus Christ. The Christian “deities” over time evolved from one god to the Divine Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This threesome was first written about between the 2nd and the 4th centuries.

**Although Ares is not officially a god of love, Lucian (120-180 A.D.), known as a rhetorician and satirist, reported that Ares chose a teenage boy (Alectyon) as his lover who was great company at drinking events featuring alcohol to the point of oblivion. So much for the Greek sword and shield as far as Ares is concerned. Same-sex relationships were common in Greece and Rome. In Greece, a military unit called the “Sacred Band of Thebes,” (circa 378 BC) consisted of male lovers who were known for their prowess in battle. In more modern times, same-sex love was common among Japan’s Samurai.  Love between two male samurai was not only widespread throughout Japan’s history but also encouraged. It’s a very controversial topic and few historians have explored it, but there’s more than enough evidence about gay samurai despite very few people wanting to talk about it today. (from https://katanaswords.info/samurai/samurai-homosexuality/).