Veterans Day

The 11th hour:  A quiet walk in the park.

Robert Sage, 1945, Germany

Some soldiers survive a war, come out OK, and get to live their lives.

My father was drafted early in 1942 and spent four years in the army, about six months of it in close combat in Europe. During my boyhood dad said little about those years. There were no stories of danger or heroism. "My job was to get the message through. I had to stay alive to do it," he said.

He survived the war and came back to his boyhood home, Medford and the farm at Table Rock. He had three children. He had a long career as a schoolteacher and principal. He died at home, at age 92, his body worn out from decades of living. Lucky.

Robert Sage, 2003, Germany

At age 80 my father visited the places where he had seen combat and began writing his memoirs. Then the stories came out: Freezing cold, cities bombed, near misses, bodies mangled, soldiers dying. Surviving the war had a big element of random luck, being in the right place at the right time. Or not.

Larry Slessler, too, saw combat--Slessler's in Vietnam. He grew up in Medford and graduated from Medford High in 1957 and the University of Oregon in 1961. He entered the military in the fall of 1961 and served until 1972. His post-military career involved service to veterans and “Welfare to Work” programs. He asked me if I would post this on Veterans Day.

Guest Post by Larry Slessler

Since I was a young lad; time in Lithia Park, Ashland, Oregon has meant a great deal to me. I think it one of best parks in all of Oregon. From the creek that runs its lengths, the tall native trees, benches, secluded picnic tables…the setting is one of peace and tranquility. When I was a boy, the park held a small zoo and I would always visit it and feed leaves to the tame deer that were part of the exhibit.

 

Larry Slessler

When I came home from war in 1966, one of the first things I did was take my two and a half year old son Nathan to the Lithia Park playground. Because of the year I was gone, I was no longer a real person to my children. Playing with Nathan on the swings, slides and other contraptions helped make me real to him. And in a truth, I hated to admit, make him real to me. My son was not the same boy at age two and a half as he had been a year earlier when I left. 

 

The park was a natural selection for Elizabeth’s and my wedding in 1989. She too has fond memories of Lithia Park. Over the years since our wedding, Liz and I take walk’s to the spot near the upper duck pond, where we were married and think back to that time in 1989. 

 

And yet there is one small part of Lithia Park that leads to emotions of sadness and being honest with myself, anger for me. I avoid that small bit of real estate most of the time. However, on some days I am compelled to visit it. 

 

Not many yards from where Liz and I were married is a large stone with a bronze plaque set into the stone. The plaque pays homage to Ashland soldiers killed in WWI. Two parts of that plaque tear into my soul each time I allow myself to view it. First; it pays tribute to the men “…that gave their lives…” At the bottom of the tribute it says; “Dulce et decorum Est pro patria mori.” In English; “How sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country.”

 

Maybe you can identify with, or understand my emotions. In my experience soldiers do not “Give their lives.” Those lives are ripped from them in violent ways and a future life denied. To add that it is sweet and fitting to that violent death is, to me, obscene. 

    

Vietnam 1967, Iraq 2006, or Afghanistan 2014: “Hay Bill, Hank got killed on patrol. That’s sweet Frank…” Are you kidding me! That conversation would get you mentally discharged or; more likely shot.

 

The attached photo, taken by Liz on our walk is a picture of the Lithia Park plaque.

 

Peace and love to each of you.

[Tomorrow: the famous World War One poem, Dulce et decorum, est, by Wilfred Owen]