Memorial Day

At the end of a rather busy day. I impulsively pulled into the parking lot in Elmhurst’s Wilder Park. I had not been to the Conservatory in a long while, so, thought I would take a few minutes to see what was flowering and to bask in the calm, rejuvenating presence of place. As I pulled into a parking spot, my breath was caught by the kiss of a breeze on the wave of rows of flags. Memorial Day was but a few days away.

My steps took me toward a direction I had not planned. I bypassed the conservatory and ascended the steep steps of the historic Wilder Mansion. The Mansion was closed, but, I took the advantage that the elevated steps would afford me of a different view of the flags.

The flags are placed in remembrance of those who died while in service to their country. They called Elmhurst home; a home that honors them in this park and in other locations on Memorial Day. I was moved by the flags; by what they represent and the sacrifices made by each life and by their loved ones. I said a silent prayer. A young woman, camera in hand, passed by, looked up at me, and climbed the flight of stairs as well.

As I looked out across the landscape, I could see what looked like a large marker just beyond the flags, and decided to walk the small distance of grass, past the flags, to have a closer look. As I walked, the breeze touched the flags, revealing cards which held the names of those who had died. Two children ran between the rows and I thought it about how the sacrifices of those these flags represent gave us a country where children could frolic free and happy on a warm spring day.

The monument I saw in the background was one that had eluded me for several years. I knew it was in Wilder Park,  I just wasn’t successful in finding it. The flags on the lawn and my perch on the steps revealed it to me.

This monument is to honor those from Elmhurst who lost their lives in Vietnam and commemorating the Moving Wall that stood in this park in 1988.

Visiting the Moving Wall in Wilder Park in 1988 was a humbling experience and, I think, a somewhat healing experience for many. It was there that I found the name of a boy from school days; elementary school and high school. It was there we witnessed a friend, head bowed, tears in his eyes. We had not known that he served in Vietnam, nor that most of his squadron had died. His wife had not known he had come to the Moving Wall – alone. It was there I saw a prominent member of the community bow his head and stand. His fraternity brother was named on that wall. It was there that I brought some work friends during our lunch hour, and there one of the principles of the company we worked for went. A few minutes late getting back from lunch, he heard mention of the Moving Wall. He asked me for directions and left. Returning later, he came up to my desk and quietly thanked me. I had not known until that moment that he had served in Vietnam.

I walked from the monument, past the flags and on to the permanent veterans’ memorial in another section of the park. It is here that the annual Elmhurst Memorial Day parade ends and it is here where a military ceremony is held after the parade. It is here where white crosses have been placed in honor and memory of those who gave their lives.

It is not just in Elmhurst, nor just in the United States where memorials are held for fallen military, but, it was here, in this park, where I was, yet again, humbled by the service and the loss of those for whom we take a this Monday at the end of May to honor.

May we always remember.

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Where the Water Meets the Sand

A book often finds its way into the hands and the heart of a reader at just the right moment. It can sit, unattended, for months, balancing chapters on a TBR pile, gathering dust or jockeying for a place higher up in the queue. It can rest inside a large, canvas tote filled with wrappers, receipts, and to-do lists,  intended reading over a latte, or a companion to pass the time in the waiting room of the doctor’s office. Books are always patient and kind awaiting their grand opening. So it was with Tyra Manning’s compelling memoir, “Where the Water Meets the Sand”.  I found myself opening its pages on a hot, humid summer afternoon and closed it a few days later with tears in my eyes and hope in my soul.

In the summer of 1970, a very young Tyra and her husband,  First Lieutenant Larry Hull. holding their baby daughter, bid farewell as he boarded a plane destined for Viet Nam. Before being deployed, Larry, a pilot, bought a trailer home for his young family and encouraged Tyra to continue her college education and become a teacher. They made plans for when he would have some R&R in Hawaii; they would meet where the water meets the sand. As he prepared to leave, Tyra promised Larry that he would be buried at Arlington National Cemetery if he was killed in the war.

On February 2, 1971, First Lieutenant Larry Hull’s plane, on a secret mission under heavy enemy fire, went down in a jungle in Laos. Tyra was notified that her husband had died instantly. His body was not found. Devastated, Tyra called her mother and made plans for Larry’s funeral.

At the time of Larry’s death, Tyra was being treated for clinical depression at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. Her doctor came to her room at the clinic to deliver her the horrible news.

As her father slowly faded from heart disease and her mother and father were often away for long periods of time,  seeking out doctors and treatments, Tyra and her brother were cared for by relatives and friends. Her father’s early death was overwhelming and vivid in Tyra’s memory. Tyra experienced even more heartache and loss early in her early years, leading to a rebellious teen and underperformed scholastically, acute depression, addictions, and an overwhelming fear of loss. Immobilized by fear and depression and fearing the safety and well-being of her young daughter, Tyra bravely sought help at the famed Menninger Clinic, her daughter being cared for by others, much as Tyra was as a child.

Tyra eventually earned her teaching certificate, became a principal, and then a well-regarded school superintendent. A champion for children, she raised her daughter, and conquered her illnesses with courage and determination.

Her personal journey is much more, however. “Where the Water Meets the Sea” is a beacon of hope for those who battle mental health issues, bulimia, binging, purging, cutting, alcoholism, drug addictions . . . Tyra Manning’s journey is one in which there IS a light at the end of the dark tunnels of life. It is also a touchstone to those adults, myself included, who have lost a parent early in their life and a recognition of how many carry that loss with them long into adulthood.

Dr. Manning’s story is also a testament to the burden of military families, as well as of veterans, who often bear their wounds and scars in ways we cannot see. SPOILER ALERT  Tyra Banks gives us a personal perspective of the uniquely heavy loss of a loved one whose body is never returned, as well as the “what if” should one’s remains be found.  Larry’s remains were located more than three decades after he was lost to war. It was not just a journey for Tyra, but, for the men in his unit as well, many of whom Tyra later meets and hears, first hand, of how Larry died, when he is finally laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. Their own sadness at not being able to return his body is expressed and Dr. Manning seems sensitive to in her writing.

For every adult who still carries his or her inner child who lost a parent at an early age, this is a book to read.

For every family member of military whose loved one never come back from war, this is a book to read.

For everyone with immobilizing fears, anxiety, depression, and mental health issues, this is a book to read.

For you, dear reader, this is a book to read.

Thank you, Dr. Manning. Your courage to seek help and your courage to tell your story is inspiring and, in spite of the sadness and pain, your story is a gift, especially for the millions of people who seek that spot where the water meets the sand.

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The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

The Things They Carried. It has been sitting on a pile on my nightstand since Border’s went out of business.  It caught my attention when it was first released some years ago. The title and the early reviews were intriguing and I always meant to read it.

While I do read books about the two world wars, the Civil War and our Revolutionary War, both fiction and non, I’ve not been drawn into Vietnam literature. Our book group discussed the Zumwalt book, My Father, My Son, quite a few years ago, and I remember it still, but, there hasn’t been anything else that I’ve read.

The Things They Carried was sitting atop the pile on Veteran’s Day. I’d recently read an excellent review of it on A Work in Progress, and felt that it was a fitting a day as any to pick it up.

I’ve not been able to put it down.

Tim O’Brien received his draft notice in the mail in June, 1968, a few weeks after he graduated from college. With his future before him and conflicting feelings about a war and a region he didn’t understand, he was at a turbulent juncture many American boys were at in the late sixties and early seventies.

The book is told in several interconnected stories, many of which were short stories published in various magazines over a period of time. They tell of the horrors of war, the stories that soldiers tell,  the inner turmoil of being drafted and the reality of combat. Stories that are true. Could be true. Stories we find were just stories. Stories that are repeated in different chapters and in different ways. They are written so skillfully that the reader can easily engage in one story, or all, in order, or not, and, still find this a compelling read.

While some of the scenes are disturbing and graphic, the book is not hard to read. Mr. O’Brien is a gifted writer and storyteller and he treats this subject matter with what I came to think of as a certain grace. While the book is considered a novel, it leaves one wondering how much of it was based on things O’Brien experienced himself, especially one chapter that deals with one of the book’s characters, also named Tim O’Brien, and how he deals with his urge to flee to Canada to escape the draft. It is so poignantly told, so palpably felt.

The first chapter is almost poetic as it deals with the things the book’s characters carried. The heavy equipment needed in battle and the necessities for survival in the jungle and in war. From a New Jersey pebble to drugs, well-read letters to grenades, fear and fatigue, it is a litany of all that a Vietnam soldier carried – and carries still. If you can’t read the book, I urge you to try the first chapter.

It was interesting for me to read The Things They Carried in early November when we take time as a nation to honor our veterans of war. I didn’t plan to read it right now, but, read it I did.  The words and images in it will stay with me for a long, long while.

(My Father, My Son was written by Elmo Zumwalt, Jr. and Sr. and covers the use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam conflict to defoliate the jungle areas. Admiral Zumwalt gave the order to use Agent Orange. His son regularly patrolled the areas where it was heavily used. Elmo, Jr. later developed two rare and aggressive forms of cancer thought to be caused by the chemicals used and his son, Zumwalt’s grandson, was born with severe disabilities. Elmo Jr. eventually died of cancer.)

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