Saturday, August 29, 2009
communal conversation
I've reached the age of communal conversation in which enough people trying to remember together eventually come up with the word none of us can think of alone.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
exerpt from War is Not a Game: David Wilson's story
David Wilson, former Army sergeant & resister of sorts....
by Nan Levinson
Regardless of the official response, nearly all applicants for Conscientious Objection describe being ostracized by their peers and their chain of command and isolated at a particularly stressful time of their lives. David Wilson, an Army sergeant stationed in Kuwait before the invasion, emailed me after he turned in his CO packet that “people in my unit won’t look at me or they give me the evil eye.”
Wilson’s story is his alone, but it follows a familiar trajectory for soldiers who applied for conscientious objection early in the war, from his solo navigation of the process without the knowledgeable guidance of counselors who might have made it easier, to the Army’s maze of obstacles, to the disdain he came to have for the military mission in Iraq and the politicians who created it.
He grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, where his father taught at the Citadel, his mother was a vocational high school principal, and his family worshiped at the Baptist church. (His faith is now in mountain biking.) Looking for money to pay off debt and to return to school, he enlisted in the Army in 2000 at the relatively late age of thirty. He was self-reliant, fit, and sure of himself, so he had no problem holding his own with the other, much younger enlistees. By the time he was sent to Kuwait in February 2003, he had risen to sergeant and was assigned to the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command as an electronic warfare technician.
Wilson and I were introduced by another soldier in his unit, who had gotten out as a CO before the invasion. We exchanged emails in March and April of 2003 and resumed emailing, his preferred mode of communication, six years later. We didn’t know each other and, as with all these exchanges, he had nothing to gain by answering my questions, but answer he did, diligently, promptly and fully, even when his personal time was limited on the Army's computers in Kuwait.
Six weeks after he arrived there and one week before the invasion of Iraq, he wrote: “My position on going to war with Iraq is difficult to describe. I have no problem fighting off an oppressive govt. I have no problem blowing someone’s head off if they are trying to rob my house or harm my family. I do have a problem with a govt that uses its army to achieve those goals. I have a problem with a govt. that does not pay attention to actions it is taking that harm the Constitution that I was sworn to defend.”
A month later, still in Kuwait, it was a different story, as he wrote on drunkcyclist, a friend’s blog. “I hear missiles flying overhead and I get interviewed by CNN as they do a documentary. I feel relief when the A10s hit the persistent launcher in Basra with a missile. Then I get real angry. I wish bad things on those who do what they think is right for America.”
by Nan Levinson
Regardless of the official response, nearly all applicants for Conscientious Objection describe being ostracized by their peers and their chain of command and isolated at a particularly stressful time of their lives. David Wilson, an Army sergeant stationed in Kuwait before the invasion, emailed me after he turned in his CO packet that “people in my unit won’t look at me or they give me the evil eye.”
Wilson’s story is his alone, but it follows a familiar trajectory for soldiers who applied for conscientious objection early in the war, from his solo navigation of the process without the knowledgeable guidance of counselors who might have made it easier, to the Army’s maze of obstacles, to the disdain he came to have for the military mission in Iraq and the politicians who created it.
He grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, where his father taught at the Citadel, his mother was a vocational high school principal, and his family worshiped at the Baptist church. (His faith is now in mountain biking.) Looking for money to pay off debt and to return to school, he enlisted in the Army in 2000 at the relatively late age of thirty. He was self-reliant, fit, and sure of himself, so he had no problem holding his own with the other, much younger enlistees. By the time he was sent to Kuwait in February 2003, he had risen to sergeant and was assigned to the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command as an electronic warfare technician.
Wilson and I were introduced by another soldier in his unit, who had gotten out as a CO before the invasion. We exchanged emails in March and April of 2003 and resumed emailing, his preferred mode of communication, six years later. We didn’t know each other and, as with all these exchanges, he had nothing to gain by answering my questions, but answer he did, diligently, promptly and fully, even when his personal time was limited on the Army's computers in Kuwait.
Six weeks after he arrived there and one week before the invasion of Iraq, he wrote: “My position on going to war with Iraq is difficult to describe. I have no problem fighting off an oppressive govt. I have no problem blowing someone’s head off if they are trying to rob my house or harm my family. I do have a problem with a govt that uses its army to achieve those goals. I have a problem with a govt. that does not pay attention to actions it is taking that harm the Constitution that I was sworn to defend.”
A month later, still in Kuwait, it was a different story, as he wrote on drunkcyclist, a friend’s blog. “I hear missiles flying overhead and I get interviewed by CNN as they do a documentary. I feel relief when the A10s hit the persistent launcher in Basra with a missile. Then I get real angry. I wish bad things on those who do what they think is right for America.”
Friday, August 7, 2009
Can you kill one troop?
The appeal of using the word troops to stand in for soldiers, marines, sea- and airmen and women, not to mention the coast guard, which no one does, is demonstrated in this sentence. Journalists need to write succinctly (note to the publicity-conscious: if you want to show up in news reports, get a job title that's shorter than 4 words) and at the same time be inclusive of all manner and gender of military personnel -- another awkward term. So we get "Three U.S. troops killed in Iraq's Basra" from Reuters, and "Pentagon Plans to Send More Than 12,000 Additional Troops to Afghanistan" from US News and World Report to cite just 2 of hundreds of similar headlines. (With 4430 U.S. soldiers, marines, etc. killed in Iraq and 773 in Afghanistan as of today, and nearly 200,000 stationed in those countries, we have many occasions for the phrasing.)
"Troops killed" is short, nasty and brutish -- which is the problem. The collective noun erases the individual and smooths over the specificity of the lives interrupted and the deaths that have resulted from the wars. Troops don't seem like people -- maybe not to them either.
Journalism stylebooks say that troop used in the singular means a group of people, while the plural, troops, means several groups. They give their blessing to using troops to describe a large number of individuals -- it's understood to mean individuals, they say -- but what constitutes a large number isn't specified. AP and the New York Times stylebooks, industry standards, note that "Three troops were killed" is a no-no. Apparently a lot of headline writers and reporters didn't get the memo.
I'm not sure what a useful alternative would be. The dead get turned into casualties, the deployed into battalions or brigades (and, yes, Iraqis and Afghans are enemies when alive and have beeen dismissed as collateral damage when we've killed them, but that's a rant for another occasion). That's how the language works and we understand, don't we? But the collective term also dehumanizes the people we're talking about, making it easier for the vast majority of Americans who have nothing to do with anyone currently in the military to forget that these are mostly young, often unformed, sometimes bored, usually scared men and women and maybe making it easier for them to become dehumanized when they're sent into misbegotten fights that baffle and outrage them.
"Troops killed" is short, nasty and brutish -- which is the problem. The collective noun erases the individual and smooths over the specificity of the lives interrupted and the deaths that have resulted from the wars. Troops don't seem like people -- maybe not to them either.
Journalism stylebooks say that troop used in the singular means a group of people, while the plural, troops, means several groups. They give their blessing to using troops to describe a large number of individuals -- it's understood to mean individuals, they say -- but what constitutes a large number isn't specified. AP and the New York Times stylebooks, industry standards, note that "Three troops were killed" is a no-no. Apparently a lot of headline writers and reporters didn't get the memo.
I'm not sure what a useful alternative would be. The dead get turned into casualties, the deployed into battalions or brigades (and, yes, Iraqis and Afghans are enemies when alive and have beeen dismissed as collateral damage when we've killed them, but that's a rant for another occasion). That's how the language works and we understand, don't we? But the collective term also dehumanizes the people we're talking about, making it easier for the vast majority of Americans who have nothing to do with anyone currently in the military to forget that these are mostly young, often unformed, sometimes bored, usually scared men and women and maybe making it easier for them to become dehumanized when they're sent into misbegotten fights that baffle and outrage them.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Good enough for what?
Yesterday, the New York Times published a memo written by Col. Timothy R. Reese, Chief of the Baghdad Operations Command Advisory Team, in which he advised that the U.S. should end its combat operations in Iraq now and get all its troops out within a year. The American forces are somewhere between irrelevant and an irritant, he wrote, and the Iraqi Security Forces are "good enough."
That day 12 Iraqi civilians were killed by bombs. The next day it was 29. Good enough for you?
It's encouraging to have evidence that at least someone in an official capacity in the U.S. military understands the futility of keeping American soldiers in Iraq way after they've worn out whatever welcome they may have had (a dubious conjecture to begin with), even more encouraging that he's willing to go on record with that analysis and that someone has made sure the NY Times got a copy of the memo. But damned if we won't end up patting ourselves on the back for getting the level of violence somewhere back near the one we created six years ago and would never tolerate in our own country. "As the old saying goes, 'guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days,'” he wrote, naming U.S. troops as the guests. Smell anything fishy, anyone?
Friday, June 5, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Lily America (+ a recipe)
A few years ago, Margaret Randall solicited family stories about food with accompanying recipes for a book as a gift to an editor about to retire. As far as I know, the book never materialized, but this story did, so I offer it up here.
“Lefi Paretsky, 14,” reads the manifest of the Campania that sailed into New York harbor on July 9, 1904. “Last place of residence: Slonim.” “Ethnicity: Hebrew.” “Occupation: Servant.”
Long before I knew her as my grandmother, Lefi became Lily and no servant she. Ever. Also no longer Paretsky, nor Ratzkin, nor Rosenthal, not any of the names she adopted as she moved through her new life. But Lillian LaVine, wife of Samuel LaVine, a name also changed en route from Vilna to Golders Green to Ellis Island.
Not Ellis Island for Lily, though. For her, it was Boston harbor, and the ship she was supposed to be on was somewhere on the bottom of the sea. The rest of the family was busy mourning in New York when the telegram arrived, announcing, We’re here! Tanya, the oldest son, a businessman in Brooklyn, was dispatched to fetch them: Lefi; her younger sister Rochel (soon to be Rose); and their parents, Pesche and Jankel.
Jankel was 56 years old, too old, the authorities said, a burden on the state.
"He’s my father. "l’ll take care of him! " " replied Tanya, pulling himself up to his full five feet and change.
"You?" scoffed Mr. Authority, "You’re a cripple. What can you do? "
It was true. Tanya’s arm had been maimed in an accident at his window sash factory, but he wasn’t a greenhorn and he wasn’t intimidated. With his withered arm, he took the table where Mr. Authority sat and hoisted it above his head. "My father," he insisted. "I Will Take Care of Him."
Or so the story goes.
“Lefi Paretsky, 14,” reads the manifest of the Campania that sailed into New York harbor on July 9, 1904. “Last place of residence: Slonim.” “Ethnicity: Hebrew.” “Occupation: Servant.”
Long before I knew her as my grandmother, Lefi became Lily and no servant she. Ever. Also no longer Paretsky, nor Ratzkin, nor Rosenthal, not any of the names she adopted as she moved through her new life. But Lillian LaVine, wife of Samuel LaVine, a name also changed en route from Vilna to Golders Green to Ellis Island.
Not Ellis Island for Lily, though. For her, it was Boston harbor, and the ship she was supposed to be on was somewhere on the bottom of the sea. The rest of the family was busy mourning in New York when the telegram arrived, announcing, We’re here! Tanya, the oldest son, a businessman in Brooklyn, was dispatched to fetch them: Lefi; her younger sister Rochel (soon to be Rose); and their parents, Pesche and Jankel.
Jankel was 56 years old, too old, the authorities said, a burden on the state.
"He’s my father. "l’ll take care of him! " " replied Tanya, pulling himself up to his full five feet and change.
"You?" scoffed Mr. Authority, "You’re a cripple. What can you do? "
It was true. Tanya’s arm had been maimed in an accident at his window sash factory, but he wasn’t a greenhorn and he wasn’t intimidated. With his withered arm, he took the table where Mr. Authority sat and hoisted it above his head. "My father," he insisted. "I Will Take Care of Him."
Or so the story goes.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Deborah in free fall
Deborah Digges, a longtime colleague, killed herself by jumping from the top of a sports stadium in Amherst, Massachusetts on Friday, 10 April 2009.
There is a category of friendly colleagues, people you know only through work and see seldom, but enjoy running into whenever you do. Deborah was in that category for me and it makes me sad that I won’t ever have that small pleasure again.
My husband was the first at the university to learn about her death when her son, a former student, called on Saturday. The grim details came a day or two later. At a hastily organized memorial service, students and colleagues, stunned and sorrowful, read poems and talked of her warmth and talent and passion for language, and some cried as they described her teacherly embrace. Afterwards, everyone talked about how spectacularly she had died.
I make no claims on knowing how or why she came to her resolve – I didn’t know her that well and it seems kind of prurient to speculate – nor do I know much about the physics of free fall. It occurred to me that if you really mean to end it, it’s a good idea to be sure you’ll be dead and not just badly messed up and alive to suffer. But more haunting is an image I’ve concocted of Deborah (who was a babe, though that’s not a thing obituaries mention) in mid-air, hair flying up like in a cartoon, arms stretched wide to the wind. And I keep wondering what was in her mind in the moments after she stepped off that edge and before she landed.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Beyond Bracelets: What Veterans Want
Unpublished op-ed by Liam Madden and Nan Levinson
29 September 2008
As both candidates demonstrated in last Friday’s debate, wearing a bracelet to commemorate a dead soldier is one way to show support for U.S. troops. Keeping promises to living soldiers and veterans would be a better one, especially if you intend to be president.
In August, 70 members of the nonpartisan Iraq Veterans Against the War marched to the Democratic and Republican national conventions to deliver letters and briefings to the campaigns of Senators John McCain and Barack Obama.
In Denver, veterans in uniform led thousands of civilians on a four-mile march to the gates of the DNC, where IVAW petitioned the Democrats to discuss its main goals: immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces from Iraq, full veterans benefits, and restored sovereignty and reparations for the Iraqi people. As hundreds of riot police faced off against them, the former soldiers and marines calmed the crowd by reaffirming their commitment to non-violence and their respect and sympathy for the police officers. Several police had tears streaming down their faces and one broke down, leaving his phalanx altogether.
29 September 2008
As both candidates demonstrated in last Friday’s debate, wearing a bracelet to commemorate a dead soldier is one way to show support for U.S. troops. Keeping promises to living soldiers and veterans would be a better one, especially if you intend to be president.
In August, 70 members of the nonpartisan Iraq Veterans Against the War marched to the Democratic and Republican national conventions to deliver letters and briefings to the campaigns of Senators John McCain and Barack Obama.
In Denver, veterans in uniform led thousands of civilians on a four-mile march to the gates of the DNC, where IVAW petitioned the Democrats to discuss its main goals: immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces from Iraq, full veterans benefits, and restored sovereignty and reparations for the Iraqi people. As hundreds of riot police faced off against them, the former soldiers and marines calmed the crowd by reaffirming their commitment to non-violence and their respect and sympathy for the police officers. Several police had tears streaming down their faces and one broke down, leaving his phalanx altogether.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Subtitle: definition
Subtitle: The predictable and only intermitantly interesting story of how we’ve come to the point where every book must have a very long subtitle including the words, “why,” “how,” and “what you can do about it” and why suggesting to your publisher that maybe your book could do without a subtitle brings a gasp of disbelief followed by a pained disquisition about how bookstores wouldn’t know which shelf to bury it on, with a digression about why some marketing person somewhere decided that some novel needed to be subtitled “A Novel,” so that soon, what you can do about it is to subtitle every novel "A Novel,” just in case inattentive readers or, for that matter, bookstore shelvers, might mistake it for a manual on home birth or perhaps a duck and how (like) cute you can be in your subtitle and (like) still get away with it or (alter)na(t)ively why you can man(gle) words to (re)veal new meaning and when it’s appropriate to include the name/nickname of your pet or/or spouse in the subtitle and what difference it makes when you’ve read the most interesting parts of the book in the subtitle and, of course, what you can do about it (hint: not much)
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
My scoop on stop loss
Soldiers challenging 'stop loss' policy
Unfortunately, it went nowhere, as so many of the court challenges did. The lead John Doe dropped out of the lawsuit and returned to Iraq, and the Army continued to stop loss soldiers into 2009, though it announced that it was winding that involuntary retention down. As of September 2008, when I exchanged emails with Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb, an Army PAO, a total of 120,300 soldiers in the regular Army, National Guard and Army Reserves had been stop-lossed between January 2002 and May 2008.
Unfortunately, it went nowhere, as so many of the court challenges did. The lead John Doe dropped out of the lawsuit and returned to Iraq, and the Army continued to stop loss soldiers into 2009, though it announced that it was winding that involuntary retention down. As of September 2008, when I exchanged emails with Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb, an Army PAO, a total of 120,300 soldiers in the regular Army, National Guard and Army Reserves had been stop-lossed between January 2002 and May 2008.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
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