Teaching History Matters

 This is a good a time as any to announce that I am going to be launching my first book this spring, tentatively titled ‘The Twilight of Living Memory: Reflections From the World War II Generation of Hometown, USA’.

The opening line right now is:

I hope you’ll never have to tell a story like this when you get to be eighty-seven. I hope you’ll never have to do it.

It’s a collection of narratives-oral histories, really-woven around the story of the most cataclysmic war in humanity. You might not think so, but we were all affected by it, even the generations born way later.

So here is a recent post from my younger brother. He’s a solo skier but he always comes back with good stories. Not everyone will come home from war shattered. but they will be trying to make sense for the rest of their lives. And maybe that is a part of what we are here for. The things this guy saw will ripple through the generations, and not just his lifetime. I’ve seen it so many times.This is why I go to Nashville to these reunions 75 years after the war, and this is why in reading my brother’s take on things I know I have to get my own book out of my head and into people’s hands.

*****

I loaded my skis and took my seat in the gondola. I’d have the ride to myself, another perk of midweek skiing. Hell, I’ll kick my feet up and take a few moments to express my patriotism with an American Spirit… But just before the doors closed, a man racked his skis next to mine and entered the cabin. I wondered why he didn’t just take the next empty gondola, but my question would be answered quickly.

His eyes demanded my attention. Big. The whites showing all the way around the iris. “Crazy eyes.” And those eyes darted side to side, unable to fixate on any point for more than two seconds. Stillness had left him long ago. We talked, because that’s what you do during a 13 minute gondola ride with a stranger. Really, he talked and I listened because that’s how these interactions have taken place all my life. He had been in the service, moving back to the area for his medical issues. Several times in the telling of his story he just stopped mid-sentence, explaining how his brain “just blanks out” now. His wife and he were having issues and she now lived an hour away with his two young daughters (the same ages as my kids). In short, the dude was shattered. And our ride up the mountain was enough to tell me that there was no glue that would ever put all the pieces back in place.

I moved on with my day, but obviously this guy stayed with me. What really struck me is that this is the 3rd such conversation I’ve had with vets around my age on gondola rides over the past year. (A helo pilot, taking a ski day while on leave from Afghanistan, immediately started sharing grisly tales of his missions with no prompting from me.) Each man struck me as caught in a powerful current, a current that they sensed was wanting to pull them under for good.

I don’t know why so many people tell me their stories over the years. I can just tell you that I consider it an honor. As best as I can figure, these men spoke to me because that wanted to process their own stories, they wanted to come up with some narrative that would help them makes sense of how their lives were unfolding, a narrative that would provide an answer for their unrelenting question of “how did I get here?”

Pick up a copy of Dr. Drew Rozell’s latest book, Let It Go,  and read his other musings, at www.verycoollife.com.

Peleliu, Sept. 1944. My forthcoming book is based in part on narratives from this battle. Combat artist Tom Lea’s painting, ‘The Two Thousand Yard Stare.’