Orderly disorderly orderly

Jerry Lewis played a hospital orderly in “The Disorderly Orderly.” In it, he’s a bumbling idiot with a heart of gold, a type he’s played before. I am not a Lewis fan but did laugh at some of the “Orderly” hijinks on YouTube film clips. He mixes up two skeletons bound for the research lab. His supervisor warns him not to mix them up. He asks his supervisor how to tell the difference. Her reply: “You don’t know the difference between boys and girls?” He makes a goofy face,. “Yes, but I like my girls [wait for it] upholstered.” Laughed here and shook my head. Let’s face it, not a bad joke, good enough for a laugh. Typical Lewis humor, one which he parlayed into many films, Vegas stage shows, and TV specials.

You don’t need orderly experience, disorderly or not, to appreciate Lewis’s shenanigans. But, with a little research, you find all sorts of info under the topic of “orderly.” Merriam-Webster Online cites two meanings for orderly the noun: a soldier who carries messages and performs services for an officer; a person who waits on others, cleans, and does general work in a hospital.

I have never been the first variety and don't even know if they exist any more. You can find orderlies in war movies especially those focused on the British army. "Orderly, get me a cuppa. Sorry sir, the Huns have blown up all our teacups. Blast." Orderlies in the world wars provided all sorts of services at The Front. In WW1, orderlies often were stretcher bearers and spent some of their time under fire rescuing wounded from No Man's Land. Very dangerous duty indeed. Some were COs who resisted shooting other people and wound up being shot at anyway. A very interesting and readable memoir of this side of the war was written by a member of Evacuation Hospital No. 8, Frederick Pottle, who taught in the Yale English Department after the war. "Stretchers: The Story of a Hospital Unit on the Western Front."  Published by Yale University Press in 1929 and available to read at https://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/memoir/Stretchers/PottleTC.htm

I have worked as the second kind of orderly, although my duties went beyond those described. Hospital orderlies are now classified as nursing assistants and you get training for that. There still exists men and women in medical facilities who wait on others, clean, and do general work.  

During college years, I worked as an orderly in a succession of three different hospitals. I think of the patient populations I served in this way: one for dying old people, one for critically burned children, and one for the crazy drunks who also were dying slow deaths.

I was young, 23 at my third and last position minding alcoholics at a county hospital. I could be irreverent with my coworkers while still doling out empathy for patients. Face it, I was never going to grow old, turn into a homeless alky, or get caught in a raging fire. That’s the joy and curse of youth, ignorance of what’s waiting down the line. Blessed, blessed, cluelessness. I dated nurses, went to some wild parties, and made friends. Because I could not envision old age, I couldn’t fathom the fact that some of my youthful experiences would be forever burned into my memory. Therein lies the joy and curse of old age: there is no forgetting.

Ormond Beach Osteopathic Hospital was across the street from a nice beach break. When I got off my 7-3 shift, I checked out the surf. If it was good, I would borrow one of my brothers’ boards and go out. If not, I’d call one of my friends and we’d get high while driving along a usually deserted wintertime beach. I was killing time, waiting for my draft notice to arrive. I was 20, just the right age for Vietnam. I’d lost my ROTC scholarship and dropped out of a university I could no longer afford. At the hospital, retirees kept coming in and passing away. They were my grandparents’ age, born at the turn of the century, now in their 70s. A Mr. Fanchon came from Montreal to bask in the sunshine and now was bedridden and developing bed sores on his back end. He moaned all the time, announced his pain in French. My fellow orderlies and I were tasked with turning him every two hours. His moans came from a deep place, a place that me and Jim and Sharon and Marlene had never been, not yet. We said calming things to him in English and he moaned and then barked out a French expression. We were kind. During smoke breaks (we all smoked), we parodied Mr. Fanchon’s French, made up our own expressions. The nurses came in the break room and asked what was so funny. We told them. They jumped right in with their own fake French lines. There’s something about working around the dying and near dead. We needed humor to keep the dreads at bay. Mr. Fanchon was on his way out but we were not. There was a morning when I came in and Mr. Fanchon’s room was empty, already made up for a new patient. I asked about him at the nurses’ station. “Old folks home,” they said. I couldn’t think of anything funny to say. I worked my shift, went home to see what was in the mail.

During my six months working the graveyard shift at a Boston children’s burns center, two patients died. The nurses and doctors worked frantically to save them but could not. We orderlies and nursing assistants were on the periphery, going about our appointed rounds. We knew. I brought water to the boy who had been messing around and fell on a downed high-voltage cable. He now had just one arm and no penis. Electricity has to find a way out, it seems. I brought ice cream for a little boy with bandaged hands. I sometimes changed his dressings when the nurses were busy. The burns on his small hands were in concentric circles. I asked a nurse about the burns, asked if he climbed up on a stove and fell, or something. She grabbed my hand, told me to spread my fingers, then she pressed my hand on a table. She released my hand. “His mother,” she said. “His mother.” I was never the same after hearing that. On that death night, staff waited until the unit was quiet and the other kids were asleep. That’s when they moved the body. A few weeks later, the nursing supervisor took me aside , said the hospital would pay for me to get my nursing degree. I was flattered. It was good to be far away from home and wanted. I turned down the offer, and thanked my boss, told her I wanted to be a writer. A few months later, I was back in Florida with new plans, thoughts already fading of my live-in girlfriend, the one to whom I’d plighted my troth but would only see twice more before she called it quits via long-distance telephone.

The 1200 Ward at the county hospital housed people the cops peeled off downtown sidewalks and brought in the sober up. It was a locked ward, staffed by one orderly of sufficient bulk to corral anyone in DTs and ring the buzzer for help. That was me. The orderly. I took temps and filled water pitchers. I carried a soft plastic tongue depressor for those times when patients suffered seizures. Scar tissue on the brain, that’s how it was explained to me. Again I summoned the nurses and they gave the patient something to settle them. The usual cocktail was paraldehyde mixed with orange juice. Paraldehyde is a relative of formaldehyde and was, into the 70s, used to treat DTs. Nurses demonstrated its power by pouring a shot of P into a Styrofoam cup. It always ate its way through the cup, pooling on the nurses’ station counter. “Orange juice first!” Mrs. D was tiny and weathered but had been a nice looking women in her youth. I worked in 1200 for a year as I eased my way through community college. During that time, Mrs. D was inside the locked doors three times. As we gathered in the break room to play cards, Mrs. D told the best stories, the most disturbing stories. They were funny too in a twisted sort of way. She’d been married and divorced a couple times. She traded sex for booze. Slept in crash pads or on the beach hidden behind hotel seawalls. A week before I quit to go off to the university, she came in with a black eye and broken finger. “You should see the other guy!” When I walked out the locked doors for the last time, she wished me well. “Be good, hon.” Well, Mrs. D, I haven’t always been good. But I did OK. And I remember you."

What comes next after the Jan. 6 coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol?

We witnessed a coup attempt Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol Building.

Trump and his goons incited other goons to storm the Capitol and disrupt the approval of electoral college votes. They ended up trashing the place and killing a policeman. The mayhem delayed the counting of the votes until 3 in the morning on Jan. 7.

My daughter watched some of that day's CNN reports with me. She asked questions and I had no answers. 

She left for school and my mind wandered. I had attended two Vietnam War protests in D.C., in 1970 and 1971. D.C. Police were everywhere. At the May Day 1971 protests, promoted as "Days of Rage," President Nixon called in the National Guard and 82nd Airborne. Helicopters filled the air. Buses were lined up in a cordon around the White House. Federal drug enforcement undercover cops tried to blend in with the crowd, ready to bust pot smokers but there were too many of us so they just studied the freaks and took detailed notes.

These were the preparations for a bunch of longhairs. We were angry but unarmed. Would some have rushed the White House or Capitol and trashed those places? Maybe. They were angry about Vietnam. But were we prepared to interfere with a lawful election? Hell no. Many young men were angry when Nixon was elected in 1968 and 1972. We knew that it meant more Vietnam and a continuation, possibly forever, of the military draft. Most of us were there for peaceful protest.

Some Days of Rage protesters disrupted traffic and blocked the employee entrance to the U.S. Justice Department and engaged in various other acts of civil disobedience.

The police and military were more than ready for them. May 3 ended up being the biggest arrest cache ever in D.C. The jails overflowed and officials had to corral the longhairs at RFK Stadium (football season was long over). 

Where were these duly-appointed guardians of our democratic republic on Jan. 6, 2021? Nowhere to be seen. Until later in the day, after the worst was over.

This was an inside job and just the beginning of an old-fashioned coup. Are we ready for the next attack that may come on Jan. 17 or possibly Inauguration Day? 

We better be.

Part V: The Way Mike Worked -- Serving Fish 'n' Chips in Shrimp 'n' Grits Country

We called her Mom. She insisted. Never found out her real name. Her husband Tally called her "dear" or "hon" in the Southern way. She was younger than Tally by a decade or so, or so she seemed. Tally walked a limp that we thought came from the war, World War II, the one that all of our father's fought in. He said it came from a gunshot, a disagreement among bootleggers during Prohibition. We had no reason not to believe him.

We met at Long John Silver's Fish and Chips across from the University of South Carolina campus. Mom was the manager. She had replaced our first manager who had been skimming a bit off the top of the nightly deposit. One day he was our boss. And then he was gone.

In October of 1970, I was one of a half-dozen employees, mostly students, at this fast-food restaurant named for the fictional pirate in "Treasure Island." Color scheme was the brown of "a dead man's chest" and the gold of new doubloons. Everything was fried in vats of hot grease that was a shimmering gold when new and a dark brown when old and ready to be refreshed but it was almost quitting time and the day crew could do it. All of us wore grease-spatter splotches on our arms. Meals were served in cardboard replicas of a chest of gold. Sides were fries and hush puppies. Condiments were tartar sauce and malt vinegar that the Brits allegedly used on the fish and chips they bought at street corner vendors in London. My co-workers and I tried to cook up extra food at the end of the night so we could carry some home for late-night greasyspoon snacks.

Fish-and-chips were a new concept in the South. Some customers ordered and then wondered why they got fries instead of chips. We had to explain that in England, fries were called chips. The potatoes were a bit chunkier over there, not flat or curved or crispy, but they still were called chips.

After avoiding work and most of my classes my freshman year, I decided that I needed a job. I had premonitions of bad juju to come. I could read the tea leaves that we used in our sweet tea. I could divine the stars. I also could read the grade reports sent home by the university. I was on probation after a lackluster freshman year. I swore to the Navy ROTC unit's marine major that I was going to do better, really I was. He looked at my grades and the report of my lackluster performance on my first-year summer cruise. I had sailed to Guantanamo Bay and back on the USS John F. Kennedy. I had neglected my duties.

I did, however, distinguish myself during a 1970 Fourth of July weekend leave in D.C. when my BFF Pat and I rescued his younger sisters and grandmother from a stampeding crowd at the Honor America Day Concert at the Washington Monument. The riot wasn't a reaction to another sappy tune by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or another joke by Bob Hope. But a cloud of tear gas launched to disperse the Yippie-sponsored smoke-in at the monument. Pat's and my quick action didn't save any lives but we were proud of it nonetheless. Too bad that didn't show up in my midshipman record. I might have received a medal. "For valor in rescuing civilians threatened by a cloud of tear gas fired on pot-smoking hippies." Something like that. Later, Pat and I and his older brother Mike smoked a joint and talked about what a weird night it was.

When I returned to Norfolk, just before our ship sailed to Cuba, I called my girlfriend and she broke up with me.

I was looking for a new girlfriend when I returned to campus in the fall. I had a crush on one of my fish-and-chips coworkers. Kaley was pretty, blonde and had a wicked sense of humor. She also had a boyfriend, a Vietnam vet named Tim whose hair got longer and shaggier every time he came to pick Kaley up from work. The duo invited me to a party one night. I hung around Kaley and Tim as I didn't know anyone and my short haircut fueled my paranoia and everyone else's, or so it seemed. Tim broke out a syringe and prepared it, junkie-style. He shot up Kaley and then held up the syringe for me. I was almost stoned enough to say yes. But I didn't. Tim proceeded to minister to himself. They were soon in la-la land and didn't notice as I slipped out of the house and walked several miles back to my dorm.

The U.S. Navy revoked my scholarship in January and I was on my own. I could finally grow my hair and major in English. I kept working at Long John Silver's. When spring sprang, Mom and Tally asked me to come to their house and mow the lawn. Mom would feed me lunch. I agreed. It was the first of many trips to their house. By summer, the mowing of the lawn was an ordeal, with sweat streaming off of me and me pining for AC and a cold drink. One afternoon, stunned by Carolina heat, I went into the house. Heading for the bathroom, I opened the wrong door into a bedroom. It had a single bed, a shelf with photos and football trophies. The photos showed a young man in football uniform, in graduation gown, in army uniform.

"Our son Tom." Startled, I turned to see Mom in the doorway. She wore a sad face, unusual for her. She walked in and stood next to me. She picked up the photo of her son in uniform. "Missing in action. Vietnam. We kept his room ready for him but he hasn't come back. Three years now. Our only child." She replaced the photo. "Lunch is ready." She walked out and I followed. Mom and Tally were the same talkative duo they always were. Now that I am an old man, I recognize the relentless nature of sorrow. Sometimes, small talk over lemonade and sandwiches with tomatoes fresh from the garden are the only things for it.

A few weeks later, a traveling circus troupe came to town with a batch of purple haze fresh from the octopus's garden. We had a wonderful time. The circus people left town but I found my jacked-up self in the campus cafeteria babbling over breakfast to a group of exchange students from Hong Kong. They were very polite. And then I was at the university infirmary, knocked down by thorazine.

At the end of USC's summer session, I ended my college career and quit my job as a fish-and-chips wrangler. I left town. My plan was to live at my parents' house and surf until I got drafted.

A Baby Boomer boyhood was designed to prepare us for the USA's next war

In a July 26 post, I responded to President Trump's disturbing speech to the Boy Scout Jamboree in West Virginia.

There was a riotous Facebook debate about Trump's speech. Comments flew fast and furious. Someone brought up the fact that the Boy Scouts of America was a military style organization. Others objected, saying that the Boy Scouts have nothing to do with the military. It was pointed out that Eagle Scouts recruited into the military get a boost of two rating levels over non-Eagle Scouts. That means a lot, especially when you first join up and need all the bucks you can get.

As for official military connections, the BSA swears there are none.

I beg to differ. It's not a conspiracy by the MIC to recruit the flower of our youth into their plan for world domination. It's fun to think so. Who knows, an Oliver Stone film could be in the works to blow the lid off of this plot. We eagerly await it. We thrive on conspiracies.

A Baby Boomer boyhood prepared me for the military. The Scouts were an integral part of that.

My only military experience was an eighteen-month stint in Navy ROTC. I do have years of Boy Scout experience to draw on. I was a Cub Scout from the late-50s until I joined the Boy Scouts at 11. I served until 1965 when I got to high school. Because we lived in beachside Florida, I have all of the water-oriented merit badges offered at that time. I also have a few others. I learned flag etiquette and often served as an honor guard at Scout functions. I took my uniform seriously. I obeyed the Scout Law.

I look at the Scouts as a military training program. We wear uniforms. We salute. We respect our Scout leaders even when they don't deserve it. We go on survival hikes. We drilled on flag etiquette. And so on.

The Boy Scouts of the 1950s and 1960s were training grounds for Vietnam. We knew how to build shelters, start fires, survive in the outback, dress wounds, deal with snakebites, swim, paddle a boat. If you lived in Florida, as I did, you reconnoitered swamps and rivers. When you canoed Central Florida creeks, you watched out for snakes and gators in the red-brown waters stained by tannin from cypress trees.

Most of all, Boy Scouting taught us obeisance to other men in uniform, those with rank and seniority. Be prepared! Mostly, we were prepared to take orders.

Maybe that's why the chaos of the 1960s was such a shock. It upended all of those norms. Once we learned that our leaders, men in uniforms and men in dark suits, were trying to kill us, all bets were off. Nothing had prepared us for betrayal by the very institutions that trained us: the family, the church, the Scouts, the U.S.A.

We could have grokked this, if we were really paying attention.  Some of our elders tried to warn us. Writers and artists. Martin Luther King Jr. Folk singers. Clergy such as the Berrigan brothers. Veteran writers such as Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller. One of the recurring themes of "Catch 22" is that Yossarian considers his own people as much a threat as the Nazi's Herman Goering Division. They are trying to get him killed.

Quote from Catch-22:

As always occurred when he quarreled over principles in which he believed passionately, he would end up gasping furiously for air and blinking back bitter tears of conviction. There were many principles in which Clevinger believed passionately. He was crazy.
"Who's they?" he wanted to know. "Who, specifically, do you think is trying to murder you?"
"Every one of them," Yossarian told him.
"Every one of whom?"
"Every one of whom do you think?"
"I haven't any idea."
"Then how do you know they aren't?"
"Because …" Clevinger sputtered, and turned speechless with frustration.

And this one:

"The enemy," retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, "is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don't you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live."

Who was trying to kill you during the Vietnam era? You get three guesses and the first two don't count.

This betrayal continues. Maybe that's what led to the Dawning of the Trump Era. This long betrayal. If you were a "good Scout" in America's golden age, you didn't question the authority of the church or the family or the government. Our most trusted elders led us into the shitstorm and lied about about it. Democrats and Republicans. Nobody was exempt and nobody was spared.

I hope Ken Burns addresses this in his new PBS documentary on the Vietnam War that starts tonight. It was never just a battle between anti-war hippies and Viet vets. It was a generation coming to grips with betrayal. We never did. Now we have a man at the helm that represented all that was venal about the Baby Boomer generation, my generation. A know-it-all who knows nothing. A draft dodger who wants to blow up the world. But first, he wants to rake in more dough to be the richest bastard in creation. He lies. He cheats. He steals. Trump is the Vietnam War come home to roost.

What makes is especially sad is that serving military and veterans are among Trump's biggest supporters. Did they learn nothing? And why do they remain this way?

We (sort of) survived the Vietnam betrayal. We won't survive this one.

On Donald Trump's five draft deferments

Men of a certain age should read this in Monday's New York Times article: "Donald Trump's Draft Deferments: Four for College, One for Bad Feet."

Spoiler Alert: Trump didn't get drafted during Vietnam. A shame, really, since he could have advised Gen. Westmoreland and his brain trust on the proper way to conduct and win a war. Of course, the "best and the brightest" were already advising Lyndon Johnson and later, the dynamic duo of Nixon/Kissinger on "How the world's number one superpower can defeat tiny pajama-clad guys hiding in holes in the jungle." The addition of another brainiac from the Ivy League (Wharton School) might have tipped the balance in our favor.

But Trump took his 1-Y deferment (bone spurs in his feet) into the real estate business and made a bundle, facing many sacrifices along the way. The bone spurs eventually cleared up, allowing The Donald to jump up on stages and cut the fool from Flint to Fort Lauderdale.

Full disclosure: I also had five draft deferments. Two for education, one for ROTC, one the coveted 1-A and, finally, I was told by Selective Service that my presence wouldn't be needed except in times of national emergency. That day never arrived.

Trump didn't go to Vietnam. Neither did I. He had bone spurs and a high draft number. My number from the December 1969 Selective Service Lottery was 128. In 1970, the Selective Service called eligible men with numbers all of the way up to 300.

The difference is, I'm not running for president. I am not boasting that I will send young people to war against Radical Islamic Extremists. I am not buds with Russian oligarchs and Vladimir "Big V" Putin. I do not belittle sacrifices made by Gold Star families.

Trump feels "a little guilty" for not serving. So do I. I guess we have that in common too.

Some politicians float proposals about a return to the draft. Or at least a national service program for 18-25 year olds. Republicans don't like this idea as it would put the educated class in harm's way, the same way it does now for enlistees from Meeteetsee, Wyoming, and Itta Bena, Mississippi. Sacrifices would be made.

The draft wasn't fair. Random in its ways, never more so as when the lottery was in operation.

Trump has his story. I have mine. I will post it in installments over the next month.

Part V: Mudder's World War I diary

September 5
Took a trip to Nancy, had a dandy time. Bought a few things, came home in an ambulance. A date at night, a Calvary officer. 

September 6 
A date in the evening with Lt. B, nothing exciting to report. 

September 7 
To the Officer’s Club for breakfast, hot waffles gee but they are good. A big dance tonight. The dance was a great success, almost eighteen couples, a coon* band and they sure could play. We all went up in a big truck; had loads of fun. 

September 8 
Horseback riding in the afternoon, my second experience, I did enjoy it so much, went with Captain Taylor, Lieutenant Peabody and K. Afterwards, we went to dinner, had a short ride in a flier with four officers. 

September 9 
Felt just a little stiff this am but I did enjoy the ride so much. Went machine riding in the afternoon. At night, a date with an infantry lieutenant. 

September 10 
To the dentist in the a.m., sure did hurt me too. Miss Martin, two officers and I went out for dinner, had a dandy time. 

September 11 
Miss Martin and I got up a dance, and it sure was a success. Cleaned one of the wards, fixed the floors, had the best sandwiches and lemonade. Two of the boys played for us, one the violin, the other the piano, which we borrowed next door. I think everyone had a real good time. Met Captain Thomas, who knows a lot of people I know from the University of Maryland. 

September 12 
I imagine our pleasure is at an end for a while as the guns kept up the whole night, so look out for patients. I really thought we were going to be killed, the guns illuminated the whole sky, and someone said they thought it was an ammunition dump destroyed. Did do some work today, the patients just rolled in, poor boys, they are ready to go back to lines again. 

September 13 
Nothing of importance, I was sick all day, feeling rotten. Beaucoup patients arriving, hear that Mt. Seu has been taken. A letter from the major today, delighted I’ll say. 

September 14 
Feeling better today but not on duty, callers in the evening. War news is very encouraging. 

September 15 
On duty again, and some work to do, believe me. Had a date with Captain D at night. 

September 16 
Served with K today, she peeves me occasionally. Rumors of us moving, it is about time, we have been here in Toul longer than any place. 

September 17 
We are to move, no more patients are to be admitted, talk of a dance tomorrow night, I hope so. Made up with K, we are just as happy. 

September 18 
Packing up to move, got to dinner with K and two officers. In the afternoon we (K and I) went over to one of the officer’s homes. There were 2 French officers there, one of our boys played and we had the best time dancing. The French didn’t dance like we do but they will learn. 

September 19 
Oh we had a wonderful time at the dance last night, the best band and refreshments. Sure am tired today. The nurses are going over to #45 and the men are going on. We will join them soon. 

September 20 
Evac #14 gave us a dance last night; I went but am sure sick today, influenza. 

September 21 
Sick 

September 22 
Sick 

September 23 
Sick 

September 24 
Much better, went out to Evac #1, Goldie had lots of mail for me, one from Percy, dear old soul. Steve is near here, we all took a walk last night, went for a short joy ride. To bed early. 

*Definition of coon as in “coon band” comes from the Slang Dictionary: “offensive term for a black person; (racist) dark-skinned person, as a Negro or Aborigine (originally US slang (mid-19th C.); shortening of raccoon).” 

My sister and I were a bit shocked to find this term in our grandmother’s diary, since we never heard her say anything similar during her lifetime. We thought it deserved a definition. An explanation? Florence Green was a woman of her times. She grew up among white people in Baltimore which was drawing a large number of black immigrants from the traditional South, an immigration tide that would only accelerate after the two world wars, as African-American soldiers returned home and found better opportunities and, possibly, better treatment, “up north.” Thing is, Baltimore and the entire state of Maryland are located south of the Mason-Dixon line. Its racist past recently grabbed headlines with the Freddie Gray murder and police over-reaction. 

One question I had: Why was a black band playing for a dance for a hospital unit in Toul, France? What I found both surprised and amazed me. Twenty-seven African-American regiments from the U.S. served in World War I. Of these, all had regimental bands. Young jazz musicians were recruited from Chicago, New York, New Orleans and elsewhere. Some were drafted as Selective Service began in 1917 and blacks and whites were put into segregated units, with black soldiers doing all the heavy lifting. Here’s a great resource: Black US Army Bands and Their Bandmasters in World War I by Peter M. Lefferts, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Quote from the manuscript: 

By the time of the Armistice on November 11, 1918, the regiments had been abroad for anywhere from one to eleven months, and in some cases their bands had never left the side of the troops. After the Armistice, the majority of bandsmen faced an additional three months or more of camp life in mud and rain alongside all the other doughboys, with boredom, pneumonia, and the flu epidemic as unpleasant companions, before transport home. 

Lefferts writes that 

much of their wartime activity is extremely hard to trace. In the combat zone, when they were playing at all rather than ducking artillery shells and helping the wounded, they were not going to get much if any press due to a news blackout on account of the need for secrecy about unit whereabouts “Somewhere in France.” Such accounts as do turn up in the US press could be printed months after the fact due to censorship and transportation delays for mail. An article in the New York Herald (Paris ed.), quoted in a New Jersey paper after the Armistice, reveals how band activities could be sensitive news: “The appearance of the band of the 350th Field Artillery Regiment in Nancy for a concert was the first notice here that the only brigade of negro artillery every organized had been defending Nancy by holding the Marbache sector, south of Metz.”

My grandmother could have been dancing to the 350th. Or maybe it was the 368th:

And we know that the band of the 368th played concerts “in Toul, Saizerais, Nancy, Brest, Le Mans and other places,” but also had to put down their instruments to become stretcher bearers in the Argonne fighting in September. 

Or maybe it was the Baltimore’s own 808th: 

Baltimore's 808th Pioneer Infantry band under Native American “Chief” Wheelock was proclaimed for bringing ”the real America Jazz, as it should be played, over here,” to France and was celebrated for staying close to the troops: "This band of colored musicians has indeed upheld the tradition of its race, for their music contributes much to make the name of the 808th Pioneer Infantry popular at the front. To begin with, they are right at the front being only a few kilometers behind the line, and although in danger of attracting the attention of hostile forces, they realize that the spirit of the boys must be kept cheerful and refreshed. So, often they assemble in a well- protected spot and play for the constant line of khaki as it moves along the road toward the enemy." After the Armistice, when the bands of the black combat regiments had embarked for home, Wheelock’s unit remained in camp and garnered all the prizes: the band of the 808th was judged the best infantry band in the A.E.F., white or black, in a contest held at Camp Pontanezen, Brest, France, on June 2, 1919. Additionally, it won the signal honor of playing for President Wilson's departure for home from Brest on June 29, 1919.

Whichever band played at Mudder's dance, many black musicians came back to the States and embarked on music careers: 

The new jazz was the special thing most distinguishing these bands musically, and everyone claimed it as their own. It was not just Jim Europe's band [369th Infantry Regiment, “Harlem Hell Fighters”] that brought jazz to the continent; rather, it was something on the order of two dozen bands. Moreover, they played the jazz of Kansas City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington as well as of New York City. Upon the return of the bands from the war, touring back in the States brought the new jazz music to dozens of smaller cities and towns, and to white audiences who had never before heard these exotic, lively sounds. The response was strong and positive. By one report, “Since the return of colored military bands from France to these shores the country simply has gone wild about jazz music.”

This map provides some perspective as to where the action was as the war drew to a close. The town of Toul, which Mudder visited often, is located just to the west of Nancy, not far from the offensives of St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne in Sept.-Nov. 1918.

803rd Pioneer Infantry Band, A.E.F.

interested party blog: On not voting for Sen. McGovern in '72

South Dakota blogger Larry Kurtz had a story today about what it was like to be a young upstart in 1972. We share a similar age and history and interest in Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72." Read more:

interested party: On not voting for Sen. McGovern in '72: In about 1970 or so, my very furious retired Air Force Republican father wrote the Sioux Falls Argus Leader after it ran a photo during ...

Mother's Day has roots in early peace movement

From Nation of Change:  

Mother’s Day began in America in 1870 when Julia Ward Howe wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation. Written in response to the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, her proclamation called on women to use their position as mothers to influence society in fighting for an end to all wars. She called for women to stand up against the unjust violence of war through their roles as wife and mother, to protest the futility of their sons killing other mothers’ sons. Read more here

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Wanted: Obscure films and photos of Dick Cheney

Cheney in his most famous role as grumpy old right-winger

Noted filmmaker R.J. Cutler is doing a movie about former Republican Veep and war criminal Dick Cheney. He seeks footage from Dick's years as a callow Wyoming youth.


Let’s see if we can come up with photos of Dick Cheney in a tutu. Or a young Dick torturing a kitten. Or lost footage of Cheney volunteering for the draft and slogging through a Southeast Asia rice paddy (he was so eager to send our children to Southwest Asia to slog through the desert). 

This comes from the Casper Star-Trib (via the Billings Gazette):

Starting in December, Cutler's Hollywood-based production company, Actual Reality Pictures, placed ads in the Casper Star-Tribune asking for film footage or photographs of Cheney, who lived in Wyoming during his teen years, attended the University of Wyoming, and represented the state in Congress from 1979 to 1989. 

Ryan Gallagher, an associate producer at Actual Reality, said the company is looking for footage that they wouldn't be able to find in government archives or purchase from stock film companies.  

"You look for as much exclusive and unknown footage that you can," Gallagher said. "Maybe somebody has a home video somewhere that we haven't heard about and that we'd just like to see."  

So far, Gallagher said his company hasn't gotten much response.  

The Cheney documentary is scheduled to air on Showtime sometime next fall, Gallagher said. Gallagher said it's "premature" to give details about what the documentary will be about, as they're just now starting to work on the film.  

Cutler is best-known for documentaries such as the Oscar-nominated "The War Room," which chronicled Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, and "American High," an Emmy-winning film about the lives of high school students in suburban Chicago. 

Anyone interested in submitting pictures or film of Cheney can contact Actual Reality Pictures at 213-534-3970 or cheneydoc@gmail.com.

Looking for Vietnam War chapter in Dick Cheney's memoir? Don't bother...

For a detailed (and timely) wrap-up of the situational patriotism shown by Wyoming favorite former Republican Veep, Dick Cheney, go to http://www.thenation.com/blog/163010/chapter-about-vietnam-went-missing-dick-cheneys-book

The late William Stafford meditates (poetically) on peace in "Every War Has Two Losers"

This new documentary is about William Stafford, one of America's -- and the West's -- best poets. He was a conscientious objector during World War II and spent 1942-46 in a C.O. detention camp. The film has been screened at several film festivals and will be making the USA rounds through the fall. No screenings on the schedule for MT, WY, UT or CO, although there are ones for SD. You can order the DVD at http://www.everywar.com/ and it includes a doc on Stafford and his friend Robert Bly. I was reading on Facebook that Every War Has Two Losers will be shown at the Wine Country Film Festival in California's Napa Valley, along with a new documentary on poet Gary Snyder. I'm going to have to look for that one, too. Can't have too many films on this country's great poets

In the trenches with Dick "5 Deferments" Cheney

Casper's Dick "Five Vietnam War Draft Deferments" Cheney knows war from the grunt's P.O.V. Just listen as he speaks on right-wing radio:

I worry that there’s a lack of understanding there of what this means from the perspective of the troops. You know, if you’re out there on the line day in and day out and putting your life at risk on a volunteer basis for the nation, and you see the Commander in Chief unable, to or appearing to be unable, to make a decision about the way forward here — you know that raises serious doubts. Nobody wants to think of volunteering to be participate in that kind of operation.

[...]

It may in part be inexperience on Obama’s part. It may be that there’s confusion on the staff. But I’m not encouraged by it.

Think Progress shares some insights (and a clip) at http://thinkprogress.org/2009/11/24/cheney-military/

Full disclosure: I also had five draft deferments, 1968-1973, one while I was in ROTC. I never served in the active-duty military, yet I also never served as U.S.V.P. and invaded sovereign countries for bogus reasons, causing untold death and suffering.

Bring Back the Draft -- Not!

When Congress resumes in January, Rep. Charles Rangel of N.Y. will again introduce legislation to reinstate a draft. Not specifically a military draft, but one that would conscript young Americans into two years of service. Some would serve in the military and some in Homeland Security. Some would build roads and perform other community services. Those who serve would get educational benefits.

Not a bad idea, on its surface. It might cause a resurgence in civic responsibility. More young people might find their way to the polls on election days. They might pay more attention to the news, whether it comes via MSM or blogs.

More likely, it would cause a reurgence in creative ways to avoid the draft. The U.S. is a country that specializes in loopholes. Just ask any guy who was of draftable age during Vietnam.

Rangel wants to make a point. If you're 21 like my son and his friends, you might want to voice your opinion about the proposed draft to Mr. Rangel at info@charlierangel.org.