A small room

I went to the history museum in a small city a couple of hours from Charleston this past Saturday, and walked upstairs in the mansion turned museum to a room that opened a window on a long-ago war.

H.L. Saunders was a captain in World War I. He grew up in a small community in the county, an old and historic village that was the first seat of goverment in the territory. A great grand-niece discovered, in pristine condition, a chest in an attic full of his wartime belongings, collected and returned to the family after he died in 1919. He was 22, a pilot in the Army Air Corps.

Glass cases were filled with his flight instruments, goggles, training manuals, uniforms, and other miscellaneous items that help depict a life, including his photograph on an ID card. He looked younger than his years. A slight mustache, however, lent an air of maturity and mystique. He could have been someone you knew. He had such a familiar visage.

He always wanted to join the military. It was said about him that he was fun-loving, spirited, and full of life. He was popular in his small community, located only a few miles from the large river that wound its way down from the mountains of North Carolina and into the Piedmont and high hills of the upper coastal plain. He was able to get a personal appointment to West Point by President Woodrow Wilson.

I walked around that room and saw all kinds of reminders of that first world war of the last century. For some rather inexplicable reason, I felt close to the person who fought and died in that war. It was almost like I knew him. He grew up near our family’s home town. My grandmother was born and raised on the other side of the county. She was only 14 when he was born. I think of the dirt roads leading to the small county seat that was an important cotton distribution center in the early 1900s, a city he likely was very well acquainted with, and which was a good day’s travel by buggy or coach when he was a boy.

The “war to end all wars” — as World War I was called. In the wreckage of the Treaty of Versailles lay the seeds of another world war, only 20 years later, and an even worse conflagration that would spread across Europe and other continents. Now there is war once again. There will be other young men like Capt. Saunders who will lose their lives. Civilians will suffer and die. It does not end. War caused by the grandiose schemes of madmen who can rally large numbers of people to their cause brings the world perilously close to the brink. It is happening now. It has been that way throughout recorded history.

As I looked at the photograph of Saunders as a young Army Air Corps captain, blown up and enlarged in a corner of the quiet room, I felt the silence of that shrine to his memory descend on me. It didn’t seem at all like decades had passed since he gave his life in that war. It seemed like yesterday. That is why I feel such foreboding for the future. That one small room in a museum house made war and its realities seem very real. One life, one name inscribed in the list of local war dead in the hall outside the room. I left with many things to think about, wondering, too, what the experience of that visit, on that random Saturday afternoon, would teach me.

When I look at the reminders of WWI and WW2 here in my country silence comes to me. I always try to see and to feel what the people and the military must have gone through then…how horrible it must have been for so many, far away from their home. Last week in the Ardennes I stood still in front of a “Statue” in the middle of nowhere. Only large pinetrees, wild grasses and silence… [Edelweis]A2

On my hikingmap was a sign “American Statue”. When I arrived at that spot, I saw a large wooden cross, an English, American and Belgian flag, wreckage of a plane, a small propeller…six American names engraved! Indeed, a statue, surrounded by beautiful nature! Remains of a military airplane, crashed or shot down in WW2. I felt so happy that someone brought fresh flowers to this remote place…! [

Sometimes we forget that those who fight are people with dreams and wishes, families and friends, hopes and ambitions, insecurities and pride…just like you and me. The closeness you felt to the young soldier may well have been whispers of an earlier connection, shared experiences, similar familiarities. Nice writing, O.

After my grandmother’s death, our family went to help my grandfather “straighten up the place”. We found, buried in a trunk in the old warehouse, the items he’d brought home from the war. Including an Eisenhower jacket complete with medals…when he passed away I took the jacket and still have to this day. It’s a wonderful thing to have from my grandfather.

What a kind and thoughtful soul you have, Oswego. Thank you for this gentle reminder…

War is terrible, but it can reveal our latent virtues (courage, valor, etc.) and help us to see the value of peace.

perhaps you and he walked the same path

Honestly, you make me want to visit every single place that you write about…Ryn: Only vague about travel plans because they keep changing the date I’m leaving. I may actually write a rant tonight, much as I hate to, just to vent. Maybe on private, to not torture everyone. Looks like I head that way somewhere between the 16th and 18th. Will email and keep you posted. xxoo, [forever in motion

One day, there will be museums too, for the first casualties of today’s war, only they will not be soldiers’ pictures.

A small room that opens the door to the world….the focus on the one immediate and up close aspect brings greater depth to the far reaching ones at large. My uncle died in the Army when he was 20 years old. I have two things of his: his last name on a tag that would have been sewn on his shirt and a yarn belt (part of our traditional dress). Two things that like a small room tell a story. [Eri

‘The last century,’ you write and I am momentarily surprised. A millennium away yet still so close. The quirks of numbers mean nothing in this context.

It is in the silence of lives that have passed, Laid down for a shared dream, We wonder of the futility, Because of another madman’s scheme. Why must these spectres of horror, Rise from the bowels of Hell, To tarnish golden sacrifices, Made in the name of a dream? ~~~ Wonderfully insightful entry as always, my friend!

Oswego! Thanks so very much–perhaps we will do that, but I’d have never asked…your willingness to do that means a lot to me, given that we are offered anonymous haven as writers here. I know it’s beautiful there now.

On “Fresh Air” the NPR radio show I heard an interview of an author who has just published a book concerning LBJ’s taped phone converstaions. LBJ knew early on that VietNam was unwinnable, but kept sending in troops to be killed, or messed up for life. The early protesters were brave to go against that public opinion, and history proved them right. What will history prove for our current mess? [br

Bramble

November 8, 2001

You have left us many things to think of too!

I notice that you spend those spare moments in your life visiting places and doing things that are meant to provoke emotion, reaction, creation. That’s admirable. I think many people stay in that safe zone they create for themselves, something called routine. You seem to be out looking for the unexpected. I hope you never find it. I like reading about the search.

🙁 I had naively believed we’d evolved beyond the need for warfare.

As a child, I visited an Anglo-Zulu war memorial that overlooked one of the old battlefields. As I stood there looking out into the vastness of the veldt I remember feeling something similar. The atmosphere had been indelibly marked by bloodshed and I could still feel the carnage happening around me. Each and ever one of the men seemed so real that day.

A plague payed homage to the thousands who had died, but the individual deaths seemed lost in the rounded figure. (Its very strange, decades later, to finally find words for the feeling.) I wonder about people who perpetuate war (although I suppose all of us do in our own way) and can only assume theyve never made that connection and humanity is lost in anonymity. A great entry, Oswego!<P

RYN: Thanks for the kind words. It is true, I do love what I’m doing, no matter how much I may seem to complain. Twenty five years from now, I hope to be still doing the same!! I’ll have the whole city bricked over by then!!

Great entry. As long as people are poor, get neglected, abused, there will be fightings and wars. The day every single man and woman have respect, basic needs, equal rights, democratic institutions, the fighting might stop.. My friend have a lovely weekend!

As you know every single person lost to war has a story. I was impressed by what the New York Times is doing to write obituaries for all lost Sept 11th. I wish they could do the same for the Afghanis.

As always, your beautiful gift of words make me feel as if I were there with you.