8/2/24

 Monday, September 2, 2024

Labor Day

1945 Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnam independent from France (National Day)

1945 V-J Day, formal surrender of Japan signed aboard the USS Missouri, marks the end of World War II

1983 Yitzḥak Shamir (Likud party) endorsed by Menachem Begin for Israeli Prime Minister

In bed around 8:30 and up at 4:15.  I let Lilly out at 6:25.   

Prednisone, day 113, 10 mg., day 18/28,   Diclofenac on my knee at 4:35.  Prednisone at 5:00.  Breakfast was 2 pieces of last night's pizza at 7:00.  Morning meds at 7:25.

The New Yorker podcast, the Haditha massacre.  Twenty-four Iraqi civilians were killed by Marines in Haditha on November 19, 2005.  None went a day behind bars for the murders.  I listened yesterday and this morning to episodes 5 and 7 of the podcast, two more to go.  Just listening to the episodes, and seeing the photos in The New Yorker online is a chilling, sickening experience for me.  It reminds me of the 'toxic masculinity' that is epitomized by the Marine Corps, the kill or be killed mentality, the 'lean green killing machine' stuff.  It reminds me of the real Ribbon Creek incident in 1956 when 6 recruits were drowned when their DI marched them into a swampy area.  It reminds me of the movie Full Metal Jacket in which a recruit murders his DI after reciting "The Rifleman's Creed" to his rifle.  It reminds me of the Training and Test Regiment, 'T&T' at Quantico, of DIs Harvey B. Love and Sgr. Lilly, who never perspired, of how Sgt. Lilly harassed Tom Devitt like Sgt. Hartman harassed 'Gomer Pyle' in the Kubrick film.  It reminded me of the Hill Trail, 'asshole to bellybutton,' of the midshipman of collapsed on the trail and my only thought was to get him out of the way because was an impediment to keeping up the pace, lying on the ground waiting to be put in the emergency truck trailing us.  It reminded me of chants we sang during conditioning runs, none of which I remember more than 60 years later.  But it also reminded me of how much I identify with the photos of the Marines in uniform who were charged but never punished for the Haditha murders, including the photo of the squad leader in his Marine uniform.  It reminds me of all the Marine T-shirts I wear, including the one I wear as I type this, and of my Marine dog tags I still wear, the same ones I wore in Vietnam almost 60 years ago, of how oblivious I was of the death and destruction we were bringing to that faraway land and to its people, and of my survivor's guilt, not only for the 58,000 Americans who were killed there but also for the countless hundreds of thousands of 'locals,' the 'IPs,' the people who lived there and who our government pretended to want to help while really wanting only to stop the spread of China's power and preserving capitalist access to Southeast Asia's markets and raw resources.  At least we learned our lessons from the tragic experience.  Oh, that's right, I forgot.  We learned nothing.

My favorite painting, of the many Vietnam-inspired paintings and drawings I have done over many years.

The Household Chores You’re Avoiding Are Key to a Deeper Life Aug. 31, 2024  by Lydia Sohn in the NYTimes.  "Yet I now approach my domestic labor differently. While I used to consider the work I needed to do around the house utterly expendable, I now see it as integral for my and my family’s happiness. Through my body’s daily offering, I bear witness to the belief that my private sphere is just as worthy of my attention as my public sphere and that my inner life is just as worthy of my care and labor as my outer one. And with each sock I put away, I trust that a sacred alchemy is unfurling."  I was struck by the phrase "my body's daily offering."  It made me think of all the work Geri does every day in our home, maintaining it, improving it, beautifying it, feeding and caring for Lilly and me - her daily offerings, which greatly outnumber mine and for which I am very grateful.

The things one thinks of just by looking at a pair of shoes.   While sitting in my recliner early this morning I cast my glance at a pair of walking shoes I bought years ago for a trip to Paris.  They have rarely been worn and I got to thinking of whether and where to donate them along with a few pairs of expensive Allen Edwards "lawyer shoes" I have kept in their shoe boxes for years, stuffed with shoe horns.  I thought of saving one pair if needed for my burial and realized that the only shoe that can fit on my swollen left foot now is my old Brooks running shoe I wear daily.  This afternoon I loaded the shoes into the back of the Volvo to donate to SVDP, my sister's beloved charity to which she devoted so much time and effort.

Anniversaries thoughts.  After centuries of being subjected to rule by the Chinese,  then the French, then the Japanese, and then the French again, Ho Chi Minh wanted  Vietnam subject to Vietnamese governance. He was an anti-colonial nationalist. He hoped for and asked for American help in this goal.  We refused, and instead helped the French in their futile effort to maintain their colonial Asian empire.  What it got the French was Dien Bien Phu; what it got us was a humiliating defeat from which we have never recovered in terms of our international standing.

VJ-day and my earliest memory, of the parade on Emerald Avenue 79 years ago, with Kitty and me honored by being pulled in a red, white, and blue bunting-draped red wagon, children of one of the neighborhood heroes, our Dad, a veteran of Iwo Jima.  Once he got home, it was all downhill.  The parade on Emerald Avenue was more probably on the day the radios announced that Japan had surrendered, but of course, I don't remember the date, only the parade.  I have no recollection of my father's homecoming either, though I am confident it was not a happy one.  The war, and its effect on my father, lived on in all our lives for years; it still does in mine and did in Kitty's throughout her life.

Pares cum paribus congregantur.  Begin and Shamir, terrorists.  Yitzhak Shamir was an Israeli politician who served as the seventh Prime Minister of Israel, in two terms, from 1983 to 1984 and from 1986 to 1992.  Born in 1915, Shamir moved with his family to British Mandate Palestine in 1922. He joined the underground Zionist group Stern Gang in 1940 and participated in a number of terrorist attacks against British targets in Palestine. In 1944 he was arrested by British authorities and sentenced to life in prison, but he escaped to Europe in 1946.  Returning to Palestine, Shamir became a leading member of the right-wing Zionist party Herut, and was elected to the Knesset in 1955. He held several ministerial posts in successive governments, including Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Foreign Affairs.  As Prime Minister, Shamir oversaw the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the First Intifada in 1987. Under Shamir's leadership, Israel made little progress in peace negotiations with its Arab neighbors. In 1992, after failing to win re-election, Shamir retired from politics and Yitzhak Rabin became prime minister., signed on to the Oslo Agreements, and paid with his life in 1995 when he was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli law student.  It's been downhill for Israel and the Palestinians ever since.