Monday, June 2, 2025
D+187/132
1941 Edward George Felsenthal III was born in Chicago, IL
1963 I graduated from Marquette University and was commissioned in the USMC
1989 10,000 Chinese soldiers were blocked by 100,000 citizens in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, protecting students demonstrating for democracy
1997 Timothy McVeigh was found guilty of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168
2022 Queen Elizabeth II marked her Platinum Jubilee with four days of celebrations, starting with a military parade at Buckingham Palace
In bed at 10, up at 6:10. 51°, high of 75°, sunny. SW wind at 9/16.
Eye drops at 6:30 a.m. and 7 p.m.
It's Ed Felsenthal's birthday. He would have been 84 years old today, had he not died on June 23 last year, following his wife Lyn's death on October 15th of the year before. Lyn was the first of the Notch House gang to die, if we consider the gang to consist of Ed Felsenthal, Tom Devitt, Bill Hendricks, Jerry Nugent, me, and our wives. Ed was the second. Today is also the 62nd anniversary of our graduation from college, except for Tom, who graduated a semester earlier, and Bill, who graduated a semester (or a summer session) later. My Schroeder Hall roommate, Joe Daley, lived with the group for two years, but he wasn't considered fully a member because he wasn't in the Navy ROTC like the rest of us. He didn't receive a Navy or Marine Corps commission on graduation day like the rest of us, and he never served in Vietnam, like the rest of us, except Bill. Ed and I moved out of Notch House on 16th Street in the second semester of our junior year. Joe, who had some idiosyncrasies, was driving Ed crazy, and I decided to move with Ed to the Queen Anne Apartments on 29th Street, next to the big Masonic Hall, or the Taj Mahal, as we called it. In our senior year, Joe took an apartment with his friend Joe Beresford from San Mateo, CA, and Ed and I moved back with Tom, Bill, and Jerry to a flat on 25th and Vine. I exchanged texts with Ed's oldest daughter, Mary Fran Schroder, this morning:
Hi, Mary Fran. I’m thinking of your Dad on his birthday, missing him, grateful to have had his support and friendship for so many years. He was such a good man and such a good friend. My thoughts are with you and your sisters today.❤️
Hi, Chuck. Thank you for your kind words. I know how much he valued his friendship with you. I hope all is well with you.
I’m hanging in there, as they say, finding life more lonely as I outlive many friends, with Ed at the top of my list. I actually feel some tears welling up in my eyes as I type this. My dad had a similar situation, outliving all of his friends but we were blessed that he was able to live with Geri and me the last few years of his life, a great blessing for both of us. In any event, I have nothing but warm thoughts today as I reflect on all the years your Dad and I shared growing from Leo High School classmates into old age. I count my blessings.
I’ve spoken to several people the last few months who are in your position, outliving their friends and family. Unfortunately it’s a sad fact of life. I wish I had a solution. I’ll keep you in my thoughts. ❤️
Ditto.❤️
I am grateful that there are so many people so much smarter, better informed, and wiser than I am, working and writing in the public arena. I'm thinking of the thoughtful conversations I watched and listened to on the Ezra Klein show, most recently with Kathryn Schulz from The New Yorker, and with Fareed Zakaria. And of the taped and written conversation in this morning's New York Times between Michelle Cottle, Jamelle Bouie, and David French on "the death of empathy in America." These thinkers and writers, and others like them, help me understand what is happening in my world right now, where it comes from, what it means, and what it portends. They remind me of what "freedom of the press" means, why it is so important, what a dark world we would live in without it, which is why Donald J. Trump is hellbent on destroying it.
Recent exchange of emails with Pip Lowe:
Hi, Sweetie. I had warm thoughts of your Dad today when I watched a story on CNN about Project Benjamin replacing Latin cross gravemarkers in Europe with Stars of David for the Jewish soldiers who lost their lives in World War II's European Theater. I remember your Dad telling of his fear over the possibility of being captured by the German forces during the war. I remember too of learning of his memoir and wonder now whether knowing of his memoir writing is what prompted me to write one of my own. I gave a copy of my memoir to each of my children and to my dear siser and I still find myself referring to it often when I get to reminiscing in my daily jjournal. I so much liked and admired your Dad and wish he were still with us.Emoji (I can say the same of you, by the way.)
. . . . . . .
That is so sweet of you, Chuck. I'm truly touched. Especially if my Dad's memoir inspired you. Coincidentally, we had a couple over for dinner last night that wanted to see my Dad's memoirs. I know that most of his mementos should be in a museum but I can't relinquish them yet.
Not sure if he told you that he actually was captured briefly - less than 24 hours, but it was his mistake that led his patrol into a German camp and cost the lives of some of his fellow soldiers. He repressed that memory for almost 50 years and then when it came up in a dream and he verified that it was true (meaning being able to prove it to others. He believes it was repressed because it so horrified him and he felt crushing guilt).
Then after he wrote what happened so he didn't forget again, he decided to write the complete memoirs. I think it was very healing for him and I think it's wonderful that your family has your wonderful writings and legacy. I'm sure they will treasure it and it's great that it still gives you pleasure.
You are special to me; I feel lucky to know you and can't wait to see you this summer. Love always,
Pip
. . . . . . .
Hi, Sweetie. Thank you for your kind words and thoughts, and for sharing more information about your Dad. Your email triggered more thoughts in me than you could have imagined when you wrote them. Here is a small section from my memoir:
"When a military person works in a technical support role such as I had in Vietnam, he or she doesn’t experience directly the lethality of the enterprise he or she is supporting, at least not on a regular basis. We didn’t see dead people on the receiving end of the missions we kept track of. We didn’t hear screaming or crying. We never heard moaning or whimpering of grievers. The Americans were bombing day and night, 7 days a week, weather permitting. We bombed targets in the I Corps region of South Vietnam; we bombed targets in North Vietnam; and we bombed targets in Laos, although this fact was never admitted officially. Our pilots had rules of engagement and I believe that for the most part those rules were obeyed (at least during the early phase of the war when I was there) so there would not be wanton killing of civilians. But even in the best of circumstances, dropping bombs, especially from high altitudes, is an imprecise operation, and “collateral damage” is always a problem . . . For us back at the air base, away from the target areas, life could and did easily become a matter of routine, of regularly rotating watches, of greasy Spam sandwiches every third night, and of Black Label and Blackjack on the other nights. Being such a small cog on such a large and lethal killing machine, it becomes easy to avoid thinking in terms of any personal responsibility for the suffering and loss that are the inevitable consequences and indeed the very purposes of modern warfare. Front line troops don’t share this immunity. The closest I got to feeling a direct responsibility for the deaths of others occurred one afternoon when I was completing one watch as Senior Air Director and another crew was coming on for the next. A long distance bombing mission over North Vietnam by F4 Phantom jets had been scheduled and then scrubbed, just as the watch was changing at the TAC Center. The mission was to be refueled by C-130 tankers in the air off the North Vietnamese coast. Somehow in the transition from one watch crew to the other, the word never was sent to the tanker to return to DaNang, that the bombing mission was scrubbed. As the tanker maintained its post waiting for the F4s, it was shot down. The entire crew were killed. If they had been notified of the cancellation of the bombing mission, they would have been ‘out of harm’s way’ and alive. The circumstances were such that no one was blamed, no culpability was found. But we all knew that that loss of life never should have happened. Those Marine aviators were dead and someone fucked up; we all fucked up. Whether the primary fault lay with the fighter squadron that cancelled the mission or with us at the TAC Center, with my crew that was being relieved or the crew that was taking over, the tanker should have been notified of the cancellation and the crew members should not have died, at least not on that mission and not as the result of a snafu. I was a part of it all and knew I bore responsibility for those deaths. I have never forgotten it. I feel responsibility and remorse to this day."
That was 60 years ago. Beyond the SNAFU that led to the deaths of those C-130 crewmen, I've come to feel remorse and responsibility for the whole damned Vietnam War, not that I caused it in any direct way, but that in my ignorance and complacency, my naive assumptions about the intelligence, wisdom, and good intentions of our American government, I and millions of other Americans played along, went along, 'did our duty,' followed our leaders, and inflicted unmeasurable death, destruction, pain, and suffering on millions of Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians, and on Americans as well, the 58,000 killed and hundreds of thousands wounded, physically, morally, emotionally, and spiritually. I felt it especially when Russia invaded Ukraine when I came to realize that, from the perspective of the Vietnaese and of the rest of the world, we invaded Vietnam, despite all the "happy horseshita spouted by LBJ, Robert McNamara, General Westmorland, and the rest, and I was a part of it. We all were. Maybe now, with Trump twice elected, we have a clearer understanding of the un-holiness of our government, after LBJ, Nixon, Clinton, the Bushes, Trump, Iraq, and Afghanistan. And maybe not. In any event, I very much appreciate the short time I got to share with your Dad, and, thakfully, the longer time I have shared with you.
. . . . . . .
So sorry for the long delay.....dental implant surgery (all good!) and other stuff got in the way of more important tasks like responding to YOU!
Thank you for sharing that section of your memoir with me. You and my dad would have had very impactful discussions, as he felt exactly the same as you having had these experiences. He would be horrified about what is going on now.
He only had us to share his feelings of guilt and responsibility with, since he did not talk of it to others. Altho I am glad he finally wrote about it. I wish he were here and had you to talk to. I can understand (limited, I know) why you would feel remorse and responsibility, and it probably doesn't help at this point, but there were many links in the chain that led to that horrible mission you wrote of. And ALL of us were misled by what was really happening in Viet Nam. I'll see if I can send just that section he narrated that is similar to your experience. My dad was so extraordinarily kind in an easygoing mellow manner and that's how I see you. I'm not sure if surviving a war enhanced that or if that was your and his nature all along, but the only time I saw him truly scary-angry was when he threatened to shoot my brother in the foot before letting him get drafted. That must have been related. You really remind me of him with your quiet, thoughtful peacefulness, yet determination to set things right.
So looking forward to seeing you relatively soon.
Much love, always,
Geri chipped a front tooth yesterday, saw Dr. Neary this morning, and will get a crown Friday morning. She has spent much of this beautiful day gardening.
I had a mindfulness moment this afternoon, sitting in the sun on our patio, on one of my favorite patio chairs (from Geri's Lake Mills apartment), taking in the lush expanse of leaves, needles, trees, bushes, ferns, grass, and other plants in front of me. I was aware that I was alive at the very moment, and that I won't be alive tomorrow, or the next tomorrow, the following tomorrow, or the tomorrow after that, when, as Jane Kenyou reminded us, it will be otherwise. This is it. Heaven, right here, right now. Enjoy it, appreciate it, rejoice in it, rest in it.
I'm reminded of a song and album by Tom Jones, Green, Green Grass of Home, released while I was in Vietnam. A big hit, along with California Dreaming by the Mamas and the Papas, and Ebb Tide by the Righteous Brothers. I modified the lyrids and omtted the last stanza, a downer.
The old home town looks the same / As I step down from the train
And there to meet me is my Mama and Papa
Down the road I look and there runs Geri / Hair of silver, lips like cherries
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home
Yes, they'll all come to meet me / Arms reaching, smiling sweetly
It's good to touch the green, green, grass of home
The old house is still standing / Tho' the paint is cracked and dry
And there's that old oak tree that I used to play on
Down the lane I walk with my sweet Geri / Hair of gold, lips like cherries
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home
Yes, they'll all come to meet me / Arms reaching, smiling sweetly
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home
No comments:
Post a Comment