My First Visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC

My first visit to the Wall was in the spring of 1984. At that time I was teaching high school English, raising my son, and struggling pretty much alone. My principal sent me to DC with a group of students on a Close-Up trip. These very well-organized sojourns allow the teachers some time to themselves, and I knew my day would be spent at The Wall–sans high school kids. I didn’t want to be with anyone that day.

I took the Metro down to the Mall and slowly, slowly wound my way toward that monolith, what one of my friends in a poem calls ‘wet, black wings.’ As its long, black V appeared and grew larger, my heart was pounding, my feet so heavy I had to force them in front of one another. Everything in my body and being was cringing and pulling back. I was--simply--scared to death. Terrified. And it kept getting closer. When I finally arrived, and it loomed before me, I didn’t know what to do: just stood there, not wanting to look at it, looking anywhere else, eyes filled with tears.

At that time, the vigil was in effect year ’round, and a Vet walked up to me, asked if he could help. I was numb and brusque and unsure. Undaunted, he led me to the book of names, asked me who I wanted to find, showed me Michael’s name in the book, what the numbers meant, how to find him. Then he volunteered to go down into that waiting memorial with me. I refused–I wanted to be alone. Still undaunted, he said he’d just follow behind, make sure I could find the name if I needed him. I moved down, down, down that sidewalk, the wings of the V pulling me in, the names increasing, my reflection unnerving me, and the tears flowing. As I arrived at the apex and panel 18W, I again just stood there–in complete shock I realize now.

The Vet appeared at my side again, gently guided my eyes up to the 2nd line and over to the right. Michael A. McAninch. He was there. It was true. He wasn’t coming home. He had been memorialized and immortalized along with all these names around him. My fiancé, my Michael. I collapsed. Just shot down to the ground. But my fall was broken by the Vet who had known I must not be alone. He caught me and held me while I sobbed my grief, wracked with pain, shaking uncontrollably in the arms of this kind stranger.

After I quieted a bit, he said, “See all these names around Michael’s? They are his brothers, and they are with him; he is not alone.” And he calmly stayed by my side, talking with me, listening to me, nodding, being quiet when he needed to be. It was the first time anyone had ever talked with me about Michael and the War. Fifteen years, and someone finally cared. His name was Terry.

I have been to The Wall three times since that first painful trip. I like the statues and understand why they have been added to the site. But it is The Wall that I come for. I don’t see it as a black gash or a tombstone, though I understand those feelings as well. It is, of course, a chevron in memoriam--polished granite in which we see ourselves mirrored in the names of the Fallen. It is OURS, and it is THEIRS. We insisted on it; we paid for it both in tributes and in blood; and we experience it in our own ways, some of us choosing not to–and that is a response to it also.

For me, it is a memorial to our loved ones, a reminder of the cost, and a site for pilgrimage and gathering and sharing. And it is where a Vet named Terry gave a damn when almost everyone else had ignored our Vietnam Veterans and their families--refusing to let us talk; treating us and them as if the whole thing was an embarrassment--a disgrace.

So for all those years, I had been silent and isolated in my agony until that day when this veteran, Terry, volunteered to help a grieving lady through her first experience of the Wall–still serving his country and his brothers.

The Women of Iran

They amaze us with their grit and courage in the face of guns, truncheons, and tear gas. They swoop on the basij, slap away their flailing hands, and shame them as the brutes beat an older woman or a seven-year-old child or a young man being dragged away never to be seen again. They make us smile with their green head and wrist bands, V signs, posters, and knowing grins. They break our hearts as they pray "Allahu Akbar!" and call out to one another from their roof tops. They make us tremble as, with their children, they scream in fear at night when the thugs invade their homes, their leaders disappear, and the city sinks into the nightmare of the police state they are living in now.

They make us yell, "You Go Girl!" when the cops beat them and they fight back, when they kick a hoodlum cop in the butt, when they scream in the faces of men who have lost their humanity. But they also stun us when they shield another cop in their arms from the anger of exhausted, anguished, frustrated protesters. These Women Warriors are bright, educated, strong, compassionate, gorgeous, so incredibly beautiful they take one's breath away.

The uprising is dangerous for all the protesters but particularly for them; yet it is necessary for them to fight if they are ever to be free, and they know it.

And now one of them has been slain--Neda Agha-Soltan whose family called her "a beam of light." She went out that morning to protest; instead, we all watched her bleed into the street and take her last breath. Our hearts broke again as we screamed with those trying to stop the blood pumping from her wounded heart, trying to make her breathe again. Shock, horror, anger, and disbelief: she was too young, she was too vital, she was too lovely.

She now lies alone in a cold grave while the video of her public death plays over and over and over on TV screens across the world; it is not only tragic but also obscene to see her displayed like this, lying in the street in her jeans and shirt, her eyes slowly growing blank as the blood pours. We want to turn away, but we cannot stop seeing her through our tears and our anger.

Despite the despots' efforts to prevent it, Neda has become the individual--the symbol--every cause, every movement must have to make it real to the rest of us. She is the man in China, standing defiantly in front of the tanks, with his bags rocking beside him, refusing to let them pass; she is Anne Frank in Holland who wanted to be a writer and who personalized the Holocaust for generations in her Diary; she is Joan of Arc in France, who led an army and was martyred for her cause as well. However, Neda--who didn’t get a say in her destiny--if asked did she want to be a martyr, probably would have said, "no, please, I'd rather go home today." And it is so achingly sad.

As the media remind us on the hour, she is an icon now, an image mourned the world over. But more importantly, she is a warm, vibrant young woman, daughter, student, singer, traveller, fiancée, friend who lost everything to a vicious regime that would turn violently on its own people rather than give up their arrogant, iron-fisted hold on power, which they are in fact powerless to keep now because they have been exposed as the murderers they are.

As we watch her die over and over, our anger rises, our hearts break again, and the tears will not stop. As we celebrate our new Women Warriors, we and they grieve for Neda--our sister our daughter our beloved angel who now belongs to all the light.

Why My Students Cannot Use Excuses for Late Papers

[Open Letter to my poppets at the end of the term as I sit reading your e-mails "explaining" why you didn't turn in your research paper.]

Dear Buttercup:

If you are late to work and run a stop sign, do you think the cop who spots you will care that you ran it because you were late, and do you think he will listen to your reason for being late? He might care, and he might even listen, but you will get the ticket.

If you hit an inside-the-park homerun, but you lollygag around the bases, strutting and doffing your cap at all and sundry, so that you are late getting to home plate and the center fielder throws you out at home, do you think the umpire, to say nothing of the fans, to say nothing of your teammates and your manager will be interested in your reasons for being late to home or in your outrage that you are being treated unfairly? No, they are too busy beating you up.

If you are late turning in a major portfolio to the CEO of the company—an assignment that represents millions of dollars to the company that you were supposed to have worked on for weeks—do you think he will accept your excuse even though you think it’s a really special reason? Actually, you will be carrying a cardboard box with all your worldly cubicle stuff out the big glass doors. No corner office for you, Bro.

If you are a nurse and are late giving your patient his medication, and his eyeballs and toes turn straight up as he goes into cardiac arrest, do you think the doctor and the hospital will accept your excuse even though it seems very important to you? No, you will be out the door and face a lawsuit.

And, if you’re thinking, well [fill in the blank] is only an hour late, what's the big deal—see dead patient above.

I have clearly stated the only acceptable excuse is your major illness documented by a physician who says you could not have completed the paper because you were at death's door. That’s it. Not a relative’s illness; not a relative’s death (that excuse always seems to occur right at the research deadline: ask any professor in any college in the country; it’s a fact of life that students will use this excuse—though it is rarely if ever the case); not even a pet’s death; not a friend’s fainting spell requiring your attention lest she die, too. Nada. In fact, many professors don’t even allow the wiggle room I do because we all suspect you are lying anyway: we call it the grandmother kill-off season. Seriously.

Now, Dude, as you read this, you may think it’s harsh. But here is what you are up against if you and your pals decide to try the ‘excuse for late work’ ploy:

The student with four kids whose husband is on the front lines in Afghanistan; her life is anguish every second though she has never once asked for any attention, nor has she ever complained. She submitted the paper in on time.

The contractor who is based in Iraq (several contractors have died there)—a completely different time zone in an extremely stressful environment. He got the paper in on time.

The single father whose wife died last year, and he’s raising two kids by himself while working two jobs to support them. Yep, he got the paper in on time.

The mom whose child is sick and over whom she has had sleepless nights.

Because she had begun the paper and took advantage of the help I offered and paid attention to suggestions, she in fact had the paper ready even before the deadline. So though her little boy was sick—yes, she submitted the paper on time.

I can give you countless other stories of students who had enormous pressures, worries, difficulties, and even deaths in their families—who knew the paper was due and submitted it on time.

The research paper assignment has been in the works since the first day of class; everyone knows it Everyone has also had the opportunity to submit focus, thesis, and rough draft several days before the deadline. Everyone has been encouraged to submit the paper earlier than the deadline.

So, you see, when a student does neither and then begins to use the following words, “my paper is late because followed by reasons and excuses, when every student knows full well what the only acceptable excuse is and that I have heard yours a thousand times over 30 years, well it’s just not creative—even if you are a former student of mine and you have done all the other work, and you send me a picture to remind me how adorable you are.

Sorry, but your former status and your cute pic are irrelevant. Seriously.

Besides, you’re not the only former student, and you certainly are not the only student who has done all the work, and you definitely are not the only student with vexing or even wrenching problems.

It’s simple really: do the work or drop.

If you think this is "mean," and that your excuse for late work is the exception, think back on that wife and mother who does not know if her husband, who is fighting for his country against the TALIBAN for god's sake, will come home to them.

Then get your paper in on time.

Hugs,
Teach