November 12, 2004

Vets Recall What Leaders Forget
By Arthur R. Vinsel, Community News Reporter
From hieroglyphics to Hueys, humans have always recorded and remembered their wars.

     From hieroglyphics of ancient clashes over land, water or God’s will, and disrespect of one ruler by another, to grainy news images of helicopters hurrying troops to combat, history is delineated by wars and rumors of wars.
     Out of wars and mankind’s deep ingrained need to record his deeds—the good, the bad and the ugly—come history, our tales of valor and victory; defeats and delivery of shame to deserving enemies.
     We want to preserve for presumably numberless generations yet to enter our world, just what we’ve done in their names, and inspire them to do better.
     Veterans Day, commemorating the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, Nov. 11, 1918 when an armistice silenced World War I cannons and halted killing, is America’s historic day to honor men and women of war and peace. But remembrance is not just a once-a-year affair.
     On October 19, Congresswoman Jane Harman’s staff organized a Veterans History Fair at the 142-year-old Drum Barracks Civil War historic landmark in Wilmington, which drew several groups involved in The Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress. They want to interview men and women who’ve served the nation from Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood 80 years ago to teenaged troops just home from Iraq.
     “Every soldier who comes back from Iraq now has some degree of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD),” said Marianne Davis, chief of voluntary services at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Greater Los Angeles district. She has a master’s degree in library science that will serve her in establishing these archives.
     “Everybody comes back ‘not the same.’ Everybody comes back spooked. We have vets who are still high-functioning, and we have those who do not do well,” said Davis. “We need to prepare soldiers of the future for what to expect from war.”
     Peggy Fontenot and James Kincaid Johnson, of America’s Veterans, a Marina del Rey-based nonprofit support group that created The Living Wall touring exhibit, also spoke to Veterans History Project volunteers.
     “It’s not about combat. It’s not about those who went overseas while others were state-side. It’s about service and those whose duty was behind the lines,” said Fontenot, noting there are 25 million former servicemen and women among 280 million Americans. The old-timers, World War II veterans, are in their 80s now, 2.5 million whose ranks are dwindling by 1,500 a day.
     Retired U.S. Navy Chief Boatswain’s Mate Jack Stecker, 82, chaplain of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1622 in Lomita, dropped out of San Pedro High School in 1940, to enlist, recognizing war on the world horizon. Sent to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, he was hand-picked for an expeditionary force to China and transferred just before the Japanese attack.
     “Our veterans, our own military, are being shortchanged,” snapped Stecker, a San Pedro native, onetime longshoreman and Freemason who lost many a former USS California shipmate on Dec. 7, 1941. The peppery activist is unimpressed by lip service and SUV bumper stickers pledging Support Our Troops, if unsupported by actions.
     Manuel Moreno, 52, raised in Wilmington, wanted to enlist for Vietnam, but health issues prevented that. Now a supervisor in nonprofit social work, Moreno has been a volunteer at 29 Veterans Stand Down events the past decade. These are three-day encampments where thousands of homeless vets receive healthcare, food, clothing, and varied assistance including investigation of aid sources. Many have issues with PTSD as well as drugs and alcohol.
     “I thought it was a good way to give something in return,” said Moreno. “A lot of my friends went over there. Many did not come back.”
     For information on volunteering with the Veterans History Project, visit their website at www.loc.gov/vets.