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I don’t remember when I saw this issue of Life Magazine. It came out on June 27, 1969, just less than a month before I was drafted and sent to Ft. Polk, Louisiana. I wasn’t doing much magazine reading beforehand and I didn’t see a magazine or newspaper for the 8 weeks I was in basic training.

I just remember the shock of seeing the issue, titled ‘American Dead in Vietnam: One Week’s Toll.’  Not for any personal fears – a young man drafted in 1969 understood that kind of fear already. But here was the reality of our times brought crashing home.

These were the 242 names the Pentagon released during the week of May 28 through June 3. It was not an extraordinary number. According to Life, it was an average number of dead for any seven-day period during this stage of the war.

For me, it wasn’t the shock of big numbers. Americans had been dying in Vietnam for some time.  It was the layout Life used – page after page of small mug shots, looking all the world like some cruel high school annual. Most of the images were those brave, proud photos many kids – and they were kids – had taken after they got through basic training. Class As and a campaign hat with all the brass gleaming. Some were actual high school graduation photos. A few were candid shots form home. All of them carried those tentative smiles and open gazes toward a future out there waiting for them. They just didn’t know it would come so quickly and so hard.

These were American faces – white, black, brown – who had gone into the military for duty, the draft or boredom and all the other reasons young people became soldiers in the 1960s. They were our neighbors and classmates and friends. And here they were, all 242 displayed in orderly rows, all dead during just one more week in Vietnam.

Later, much later, after my two-year Army career ended without drama, I became convinced this one magazine had helped quicken the war’s end. There had been protests and marches galore and moratoriums to end the war. They had their purposes, I suppose, the concentrate the political and philosophical against the war. The marches and protests also helped divide the nation. Old vs young.  Liberal vs conservatives. Elites vs blue collars. And the war continued.

Then came Life and its elegy for 242 young Americans. Their deaths – and their brief lives – were came with stunning harshness to homes across the country. City kids, farm kids, college graduates and pump jockeys at the local gas station. For some communities, these would be the first war dead since World War II. These weren’t slogans or little American flags for the car window. We were finally able to see the faces behind the headlines – and understand, perhaps, what toll it took on American families. We understood these were sons, husbands and loved ones who would never grow old. Their images made a lie of the reasons for the war and spoke more eloquently in their silence.

Six months after the ‘American Dead in Vietnam: A Week’s Toll’ was published, the United States began a draft lottery. In the Spring of 1970, Nixon announced a troop withdrawal of 150,000 troops. Then botched it by expanding the US war role into Cambodia. The war dragged on, after peace plans were bandied about by the US and North Vietnam. More young Americans died, the final tally of 57,158. The nation grew more divided. On January 23, 1973, Nixon announced an agreement ‘to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.’ Like so many of his political statements, it was both true and a lie.

In Life’s preface to the issue, they wrote: “It is not the intention of this article to speak for the dead. We cannot tell with any precision what they thought of the political currents which drew them across the world. Yet in a time when the numbers of Americans killed in this war – 36,000 – though far less than the Vietnamese losses,  have exceeded the dead in the Korean War, when the nation continues week after week to be numbed by a three-digit statistic which is translated to direct anguish in hundreds of homes all over the country, we must pause to look into the faces.”

Today, with two more endless wars draining our resources and leaving another generation of young Americans dead and maimed, we need to reflect again that war is not a matter of how many die but who they are. And can we spare them.

You people are crazy. You know that, right?

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

History tells us that on November 11, 1918, the guns went silent in Europe and what was optimistically called the War to End All Wars came to an end. It was not the day the killing ended.

War has its timetables and is ruthless in keeping them. Though the armistice – the actual agreement to end the fighting – was signed in a train car on a siding in France at 5:05 a.m. the morning of the 11th, the time for the cease fire was set at 11 a.m. This would give time for official word to go to the capitals of the warring nations. Celebrations broke out almost instantly in London and street lights were lit in Paris. But soldiers at the front either did not get the word or commanders lived up to their orders that the shooting would continue to the 11^th hour. And it did.

 Artillery barrages commenced in the dawn hours, pounding trenches with high explosives and razor-edged shrapnel. Commanders on both sides sent out patrols and set up ambushes. The slaughter continued on schedule. On that last day of the war, all combatants suffered 10,994 casualties. Of that number, 2,738 died.

 British troops at Mons in Belgium – site of the first major battle in the war in 1914 – were among the last to die. One of those, Private George Edwin Ellison of the 5th Royal Irish Lancers, is named as the last Brit to die in the war – shot dead at 9:30 a.m. British military records show that 863 soldiers from throughout the Commonwealth died in those last hours of the war.

 The French had 75 soldiers die on that day – the last, Augustin Trebuchon of the 415 Infantry Regiment, was killed as he carried a message to the front announcing the ceasefire. He died at 10:50 a.m.

 The heaviest casualties on 11/11/1918 – more than 3,000 – fell to the Americans, Congressional inquiries in the United States a year later found that U.S. commander General George Pershing, although he knew the armistice had been signed, encouraged subordinate commanders to aggressively attack enemy lines until the last possible moment because he felt the Germans should be crushed militarily. U.S. Marines took more than 1,100 casualties alone in an attempt to cross the River Meuse in the early hours of the 11^th. The 89th Division attacked and took over the town of Stenay in a pointless gesture that made it the last town captured on the Western Front. The 89^th suffered 300 casualties.

 The last American to die in the war, as well as the official last man to die, was Private Henry Gunter, who was killed at 10:59 a.m. in a pointless attack on a German machine gun nest. Some reports say the German gunners tried to signal the Americans to stop the attack. It failed.

 There are imprecise records on how many casualties German forces suffered on that last day. They do have one of the saddest, however. Shortly after 11 a.m., a German lieutenant, identified only as Tomas, approached American troops to let them know they could take possession of the house where his unit had been quartered. The Americans, not aware the war had ended, shot him.

So came the end of the Great War. The world soon learned it was only a brief pause until the next one, and the ones that followed. General William Tecumseh Sherman said during the carnage of the Civil War, ‘War is cruelty; it can not be refined.’ He certainly knew what he was talking about.

Source: The Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour by Joseph Persico

I dangled the prospect of visiting two Civil War battlefields in Louisiana where my great-grandfather, Thaddeus K. McLemore, and his brother, Felix, has fought. They had joined the 17^th Texas Infantry Regiment in Guadalupe County in 1861. As part of Walker’s Division, they had marched across three states and fought in several battles, most notably at Sabine Cross Roads and Pleasant Hill in Louisiana. But no matter how historical or well-intentioned, any drive across any part of Texas is never leisurely. It’s long. And monotonous.

The lure had also been to see McDade, a small dying village east of Austin where my great-grandfather had been lynched. Nothing inspires a kid like having a distant relative who died in a disreputable manner. The boys were also impressed that Great-grand Pa Thaddeus had been pulled out of the old rock saloon (now named appropriately The Old Rock Saloon) on December 24, 1883, by vigilantes and hanged with two other men on a lonely tree north of town. The saloon, sun-baked red stone, was now a museum of McDade’s founding. It was also closed. I drove on the old old north for about two miles, the general location of where the hangings had occurred, according to historical records. The hanging tree is long gone and what remains is a cleared pasture with cattle. Disappointment was palpable in the back seat. We returned to town, bought over-priced soft drinks at an old general store. The young clerk met questions about the hanging with total disinterest. We read a nearby plaque about the Christmas Eve hanging, then climbed in the car and drove east.

A brief drive-through in Longview, where I spent the first three years of my life, was viewed with disbelief. “You lived here? Why?” It was an excellent question. We drove on, pulling into Louisiana late in the day, too late to make the first battlefield. The decision to stay in Shreveport drew protests that we just go home.

“Battlefields, remember?” I said.

Ginny had my back. “It’ll be fun,” she said. My wife, who is not that fond of long, tedious drives, had been fully supportive of this family trip idea. But I noticed a sharper edge had crept into her voice. We found a place to stay and had a late supper.

We rose early, leaving Shreveport and driving south on Interstate 49, turning off on LA Hwy 179, which tracks the old pike road that winded down to Mansfield. Four miles south lies the state historical park commemorating the battle of Sabine Crossroads on April 6, 1864, when Confederate forces clashed with Yankee troops in a high-water mark of the Union’s Red River campaign.

We had the place to our selves. We walked in among the dark pines where the Confederate soldiers had formed up their battle lines. We read the monuments and the accounts of death and suffering that occurred that lovely spring day. Confederates and Union casualties totaled about 1,600. It was recorded as a rebel victory, since it drove Banks’ troops down the road toward Pleasant Hill. The significance of the battle and who won or lost can be discussed ad infinitum by historians. For me, the battle’s paled as I concentrated on part of what is now someone’s farm field on the west side of the old road. There, Thaddeus stood next to his brother and others in the 17^th Texas, waiting in the sun for the signal to run screaming toward Union guns. The sight of my sons on that field, only slightly younger than Thaddeus when he stood there, is still a haunting memory twelve years later.

We drove toward the 18 miles south to the site the old town of Pleasant Hill, where rebel and Yankees clashed again three days later. This time, more than 3,000 young men bled in a day-long battle that roared through the old town and into its cemetery. At the end of the day, both sides withdrew to tend their wounds. The Union army marched back to New Orleans. The Confederate returned toward Shreveport. We climbed in the car and begin the trek back to San Antonio.

The boys were quiet. They asked a few questions, about the war, about Thaddeus and what happened afterward.

One, I forget which, allowed that the visit to the battlefields had been fun. “But why did we start where he was hanged? We went backwards,” he said. Our other son snorted with derision. “That’s how you travel in time, stupid.” The discussion escalated and by the time we approached the state line, they were arguing who was going to climb on the “Welcome to Texas” sign for the family photo.

]]> http://sajunk.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/the-road-to-pleasant-hill/feed/ 4 davemc321 300px-MansfieldMapFromBanksOfficaReport http://sajunk.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/yippee-for-yoga/ http://sajunk.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/yippee-for-yoga/#comments Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:52:41 +0000 David McLemore http://sajunk.wordpress.com/?p=787 ]]> I am probably going to have new scars over this.

Street Rack for The News, circa 1978. Sex & Death, the Best of All Possible Stories

True Confessions: In the summer of my youth,* I spent six years toiling in the mines of a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch.  I can honestly say we never hacked anyone’s cell phones, largely because no one had cell phones.

This was late 1974 when I signed on as a weekend cop reporter for the San Antonio Express, the AM paper. Murdoch, his reputation as a  schlockmonger well established, had bought the Express and its PM  sister paper, The News, a few years earlier. Things would never be the same in San Antonio.

I was assured the Express was the ‘legitimate’ journal.  The Express was the ‘newspaper of record’ which is journalese for ‘boring.’ It was gray and very Times New Roman and top heavy with facts and detail of monumental irrelevance. The News was transformed by an army of Australian journeyman editors who taught the Texans the virtue of loud if misleading headlines, short, punchy leads and short, very short, stories. They also introduced spectacularly heavy drinking. The paper itself was redesigned in garish colors and big-type headlines that focused on crime and oddities, often in combination. MAN BITES OFF OWN FINGERS, EATS THEM screamed one News headline. They were proud of that one.

The News, however, tried not to let many facts get in the way of a good story. Among some of the stories I recall and other anomalies:

• One enterprising reporter came up with a story at Lackland Air Force Base where foreign students barracked as they learned English. A ‘spokesman’ reported that students had been under assault by a shadowy group armed with ‘experimental ice guns’ that left no sign of a bullet after you were shot. It turned out not to be true.
• When Prince Charles visited San Antonio in the late ’70s, the News went nuts. Maps of his touring sites, biographical lists on the prince and the royal family. And an ‘exclusive’ front-page interview with the prince by a young News reporter. Which turned out to be  a three-paragraph story growing from the single question the reporter shouted out to the Prince as he walked through a crowd. That was it. The managing editor couldn’t understand why AP didn’t want it. Seriously.
• Murdoch also introduced Page 3 Girls and The Star. Instead of the photos of topless ‘actresses’ that graced his London publications, the News used women in bikinis who looked a little hard around the edges and more than a little tired from an overnight gig dancing at a strip club. We were so proud. The Star, a garish weekend magazine filled with photos of actors in bikinis and breathless accounts of their fights, affairs and divorces. was an abbreviated version of Murdoch’s bigger version. It’s still around.

You can’t make this crap up. Though the News certainly tried. It wasn’t all terrible or unethical. A host of young talent learned how to write tight, if not always with clarity. The learned how to meet deadlines, day after day. And they learned not to take themselves so seriously – something those of us working on the Express side took a while longer to catch.

I left the Express in 1981 for the grandeur that was The Dallas Morning News. Hearst bought the Express-News in 1993 and San Antonio journalism was never as stark raving mad or fun.

*OK, it was not so much the summer of my youth as the early fall. I had a slow start. Details.

UPDATE: Corrected more creative spelling of cell phones. Spelling Nazis!

UPDATE II: I have been informed by readers that (a.) ‘right tight’ should be ‘write tight’ and that (b.)  Hearst bought the E-N on Jan. 28, 1993. Clearly, I need to hire an editor.

Since I was a kid, growing up near Houston, I have always been fascinated by Pickett’s Charge, the defining moment of the Battle of Gettysburg. It seems to capture the glory and absolute stupidity of that war. Thousands of men died in about 90 minutes for literally nothing. Finally, this summer, I got to see it myself.

Look at the treeline towards the rear of this photo. There, at about 1 p.m. on July 3, 1863, more than 12,000 Confederate soldiers walked into the sunshine and marched into the final day of battle at Gettysburg and into a dreadful history.

Gen. George Pickett, whose division of Virginians made up the lion’s share of the force, moved them out into a line to attack roughly 10,000 Union soldiers aligned along Cemetery Ridge. The Union position was just this side of the stone wall in the foreground of the photo. It was to be the grand attack that broke the Union center and give Lee a victory. Or at least buy time.

All accounts record the Confederates marched slowly forward, arranged in parade-ground formation.  Their regimental flags snapped and the sun glinted off the musket barrels . It was, all agreed, a moving and lovely sight. They had about a mile of open ground to cover.

Union cannon opened up as the Confederates moved into the grassy area before them. Huge wholes opened in the line, men screamed and others rushed to fill their ragged line and make it orderly As they hit the picket fence about a third of the way, the neat lines broke as Rebel soldiers climbed over the wooden fence or began dismantling it. Union cannon continued to pour steel into their line. Still they came forward.

Finally, the Union troops opened fire with their muskets, punishing the grey line and forcing them to pinch together, aimed at the rock fence line. Finally, those who were left ran forward, screaming the rebel yell, into point-blank musket fire. Union cannon changed to cannister shot that ripped into the Rebel line with thousands of small, iron balls. Only a handful, perhaps 200, led by Gen. Lewis Addison Armistead, waving his hat on the point of his sword, pushed beyond the stone wall and into a Union battery. Armistead died there. It is called the high-water mark of the Confederacy, the farthest north they got.

Nearly 13,000 Southern soldiers marched out that day. More than 5,000 fell dead or gravely wounded onto that sun-splashed field. The rest crawled and limped back nearly a mile to the Southern line. Lee, concerned that the Union might counter-attack, ordered Pickett to move his division into a defensive line. “General,” Pickett said. “I have no more division.”

The only way to see this ground is in silence. Even the flood of tourists belched out of the tour buses that rumble around the Gettysburg battlefield stare out across this open space in mute awe. That’s how I left it.

In Intruder In the Dust, William Faulkner described the lasting impact Pickett’s charge had on those growing up in the South. And maybe the North too. Faulkner gets the last word.

For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time.