pyroguysr's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Washington Squirrels I will again be away at the Maryland Ren Fest for the next 10 days or so with limited access to a computer, so here is the promised story I wrote about my first visit to the Vietnam War Memorial. It was published in the book, "Between The Pages" by HWG publications and available ONLY at the Highland Indiana Borders Books. January 28, 2001 Washington D. C. has the friendliest squirrels in the Nation. * * * * * �How much does a cab cost from the hotel to the White House?� I ask the bellhop. �Oh, $7 or $8� he replies, deceptively. I�ve taken an eight-block cab ride in Chicago that cost me as much. Can�t be that far! So, the trek begins as I walk this fine morning from my hotel to the center of our Nations Capital. A short time later, while not hopelessly lost, I could not seem to find any of the landmarks that had previously peeked out at me from the tops of the buildings. Washington D.C. appears to be a city of foreigners. In the course of my walk, when I�d become somewhat disoriented, I�d asked for directions several times. Typical of the response I got was one woman that crossed the street with me. �Where do I find the tourist traps?� I ask politely, remembering to smile and appear mostly harmless. �Huh?� she replied in a startled manner that also indicated annoyance that I�d interrupted her reverie. �The Capitol, the monuments?� �I don�t know!� she says in a thick accent and walks away. She�s in the Nations Capitol and doesn�t know where the monuments are? I think to myself incredulously. Yes, somewhere in my sojourn, I had quit paying attention to where I was going, enamored with the architecture and the transition from bohemian university digs to sleepy brownstones to apartment complexes and finally, office buildings. I had walked up Connecticut St. to 18th. Knowing that 1600 Pennsylvania Ave couldn�t be TOO far away, I turned on Massachusetts Ave. and enjoyed the non-irony of The Boston House being on this street. I passed many bistro�s such as Rosemary�s Thyme, an Ethiopian Caf� (where, upstairs, an Ethiopian dentist practiced his craft) and then the Embassies. Naturally, the Phillippine Embassy was on Bataan Way. Why it was the only embassy with a strong security gate/wall around it, I don�t know. The Uzbekistan Embassy did intrigue me, though. First, it�s simply fun to say �Uzbekistan.� Secondly, that poor little country occupies a grandiose Victorian townhouse that must cost them half their gross national product! Across from the Phillippine Embassy is a roundabout with yet another grand statue to a revolutionary war general that is utterly unknown outside the Pentagon circles. Electing to go �right,� as is appropriate in the year George W. Bush is inaugurated as president, I reached 16th Avenue. Travelling down it�s Corridor of Associations, I�m tempted to go into the National Geographic society, but I pass, wanting first to see the White House and then, my ultimate destination of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. With a sigh, I came to a quiet park with apparent construction going on or temporary scaffolding in the process of being dismantled. Enjoying the quiet, I called my wife on my cellular phone and sat on a park bench. �Hello dear,� I said when she answered. �Hi!!� she said back, enthusiastically. �I�ve been walking for about an hour, looking for the,� I stopped and began to chuckle. �Well, I guess I�ve FOUND the White house!� It appeared that the scaffolding and construction had been left over from the previous weekend�s inaugural. I informed her when I�d be home and that I�d arranged for a ride to join her and our son at a Super Bowl party. Hanging up, I looked to see an intrepid squirrel on the bench next to me, staring patiently, intently and looking at me, full of hope for a treat. �Hello, Mr. Squirrel!� I said, ignoring the other gender possibilities. I must not have insulted him, for he hopped right over to my bench and then proceeded to climb my arm and perched, expectantly, waiting for his treat. A search of my pockets did nothing to dissuade him from his stance. I found a packet of crackers from the flight I�d taken into the city and opened it. Handing him what was left of it, he joyfully jumped off my arm, sat next to me and quickly stuffed the contents into his cheek. I fumbled in my pockets to get at my camera and take a picture of this pastoral sight when Mr. Squirrel noticed what I was doing. He gave me a frightened look and scampered behind my back, off the bench and up a tree. It was at that point that I realized he may have been in the country illegally. I laughed aloud at my absurd thoughts because there was no one around me, otherwise I would have been thought quite insane. It was almost eerily quiet on Pennsylvania Ave. until a group of young people on rollerblades arrived, taking candid pictures of themselves in front of the White House as they posed in silly, bizarre and ridiculous ways. A feisty female officer with an attitude three times bigger than her size, walked up to them and announced in forte voice, �Anyone with any backpacks [they] might have on, must move away from the area immediately!� They ignored her until she was among them and made the announcement again. Most of these kids were a head taller than her, but she was not deterred and was able to disperse them rapidly and without incident. It wasn�t until they left that I noticed a police officer on a motorized bicycle had pulled up in support. I walked up to the fence and took a picture of the stately residence and turned left to the Treasury Building. Passing the young policewoman, I smiled and nodded hello. She didn�t smile back, but did give me a �Good morning, sir.� Ah, I love it when people take their jobs almost too seriously. At the Treasury building�s Pennsylvania Ave. entrance has a statue of Albert Gallatin. Who is Albert Gallatin, you might ask? I did. Well, evidently he was either the first Secretary of the Treasury, or one of THE Secretaries of the Treasury. His statue stands proudly and, on the base it reads: ALBERT GALLATIN Secretary of the Treasury (doesn�t say when, though) Genius of Finance Senator and Representative (doesn�t say from where) Commissioner for the Treaty of the Orient (whatever THAT was) Minister to France and Great Britain (gee, what DIDN�T this guy do??) Champion of Democracy 1761 � 1849 Because my job involves finance, this Mr. Gallatin now has me intrigued! I will have to go onto the internet and see just what it is about him that prompted the government to erect this statue! I walk back in the direction of the White House to look at a map posted there when I noticed a white van stop. A mechanical noise caught my attention fully and I observed a barricade being lowered, allowing the van passing through. It was then that I noticed SEVERAL white vans parked in the vicinity. Unmarked white vans. Generic white vans. Conspicuously unmarked, generic white vans with government plates. The only vehicles on the street! Hmmmm... possibly the Not-So-Secret Service? FBI? Shock troops? Anti-terrorist, para-military, jump-into-action type guys that maybe got a little jumpy when those kids with the rollerblades and backpacks got a tad too close to the Presidential Palace and called the feisty young policewoman into action? I laughed inwardly at the thought, believing that I�d seen one too many spy movies in my lifetime and how much life now imitates art. The thought that Tom Arnold and Arnold Schwartzenegger (or Chad and his Parannihalators) might be crouching in one of these panel trucks and looking at all sorts of electronic gear was beginning to tickle my funnybone. Here we are in �the land of the free and the home of the brave� and they have had to block off the streets around the White House for fear of a Timothy McVey type terrorist attack. Did Clinton have this done because he actually had to fear his public�I think to myself� or was it so that no one could see him boffing another intern? Oh, wait� Bush is in the White House now! Must be the �anti-chad, terrorist squad.� Chuckling to myself, meander around the White House perimeter, tagging along behind a large family, listening to each of the children talk excitedly about seeing this icon of our government. Walking along the south side of the fenced and landscaped government grounds, we peer between the brush and the name-tagged trees at the majesty of this 200 year-old edifice. As we walk, the children yell out �Hello, Mr. Bush!� and joke about hopping the fence to get inside and shake his hand. Their father points to the electronic boxes that hum a few feet away and says, �Go ahead, see if you get past those sensors!� Mom quips that they manage to get past his all the time. I think to myself that they wouldn�t get far. Inside the gates are more of those unobtrusive, conspicuously unmarked gray vans (as opposed to the outside white vans) that look horribly out of place among the three or four black limousines parked there. I take another picture from other side of the white house and turn to stare at The Mall. On the map I�d looked at earlier, my ultimate destination, The Wall, was somewhere off to the left. Skirting the large green strip of grass that makes up The Mall, I head for the kiosks I�d noticed in the distance. I�ve developed a bit of peckishness from my 90-minute walk and began to search for a food vendor among the souvenir booths. I walk past the lavishly pretentious headquarters for the lavishly pretentious Daughters of the American Revolution and stroll up to a cart to get a polish dog. So it is with a good deal of hesitation that I ask the vendor, who is Chinese and speaks broken English, where I might find the Vietnam Vet Memorial. I�m surprised when he replies, �Down to the light, turn right, two blocks.� Ahh� it�s wonderful to be in Tourist Trap Country again! I walk to the park between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln memorial and run across some of my co-workers from Indiana that attended the same soiree. �Hey, Jack!� they shout out. �You�re going the wrong way!� I call back, indicating the sign to the memorial. �We�ve just been there!� they tell me. I look at them and want to say �But not with a real-life Viet Nam Vet, you haven�t!� I don�t, though. Something deters me, wanting to make this pilgrimage alone. It is with a sadness that I realize most of them were probably in diapers at the time of that conflict. A couple of them hadn�t even been born yet when I had been there! No, I don�t call out. I don�t implore them to com with me and search out the names of those from our area that had perished, cut down in their prime; those that I had known personally. Instead, I make my way along, gravely silent and alone. I feel the emotion welling up inside me as I approach and take a photo. A book is at each entrance, providing an alphabetical listing of the names I�m searching for. I look up the first. Bob Kikkert. His father owned Kikkert School Bus Service in Lansing and he had a cute sister I liked. Back then, he hadn�t liked me much, being protective of his sibling. He had died in an explosion of a gun turret on the USS Newport News. I remember seeing the ship with it�s twisted and torn 1� steel plate 10 days later in the Phillippines. Kikkert, Robert 22 Jan 54 1 Oct 72 Munster IN Panel 1W, Line 78. I write that down in a notepad and, being the curious one, look to see if a Kus had perished in the war (an odd peculiarity of mine, having such an unusual last name. I also search phonebooks in each city to find it.) Nothing. However, I come across another familiar name: Kurella, Michael. 30 Aug 46 14 Feb 68 Whiting, IN Panel 39E. I shake my head. I knew his sister. She had dated my cousin, Tom. I scribble that name and location down and head to the next name on my list. Slack, Donald 14 Jul 48 18 Aug 68 Munster, IN Panel 48W, line 48. I knew Donald from CYO at St. Thomas Moore Catholic School in Munster. He�d come to church in full uniform one Sunday prior to his leaving for the war. We children had gathered excitedly about him, admiring the suave, gaudy uniform of the USMC. I scan across the page, noticing, for the first time, how young they all were. I shake my head and pull out my notebook to write down Donalds information. He was killed one month and four days after his 20th birthday. I shake my head at the thought. What a waste of young, human life! I move on as others stand around me, awaiting their chance to look up a loved one. I�d sworn I wasn�t going to get emotional at the memorial, but one can�t help it. It�s a bleak, stark memorial to a devastatingly stark war that television news brought into our homes each night at dinnertime. I felt the tears, hurt and pain of all the people that were there to remember a loved one or a fallen comrade. Walking along and reading, I felt the agony that each name represented; each shrapnel wound, each bullet hole, each firebomb, crash or explosion. I felt the suffering of those that had died from disease and dysentery. I felt the insanity of the decisions made in that distant, unforgiving politician�s war. We fought� WE, the children of oilworkers, steelworkers and other blue-collar Joe�s, we fought on, without a clear goal or direction and without a sense of purpose, other than we had been drafted or volunteered our services. By the time I found the last name, I could feel hot tears running down my cheeks; an all too common site at this memorial. Like me, everyone else is trapped inside personal memories of this space in time and no one notices yet another crying Vet. A group of people congregate to listen as a Park Ranger reviews the history of the wall. One of them, an older man, glances at me, his eyes streaming as well as he silently weeps. The little boy to his left asked, �Why is Grandpa crying, Mommy?� I shake my head. By God, I screamed to myself, I hope that this child will never have to find out why! I hope with all my heart that he will never have to experience the feelings that his grandfather and I silently share right now. I glance at the older man for a moment and he catches me looking. Our eyes are still misty, our cheeks flushed and we sniff at our inner pain. We give each other a nod in silent acknowledgement. Not able to take it much longer, I move on. Tired now from my trek, I go in search of a bathroom. I visit the Lincoln Memorial, less that a block away from where I stood sobbing. Drying my eyes, I head up there and read the words of Mr. Lincoln, visit the small museum in its basement and take care of my personal needs. I go back up the stairs and take the obligatory photographs, realizing again that the bad part of wandering alone is that you get all kinds of photographs, but none with you in them. I wander over to the cab stand to my right, contemplating a ride back to the hotel. Looking at my watch, I see that I still have 45 minutes or so before I HAVE to be back, and decide to wander some more. I spot another sign to my right. The Korean War Memorial. I�d recently read about it and walk over. It�s not as gluttonously stark as the Vietnam Memorial. It is a group of statues depicting a platoon of soldiers walking on patrol. Each statue represents a member of the countries that participated in this �U.N. Police Action.� I walk completely around the memorial. What strikes me is that, no matter what angle you approach the scene, the lead statue seems to be staring directly at you. The one at the rear is a radioman and I could almost hear him implore, �Jesus, man! Get a move on! Let�s GO!� It is sided by one wall with ghostly images etched into the same black marble as the Vietnam Memorial. At this one, the etchings are photographs of those that served during that conflict that the M*A*S*H television program so poignantly brought into our homes and hearts. I thought of my uncles that served in that war, of community friends and comrades in the VFW that served there, but were denied �Combat� status by the government because it had been considered a mere (though just as deadly) �Police Action� by our government for so many years. Just like us veterans that served in Vietnam, the �welcome home� from our government and people that was so long overdue was finally recognized a few years ago due to a skirmish-called-war; Desert Storm. I head back from there and walk over to the kiosks. I buy my wife a charm for her bracelet and then purchase a bag of nuts. Sitting at another bench, I am greeted by relatives of my White House squirrel. They hop up to me, unabashed and expectant, their tails waving with each leap. Nor do the birds beneath my bench bother to move from pecking at a crushed pretzel below me. I smile and greet the two squirrels as I sit and eat. Both hop up on my pant leg, causing me to suck in my breath as their claws feel like little pins stabbing me. The two sit on each knee and look at me, almost begging for a treat. I give them each a cashew and they happily chew away along with me. As I�m feeding them, a little girl walks by me, grinning. �Look, Mommy!� Yes, Washington D.C. has the friendliest squirrels in the world. Even my cabbie said so on the ride back to the hotel. 3:28 a.m. - 2004-09-17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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