Zele Community Table: Our Veterans

December 4th, 2007 at 07:38pm Zele Community Table 117

Zele Community Table

November 20, 2007

Lieutenant Colonel Dick Merritt (retired Marines); Dan Glidden Aspen Police Department Patrolman (Navy Seaman); Shae Singer, daughter of a veteran; Michael Conniff.

Michael Conniff: Who have you interviewed for the Roaring Fork Veterans History Project?

Dick Merritt: Frank Dolinsek and Gino Hollander in Aspen, Ralph Ball in Carbondale, John Tripp in Carbondale, Dick McCrudden in Carbondale, Shae Singer! Why don’t you sit down? We’re doing 20 per year, interviewing at-risk veterans. The older ones, a 90-year-old, escaped from the Holocaust. He was in a German labor camp, fleeing to the United States. Kurt Bresnitz is his name. He joined the U.S. Army Battle of the Bulge and then liberated Dachau.

MC: Was your father a veteran?

Shae Singer: He was a colonel in the Air Force. He was based Cape Canaveral, and he was in Annapolis in Maryland. He actually didn’t have active duty and he was in communications and design of airplanes from remote places. He was setting up satellite dishes as big a city block. The plan was for him to retire here but he passed away.

MC: Do you think having a father in the military affected the way you look at things?

SS: Absolutely. I have a greater respect for the military, for all the Armed Forces. People had a pride in the military. What they did seemed more important and worldly conscious as opposed to some of the wars we’ve been involved in. They were fighting to protect the world against Hitler, rather than creating a war over oil. Protecting our homeland is extremely important. Things are happening all over the world—that’s what we should be defending. Now we don’t have our feet on the right path. The young people joining the military are not getting the help when they come back. People are being drafted for being in the National Guard. I’m a member of the National Guard and they haven’t called me. That’s beyond me, going to Iraq, having done nothing for fifteen years. Back then, it meant doing100 hours of community service and passing our Morse Code test. To say we should go shooting, that’s ludicrous.

MC: Do you worry about it?

SS: If you pay attention, every day some housewife in Arvada gets called up and she’s in charge of cooking in a hot zone and comes back without an arm and a leg. Then: “Sorry, here’s a plastic arm and plastic leg.”

MC: Have any National Guard gone to Iraq from the valley?

SS: No National Guard that we’re aware of. A couple active-duty Marines but no National Guard I know of. There are a handful enlisted people here.

DM: Amber DeLucca is a Navy Corpsmen in Iraq.

SS: My fiancée went to Vietnam and when he came back he was gone. He couldn’t come back. I worked in television for NBC and ABC and I went to all the bad places. There was a kill list in the press and there were 100 people and I was on it.

MC: What were the bad things you saw?

SS: I was in Salvador and they were throwing babies out windows to get your attention. It doesn’t matter now. War is war, and when you see these things it changes you.

MC: You never married your fiancée.

SS: He came back, but there’s nothing you can do. Whatever the choice was, I wasn’t in the worst of the worst, I wasn’t in bad places in bad times. I hear a backfire, or something, I’ll get something, I get sick to my stomach. Even now, I know they’re coming with guns and going to take it away. You hear and see these things and then our government doesn’t help. You signed up, you’re doing this, and you’re changed, and not just people missing a visible arm and leg. You can’t see your head.

DM: There are signs of PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] in this community and forty years later they’re probably getting treatment.

SS: Forty years to relax their guard.

DM: This war is exacerbating everything.

Dan Glidden: A number of veterans are homeless.

MC: Does that surprise you?

DG: Yes, but not really.

DM: With Vietnam veterans there are 58,000 names on the wall but 130,000 suicides—more people than were killed in combat.

SS: I’m going to have bad dreams.

MC: If you were called, would you go to Iraq?

SS: It’s not a fair question. I feel strongly we have an amazing country. I don’t think I should be called to something I don’t believe in. They should say: “Go to Katrina and serve in Katrina.” I don’t know, I don’t know.

MC: What about other veterans?

DG: This last veteran’s day, an old-timer talked about Japan and being a prisoner. My guess is the first time he’s ever talked about it. He’s emotional about it.

DM: This veteran’s history project is bringing it out. They’re at-risk. They want to pass something on so through these interviews so they can tell their stories. A lot of tears are being shed. It’s very important to tell their story through the Library of Congress, the Aspen Historical Society, and for their families.

DG: I’m overwhelmed to be a part of that. That little old me, going down in history in a good way. The Vietnam veterans tend to get a bad rap because a lot of them who didn’t get help and haven’t come back.

MC: Do you ever think that could be you?

DG: There but for the Grace of God. Absolutely.

DM: I do. There was no parade. We came back alone.

DG: I hope we’re smarter about it and recognize what the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are going through.

DM: We’re bringing them into our ceremony. We have two active Marines in Iraq from the valley. We’re bringing them under our wing.

DG: I hope the government does something.

DM: Absolutely. I’m reading “The Coldest Winter”  by David Halberstam. I’ve studied Korea but politically this is a great book. The politicians were blinded to the fact we would end all wars and disbanded the military. Then Korea hit, we didn’t have the troops or equipment. Troops were ceremonial and not for fighting. And the story of Harry Truman and MacArthur. The fact that MacArthur was relieved of his duties. Politicians led us into Vietnam. And into Iraq.

DG: Déjà vu all over again. Donald Rumsfeld’s an incarnation of Robert McNamara.

MC: Have you seen “Fog of War”?

DM: The mea culpa from McNamara didn’t wash. He has a home in Snowmass. I’ve seen him skiing at Highlands. Margie’s Hut is named after his wife.

DG: What astonishes me is the military mentality. Neither one [McNamara or Rumsfeld] had been in the military or had any experience. You need to have someone in there who’s been there.

DM: Cheney had “other priorities.”

MC: What about the Tenth Mountain Division?

DM: First of all, this community was built on the return of 10^th Mountain Division veterans. They brought the European influence, they retreated from Hitler but they were lovers of the mountain. They came to Alta, Sun Valley, and Aspen.

MC: What about the Korean veterans?

DM: Citizens were more puzzled by that war. When they returned there wasn’t the anti-war sentiment. Jim Markalunas is an example. He lives on North Street, raised in Aspen, Worked in the water department, town council, a sexton at Aspen Grove Cemetery, Dan is a vice president and I’m a member there. We’re working with the Salvation Army and the Good Shephard. Carrying on Marine Corps traditions—Jim pushed for and got a flagpole, he participates. We interviewed him for our project. He was Marine Corps Air Wing in very cold weather, part of the transition for Corsairs to jet age. Ted Williams was in Korea. He went into the Marine Corps in World War II and came back, hit .406, then got called up for Korea and never made one complaint. He came back and played. He’s one of my heroes.

MC: It must drive you nuts to see what’s happening to the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

DM: It does.

DG: It makes you remember things.

DM: It does. The veterans I know have been pillars of strength. They’ve given so much and now they have to go to the VA in Grand Junction and turn themselves in for PTSD. Walter Reed is the tip of the iceberg. They didn’t budget for this level of casualties, the stress on the troops, 7 months over and 7 months back, and Army and National Reserve 12-month tours extended for 15 months. I refer to this as the backdoor draft. We had it during Vietnam but in this all-volunteer force we don’t have the manpower. That’s what happened in Rome. They had to rely on the barbarians. We’re doing a similar thing. I’ve read about Pakistanis, Indians, as barbarians and a mercenary force and no relation to our country and culture.

DG: At least when we came back, people hated you. When they came back from Korea, they were ignored. That hurts too.

DM: World Ware II veterans and Korean veterans are similar in age and they fought conventional wars. They’re the same age. Jim is one of the younger ones. Whereas we Vietnam veterans fought unconventional guerilla-type warfare. Operation Hastings, the battle of 10-66, the battle of July 1966.

DG: Viet Minh and Viet Cong were all guerilla war. After Tet, it became a conventional war. Khe Sanh was a siege. I’m delighted Korean War veterans are getting a memorial.

DM: They’ve got statues there. It’s not a huge memorial. One thing I’d like to comment about is the relative number of soldiers and marines. Korea had 42,000 killed, or 14,000 per year. Vietnam 58,000 with a ten-year average of 5,800. There are still 8,100 missing in action; 2,100 still missing in Vietnam.

DG: Bob said on your talk show we’re becoming more aware of other veterans.

DM: We’re becoming a brotherhood. That veterans memorial in the park is for all veterans. We want the veterans to be remembered and to have a place to go. The Aspen Elks Lodge has been very, very supportive. They host a luncheon and a community barbeque on Memorial Day. It’s a major community draw. And we have young people involved. We have the Cub Scouts participating in the flag-raising ceremony. We’re trying to perpetuate this.

DG: We’re reaching out to other vets. We will not let happen to those guys what will happen to us.

Entry Filed under: Politics, Aspen, Foreign Policy, Pitkin County, United Post