Tag: history

At the Corner of Oglethorpe and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Last week, on a trip to Savannah, Georgia, I found myself standing at the corner of Oglethorpe Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the intersection, and I felt the weight of history pressing down on that spot. The street names are a metaphor in one of America’s oldest cities, where the past is never far from view. In Savannah’s history, beauty and brutality entwine like the Spanish moss that drapes its live oaks.

Oglethorpe founded Georgia in 1733. He was initially complicit in systems of oppression, including the Atlantic slave trade. Savannah was one of the most active ports receiving prisoners at the end of their “middle passage.” But later, after witnessing the moral rot that slavery inflicted, Oglethorpe became one of the earliest advocates for abolition. King, born two centuries later, dedicated his life to dismantling the structures of oppression that had calcified into American bedrock.

Standing there, I couldn’t help but see this street corner as a physical manifestation of our national paradox, the constant tension between our worst impulses and our highest ideals.

We all know how this contradiction runs through every chapter of our story. Thomas Jefferson penned words about equality and inalienable rights while enslaving over 600 human beings throughout his lifetime. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, yet within a decade, Black Codes and convict leasing created new systems of forced labor. We fought a world war against fascism with a segregated military, then returned home to a nation where those same soldiers couldn’t sit at lunch counters beside the people they’d fought to protect.

The GI Bill opened pathways to college and homeownership for millions, but discriminatory implementation meant Black veterans were systematically excluded from these opportunities, creating a wealth gap that reverberates today. We built the Interstate Highway System to connect our nation while bulldozing thriving Black neighborhoods to do it.

Our contradictions are brutally visible in our treatment of Native peoples. The ideals of liberty coexisted with policies of forced removal, such as the Trail of Tears that passed through the state of Georgia. Under the banner of divine providence, we displaced entire nations, stripping them of their lands and cultures. Later, federal programs sought to “assimilate” Native children by removing them from their families and erasing their languages in boarding schools.

Many immigrant stories reveal similar paradoxes. The Statue of Liberty promised refuge — “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” — yet waves of newcomers faced hostility and exclusion. We celebrated Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty while turning away ships of Jewish refugees. Chinese laborers who helped build the transcontinental railroad were later targeted by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Irish and Italian immigrants were met with suspicion and violence. During World War II, Japanese Americans were interned behind barbed wire, not for crimes but for ancestry. Each generation of immigrants, it seems, has had to fight to prove its belonging in a nation supposedly founded on welcome.

Even our progress reveals the pattern. Brown v. Board of Education declared school segregation unconstitutional in 1954, yet decades later, our schools remain deeply divided by race and opportunity. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 protected ballot access, yet we’re still fighting over voter ID laws, polling place closures, and redistricting schemes designed to dilute minority votes. We elected our first Black president, then watched as hate crimes and white nationalist organizing surged in response.

And the gap between the haves and have-nots continues to widen. Federal Reserve data shows that the richest 10 percent of American households now own over two-thirds of the nation’s total wealth. Even more telling, the top 1 percent holds 31% percent of our total wealth, just slightly less than the entire bottom 90 percent of U.S. households.1

And yet, I remain hopeful, because America has always been a story of striving. The arc of our history may be jagged, but it bends toward justice when enough of us pull together. From abolitionists and suffragists to civil rights marchers, from modern activists for climate justice to the organizers for LGBTQ+ rights, we continue to strive.

I felt this strongly in my recent participation at a No Kings protest. Progress has never been a gift from the powerful and wealthy. We who believe in a more perfect union must demand it! This is vital to remember at our current juncture in American history, when oligarchs are more brazenly exerting their influence over every aspect of our culture.

As I stood at that intersection in Savannah, the hum of traffic surrounding me, I imagined Oglethorpe and King in conversation, two men separated by centuries yet ultimately united by conscience. Perhaps they would agree that the true test of a nation is not whether it avoids hypocrisy, but whether it keeps pushing toward redemption.

We are still standing at that intersection between what America has been and what it can yet become. And if we listen closely, we will hear Dr. King’s voice reminding us that the dream is not dead.  

It is waiting for us to live it out.

1 – Wealth Inequality – Inequality.org

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The Certificate of Merit

December 29, 1890, South Dakota

Snow lay thick over the plains. At the edge of Wounded Knee Creek, the air crackled with a cold that bit through wool and leather. Private Edward Dutton adjusted his overcoat, stamping his feet to keep warm. The rising sun offered little comfort, its light sharpening the outlines of the Lakota camp below. He could hear their distant voices, punctuated by barking dogs and the neighing of horses.

The 7th Cavalry had encircled the camp under orders to disarm the Miniconjou Sioux, but the regiment’s formation felt more like a noose than a peacekeeping gesture. To fortify their plan, they had positioned four Hotchkiss guns on the ridge, cannons able to fire 68 rounds a minute. Dutton, eighteen years old and only a few months into his enlistment, felt dread twisting in his gut. He had realized he would see armed action, but he hadn’t expected it like this. Tension thrummed in the air.

The Lakota, numbering about 350, knew that the US Army, spurred by settlers in nearby towns, were fearful of their participation in the Ghost Dance, a ceremony sweeping through tribes of the plains, promising an apocalyptic end to the white invaders. Now, with the cavalry perched above them, anxiety rippled through their ranks.

The order came to move down from the ridge. Dutton heard Colonel Forsyth, using an interpreter, order the surrender of weapons. The cavalry began confiscating rifles and knives, placing them in a pile, but a Lakota medicine man named Yellow Bird started to harangue the native warriors in a loud voice.

“Do not be afraid of them,” he shouted in their language. “Be brave and resist! The Ghost Shirts you are wearing will stop their bullets!”

Then came a single shot. No one knew who fired it, but chaos erupted, gunfire bursting like thunderclaps and screams piercing the air as soldiers fired indiscriminately into the tribespeople. Edward raised his Springfield rifle almost unconsciously, the instinct of his training fueled by fear, and it bucked against his shoulder with each discharge.

Most of the Lakota fled in panic—men, women, and children—but some tried to fight back by grabbing rifles from the pile. The Hotchkiss guns roared from the ridge, spewing death in iron bursts. Explosions ripped through the tipis, flinging bodies into the snow.

Edward watched as a young boy ran past him, his cheeks flushed with terror. The soldier beside him, Sergeant James Ward, pulled his trigger. The boy crumpled face-first into the snow as Edward’s breath caught in his throat. Then he saw a woman clutching a baby scurry from behind a tipi. Ward discharged his rifle. The woman dropped and the infant rolled from her arms, mewling in the bloodied snow.

Edward lowered his weapon. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. His mind screamed for this madness to stop.

“Keep firing, son!” ordered Ward, and Dutton did, zombie-like, contributing to the bloodbath, each bullet chipping away at his humanity.

By mid-morning, the field was a massacre. Nearly three hundred Lakota lay dead. Their bodies froze where they had fallen, limbs twisted, faces caught in final moments of agony. Soldiers walked among the corpses, collecting weapons, overturning bodies. One trooper laughed as he pulled a necklace from a dead woman’s neck. Another prodded the body of a warrior with his bayonet, checking for movement. The young brave lay still, wrapped in his buckskin Ghost Shirt with its fringed collar. Edward stood in the middle of it all, his rifle limp at his side, his eyes hollow.

In the weeks that followed, Edward received the Certificate of Merit for “gallantry in action.” His citation praised his “steadfastness and courage under fire.” He accepted it with a blank face, unable to meet the eyes of the officer handing him the parchment. He wondered to himself, had no one else doubted their actions that day?

He kept that certificate rolled tight and locked in a cabinet, until years later when his new wife insisted that he hang it in his study.

He spoke rarely of that fateful morning, but the nightmares stayed with him for decades, persistent images of red snow, the cries of women and children, and the echoes of gunfire.

Edward became a clerk, then a station manager for the railways in Denver. He lived a quiet life, raising his family. He drank very little, but when he did, he drank alone, and every year on December 29th he would take the day off, retreating into his study and not emerging until the next morning.

Denver, Colorado, 1928

Dad’s house always smelled of pipe smoke and oiled wood. He was mostly a quiet man, but I knew some of his history, including his time with the 7th Cavalry. Occasionally, I sat with him in his study where his Certificate of Merit hung on the wall, framed in mahogany, its edges curled with age. Because he spoke so rarely of that event, I filled in the gaps as a child, imagining a glorious battlefield, my dad a hero among men.

To his credit, he never encouraged those fantasies. When my mother died, he became even more withdrawn.

Now, in the spring of 1928, he was dying from throat cancer—a slow, rasping decay. I was with him in his study, where he sat in a chair by the window, thinner than I’d ever seen him, a blanket over his knees. His eyes, however, were still sharp, filled with something I couldn’t name.

“Will,” he said, “I need you to take me to South Dakota.”

I raised an eyebrow. “To see someone?”

He shook his head. “No. To do something I should’ve done a long time ago.”

When he told me the destination—the site of Wounded Knee—I didn’t pry any further. If this was his dying wish, I felt privileged to grant it, especially since my other siblings had moved far away from the family home.

We left two days later in my Ford Eifel, the engine humming steadily as we drove across the plains. He didn’t talk much on the first day of our trip, just stared out the window at the endless horizon. But the land seemed to be drawing something out of him, something buried deep. He spoke a little on the second day, telling me of his enlistment in the Army at age 18, how the promise of adventure and romance in the West had seemed infinitely more enticing than living in hardscrabble poverty on the family farm in Kansas. Then he went silent again.

As we crossed into South Dakota, his posture stiffened, and his breathing grew shallower. The reservation settlements were quiet and somber. Children played in the dust, and elders watched us with unreadable expressions. Since it had been so many years, Dad asked directions to Wounded Knee, where a monument had been erected in 1903. No one spoke much, but they pointed the way.

The monument stood alone on a slight hill, a granite obelisk reaching toward the sky. Dad stepped out of the car slowly, leaning on my arm as we walked toward it. Wind whispered through the grass, as if the land was alive with memory. Dad stood before the monument, shoulders hunched, hat in hand. I stayed a few paces behind him, but I could still read the inscription on the marker.

This monument is erected by
surviving relatives and other
Ogallala. and Cheyenne River Sioux
Indians in memory of the
Chief Big Foot Massacre
December 29, 1890
Col. Forsyth in command
U.S. troops
Big Foot was a great chief of the
Sioux Indians. He often said, I will
stand in peace till my last day
comes. He did many good and brave
deeds for the white man and the
red man. Many innocent women and
children who knew no wrong
died here.

Dad stayed there a long time, the grass moving in small waves around his feet. Then, from his coat pocket, he pulled out the Certificate of Merit. I didn’t realize he had it with him. The edges were browned, the ink faded. He held it up, staring at it as if it were a stranger’s face.

“They gave this to me for killing people who couldn’t fight back,” he whispered. “I’ve kept it for thirty-seven years and it has never stopped haunting me. “

His hands trembled slightly. He took out the fancy inlaid lighter he used to stoke his pipe, flicked it once, and held it to the paper. The flame caught, then danced along the edge until the certificate curled and blackened, flakes drifting to the earth.

When it was nearly consumed, he let the ashes fall from his hand at the base of the monument. Then he knelt and touched the earth with his palms. He whispered something I couldn’t hear, but it streamed out of him with a vitality that belied his illness.

He remained like that for many moments, then stood to his full height.

“Please take me home, Will,” was all he said.

We didn’t speak much on the drive back. but I could see that something in him had eased. His hands trembled less, and in a small motel near Cheyenne, he slept without coughing.

Two weeks later, he was gone.

We buried him with a stone cross and little fanfare, just our small family, a few friends, and the wind at his gravesite. I thought about the Certificate of Merit, how it too had found its final resting place in the soil of a land soaked in blood and finally, perhaps, forgiveness.

Epilogue

In the years since, I returned to that hill and its mournful monument. I stood where Dad stood, the sky stretching wide over the plains. I listened, and I swear I could hear his whispers once again.

Some days, sitting in my own study, I wonder what kind of man I would have been in his place. I knew that 20 soldiers had received Medals of Honor for their action at Wounded Knee. Would I have been one to gloss over the massacre? Or would I have tried to resolve my grief as Dad did, burning a certificate that others would say was sacred?

Now and then, when I close my eyes, I imagine Lakota women and children running terrified through the snow, and I see Dad again as he knelt on that hallowed ground. It’s not his guilt I carry—it’s something older, something quieter. A kind of witness. A kind of vow to remember, to return, to always listen.

The pain he carried never fully left him, but he gave me something that day, and it was more lasting than history books or war medals. He gave me the truth. And the truth, I think, is what finally gave him partial peace.

When I teach my children about him, I tell them not just of Edward Dutton, but of the Lakota. I teach them not what was written in the official reports, but what was felt by those who suffered so much. Just as the monument still stands, weathered but firm, so does the vow of so many to never forget what happened there.

It’s a vow I now share, and I believe this is the real merit—the courage not just to fight, but to face the truth when it comes calling.

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A Tale of Two Orphanages

It’s always this way. Call it the vagaries of chance or the randomness of an indifferent universe. Ten soldiers are in a convoy struck by mortar rounds; only two survive. A fire rips through a mountain village; dozens of homes burst into flame while others remain unscathed. A plane makes a crash landing in a cornfield, killing most passengers; a handful walk away from the wreckage. The Guadalupe River in Texas floods a girl’s summer camp, killing dozens; just a week earlier, similar campers had the time of their lives.

Please don’t say it was your god’s will that some lived while others perished. That’s a cruel heaping of insult on injury, and it paints a ghastly picture of your capricious deity.

No. It’s always this way. And so it was with two orphanages in Galveston, Texas on September 8, 1900.

But first, some context.

In 1900, Galveston was at the zenith of its heyday, a bustling port with a population of 38,000, known as the “Wall Street of the Southwest” for its concentration of banks, businesses, and wealthy entrepreneurs. It boasted being the third richest city in the United States in proportion to population. All major railroads connected there, and it exported 60% of the state’s cotton crop, rivaling New Orleans. Its grand Victorian mansions and beachfront attractions earned it the nickname the “Queen City of the Gulf.”

Galveston also had more than its share of orphans, being the last stop for so-called “orphan trains.” Operating between 1854 and 1929, this social experiment transported 200,000 children from crowded Eastern cities to foster homes in the rural Midwest that were short on farming labor. The co-founders of the movement claimed the children were abandoned, abused, or homeless. They were mostly the offspring of immigrants living in urban slums. The movement garnered widespread criticism for its ineffective screening of caretakers and its insufficient follow-ups on placements. In some cases, the children were no better off than slaves after adoption.

By the time these trains rolled into Galveston, the children on board were those found less desirable. They ended up in one of two places: St. Mary’s Orphanage Asylum or the Galveston Orphan’s home. There they shared quarters with orphans whose parents had succumbed to a yellow fever epidemic.

Then came the fateful day of September 8, when a hurricane dubbed the Great Storm of 1900 made landfall on Galveston Island. With sustained winds up to 145 miles per hour and a storm surge reaching 12 feet, it decimated the city. Exact death tolls vary, but some estimates say up to 12,000 perished. Another 10,000 were homeless. The storm is still the greatest natural disaster in terms of its death toll to ever strike the United States. Massive funeral pyres burned everywhere in the aftermath, and barges carried stacks of the dead into the Gulf of Mexico for burial at sea.

St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum housed 93 children aged 2-23, cared for by 10 sisters of the Charity of the Incarnate Word. As the storm began to rage, the nuns, in a desperate attempt to save their young charges, relocated them from the boys’ dormitory to the newer girls’ dorm. From there, they watched the boys’ section collapse under the wind and tide. They offered prayers and sang hymns to comfort the terrified group, but by nightfall, the winds raged at 150 mph. The nuns tied a piece of clothesline around each of their waists and then around the wrists of some of the children, binding their fates together. The mighty storm finally lifted the girls’ dorm off its foundations. The bottom fell out and the roof crashed down. Only three boys survived by clinging to a nearby tree. They were later rescued at sea by some fisherman in a small boat.

Galveston Orphans’ Home had only been in its new structure for five years when the storm hit. Though the central part of the building collapsed, the rest remained stable. Staff and children, as well other residents, took refuge in the stronger sections and all of them survived the cataclysm.

On the anniversary of the storm in 1994, Galveston dedicated a marker at 69th Street and Seawall Boulevard, honoring the former site of St. Mary’s. The hymn Queen of the Waves, which had been sung by the sisters to calm the children, was part of the ceremony.

The Galveston Orphan’s Home was rebuilt with help from generous donors. Today it houses the Bryan Museum, which I recently visited. In its basement are artifacts found at the home after the storm. Among them is a small slipper once worn by a young child.

Two orphanages, two vastly different outcomes. When this happens in life, what can we do?

We can remember.

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Protestin’ in the Wind

Spittin’ in the wind, pissin’ in the wind, protestin’ in the wind. Call it what you want, but that’s what it felt like on a recent Sunday.

I was visiting the care facility where my parents live in Las Vegas, so I decided to join them at their church, hitching a ride in the medical transport van. I don’t adhere to a religion, so it’s hard to sit through any worship service. But this conservative Lutheran version was especially dissonant, like a cheese grater across my brain. Every element of the liturgy made me wince.

  • Hymns that spoke of Jesus coming again in clouds of glory to gather only “the faithful.”
  • Multiple promises of being in heaven rather than working to bring justice on earth.
  • A unison confession of sin that magnified our abject condition apart from Jesus’s saving grace.
  • The Apostle’s Creed, that patriarchal relic with its Trinitarian formula and insistence on superstitious miracles.

What tweaked me the most, however, was the sermon. I had foolishly hoped that the pastor might be hip, since I noticed the motorcycle boots he wore under his alb. It was clearly part of his drip. When I asked, “you ride?” he responded, “yep, it’s the only time I feel free.”

Then came his homily. Its central illustration came from a memorial service he’d attended for a teen who died of a drug overdose. There were two preachers that day. One railed about how the girl didn’t “know Jesus,” and that everyone in attendance should be forewarned about their own salvation. The other preacher was more magnanimous. He revealed a private conversation in which he discovered that the girl had indeed “accepted the Lord.”

That assurance rankled me even more!

I know I should have restrained myself. I chose to be there, live and let live, avoid the landmines of religion and politics. Yeah, yeah. But if there’s anything remaining from my former religious leanings, it’s that I’m a protestant, emphasis on protest.

I approached the pastor after the service.

“Do you mind if I share a reaction to your message?”

“Not at all,” he replied.

I calmed my voice. “Your own scripture says that God is love. God loved this girl before she was born, during every painful hour of her addiction, and even now in whatever awaits us after death. That’s true whether or not she followed your religious formula. Do you really believe that if she hadn’t accepted Jesus, she would be banished into darkness?”

His expression changed. His smile grew tighter. His eyes narrowed.

“Yes, God is love. And God gives us free will to either accept or reject the promises of Jesus.”

It was a standard feint, not a real answer, so I continued.

“On the cross, Jesus said ‘it is finished.’ That applies to all of humanity. It’s a love so inclusive that no human mind can fully understand it.”

His smile slipped further, frown lines forming on his brow.

“You must be a universalist,” he said.

And there it was. Spittin’ in the wind, pissin’ in the wind, protestin’ in the wind. Nothing I said would change his world view; nothing he said would alter mine. In this polarized world—with our moats of doctrine, politics, and privilege—hasn’t this become the norm?

When Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde recently exhorted Donald Trump to have mercy and understand the apprehension felt by many Americans, my friends and I applauded her bravery. Face to face, speaking truth to power. Social media blew up with her image, her words, and profile pics that proclaimed, “I’m with her.”

But Trump and his allies, encamped on el otro lado del rio, were unmoved. They demanded an apology, accusing Budde of being woke, radical left, and mannish.

Spittin’ in the wind, pissin’ in the wind, protestin’ in the wind. It’s the norm, and the fact that our online news streams are shaped by predatory AI only makes the problem worse. As Paul Simon said in The Boxer, “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”

(Flashback. On May 4, 1970, Allison Krause, a student at Kent State University, was one of four unarmed students shot and killed by soldiers of the Ohio Army National Guard. The shootings occurred as students protested against both the invasion of Cambodia and the National Guard presence on their campus. The day before her death, Krause observed a single lilac within the barrel of a guardsman’s gun. An officer ordered the soldier to remove it, and Krause caught the flower as it fell to the ground, stating, “Flowers are better than bullets.” This quote—inscribed on her gravestone—has become synonymous with her legacy of peace activism.)

Return to the present. The US continues to arm countries around the world, especially Israel as it carried out its genocide against the Palestinians. And Donald Trump threatens troop deployment to quell domestic demonstrations.

Can you hear the wind whistling, loud and clear?

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It’s My Duty

The following is one of the stories contained in Street Saints: Voices of Hope from the Hopeless, a book I wrote in 2010 and just recently revised. As a veteran, I offer it to you on Veteran’s Day, 2024.

It was my first day on the job in Alice, Texas—August 2010. A short Black man with a warm smile and very few teeth came through the front door.
            “Are you the new pastor here?” he asked.
            I nodded. “What can I do for you?”
            “I’m wondering if you could help me get a room for the night. I’m a bit down on my luck. Lost my job, been sleeping in my car. I’m looking for work, but nothing yet.”
          I sighed inside but kept my poker face. Do you know how many times I’ve heard that line? The need to reconnect with grace as the foundation of our world view is essential on a daily basis. Without it, we are sorely diminished.
  “What’s your name?” I asked.
            “William.”
            “Well, William. First of all, I rarely give out cash. Second, I haven’t been around here long enough to check out your story with other folks. You know what I mean? To see if you are conning me about looking for work. I’m always willing to help, but I hate being lied to. How long have you been on the street?”
            To William’s credit, he didn’t get defensive. His warm smile remained, natural, not ingratiating.
            “About a month.”
            I stared at him; he held my gaze without flinching. My defensiveness wilted.
            “OK. I’ll write a check for you from my discretionary fund for one night’s lodging. And I’m going to try an experiment. I’ll give you some cash. When you get your job, I expect you to pay me back.”
            “Yes, sir,” he said, his posture straightening. It was then that I saw it – the instinctive military bearing in his shoulders. I heard it in the respect of his voice tone.
            “Are you a veteran?” I asked.
            “Yes, sir. I served in Desert Storm with the first mechanized infantry unit that entered Iraq for mop-up operations.”
            “I was an Army chaplain during that time,” I said, “supporting you guys stateside from Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Thank you for serving, William.”
            “You, too, sir.”
            We had an instant bond, but first impressions are often deceiving. I wrote him a check for a local flophouse hotel, handed him some cash, and we said goodbye. I doubted I would ever see him again, but I knew that if I did, I was going to ask him for his story. I don’t much believe in coincidences anymore. God’s timing is perfect, with more divine appointments for us than we usually recognize through the veil of daily life.
            A month later, William returned. He’d found work at a local nursing home and had my cash for me. I arranged the following interview. I include it in this book because in so many ways it defies the stereotypes we have of those who end up homeless. William is not shiftless, nor lazy, nor deceitful, and his homelessness lasted a very short time. Further, as you will see in the following paragraphs, he is a living piece of American history—one that just happened to walk through my front door at the very moment I was writing this book.
            William Howard Milburn, III, was born in Salem, New Jersey, where he grew up in a family that he claims was constant and supportive.
“I was always proud,” he said, “that I had both a mother and father who stuck together. Most of my friends grew up in single-parent families.”
From the time he was a child he wanted to enter the military, inspired by one of his cousins who flew fighter jets in Vietnam.
            “As kids we always looked up to him. He had his uniform and his medals. He had been around the world and served his country. That meant something to me and my family. Besides (he grins), I watched all those John Wayne movies! I knew I wanted to be a tank driver.”
            As part of the Army National Guard, William finished basic training between his junior and senior year of high school, then after graduation in 1984, went on to advanced training at Fort Knox for the summer.
            On the civilian side of his life, William moved to Cleveland, where he worked first as a diesel mechanic, then as a laborer in a glass factory. But when he got laid off, he decided to check with a recruiter about transferring to active duty in the Army. They gladly processed the paperwork and sent him to his first duty station in Germany.
            “I loved Germany,” he says. “The countryside was beautiful and the people I met were really nice. I got to see where the Berlin Wall had come down and I suddenly got this idea. I was always fond of my history teacher, a bright guy who cared about his students. So, I thought, I’ll bring him a piece of the Berlin Wall. I thought that would be cool. I bought a piece as a souvenir, and when I went home to New Jersey on 30 days leave I went back to my old high school. I had my uniform on. He loved it. He stopped class and had me talk to the kids. Then I handed him the piece of the wall and told him what it was. I said Germany is going to be one country again. He loved it!”
            I could see it clearly; William found pleasure in serving the needs of others. It was part of his make-up. I imagined the warmth that probably filled that teacher’s heart every time he laid his eyes on that unique curio of the Cold War.
            After his leave, William was transferred to Fort Bliss outside San Antonio, Texas, part of the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment. Now a buck sergeant, he had a chance to go to the NCO academy and continue his training. He was at Bliss when Allied Forces amassed for the repulsion of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, the world conflict we would come to know as the Gulf War. William didn’t blink. He felt it was his duty to be there. He volunteered to go to Saudi Arabia as part of an advance wave unloading tanks off C-130s and preparing them for combat.
            “We would drive them off, park them, check the radios, load them with live ammunition, do the necessary maintenance. These were brand new M1A1 heavies with the solid, silent tracks. These vehicles were awesome. Flat out, they could catch you on the highway for sure. When you started them up, the gas turbines sounded like jet engines. They had 11,000 rounds for the tank itself, and of course many more for the 50-caliber machine gun on top.
            “By now we could hear the cluster bombs exploding across the border in Iraq, a constant background in the distance. You have to imagine this—explosions coming at the speed of a machine gun, but each one as loud as a crack of thunder. It made you tremble, especially because we knew they were miles and miles away. We would look up and see our fighter jets soaring overhead. It boosted our morale. Sometimes we’d be out getting chow and a pilot would come down low, then hit his afterburners, fire coming out the rear as the jet headed straight up. We would cheer, thinking, Man, that’s some awesome stuff. Them boys are bad!”
            Anticipation grew among the ranks and in William’s heart. Like countless veterans before him, they knew that this was what they had trained for, but the reality was stark, almost surreal. As the bombing campaign continued, they trained and trained, the alert level rising, waiting, waiting, adrenaline and tension palpable. Suddenly, the orders came to move out from Saudi Arabia into Iraq.
            “We drove through the desert all night, 300 miles until we came early in the morning to our position points. We gassed up, checked our ammo. And still the B-52s and F-16s passed overhead. As a last-minute preparation for our final march, they brought in some MLRS rocket launchers and pounded the distance ahead of us.”
            Then they got word: make the final push. Apache helicopters screamed overhead. At first, nothing much happened, a strange anticlimax, but then they began to see Iraqis in their jeeps with AK-47s. When they were within range, William’s tank commander told him to man the 50-caliber machine gun and fire. These were his first killings, and as they advanced, these little skirmishes continued until they encountered the first tanks of the Republican Guard. William could see them on scopes from far away. He would lock them in his crosshairs as the computer in the tank loaded the round. When the order to fire came, he’d pull the trigger and see the explosion in the distance, knowing he’d accomplished his deadly task.
            “With one explosion I saw the entire turret come of the enemy tank before it went up in a ball of fire. At this point, I was proud of the tools we had. I was proud of being a soldier carrying out my orders, doing what both the president and my officers told me to do. It was exciting, but I was anxious. Firing from a tank on some jeeps is one thing, but now we were within range of artillery that could do us real damage.”
            He pauses. His easy smile becomes more circumspect.
            “Pastor I’m not going to lie about it. I wasn’t just anxious. I was scared. Really scared. And that’s when I called upon the Lord. I went to Sunday School, and I believe. I asked God to forgive me for my sins in case I died, so that I could sleep in Jesus and wait on him. It’s funny how your early home training in the faith remains with you. I said, Lord please give me the strength that you gave David when he slew Goliath. Just a little bit of courage to see me through. I would really appreciate it.”
            That prayer, like a calming breastplate, centered him and helped him focus. From then on, his training came naturally and carried him through the ensuing battle with all his comrades at his side. They devastated the Republican Guard in their path.
            Then, only 30 miles from Baghdad, they got the orders to halt.
            “Remember,” he says, “this was Desert Storm. If they would have let us complete what we were doing then, we wouldn’t have had to go back. I knew it! Most of us did. We just knew we would have to go back. And now we’ve lost another 4,000 brothers.”
            The fighting stopped with an eerie calm. They turned and drove back through the battlefield, collecting data on the content and numbers of what they’d destroyed.
            “We saw trucks and tanks, of course, but then the mangled bodies, blackened, petrified on the ground, in their trucks, in their jeeps. The smell of death is terrible, pastor. It’s like burnt BBQ. That’s the best way I can describe it. I tried to distance myself, but these were human figures. I know I’m a soldier, but as a Christian, any loss of life is a terrible thing. I remember looking at one blackened body draped from a jeep and thinking man, that guy had a family. It was war. I did my duty. But it was still sad.”
            “William,” I said. “I’m glad you felt that sadness. As a chaplain, I had a message that sometimes was not real popular with my commanders. I told them that in the middle of the hell that is war, I was a non-combatant. Sure, I was there to comfort and support our troops, but also to remind them that God loves the enemy as much as God loves us. These are not gooks or rag heads; these are human beings. And until that day that we stop believing in the myth of redemptive violence, until that day we realize that war never ultimately solves anything, I will boldly proclaim this message.”
            “Amen, pastor.”
            William received two bronze stars for his valor and calmness under fire during the battle. When he returned stateside to Fort Bliss, he received an offer to go to the NCO academy. Simultaneously things were heating up in Bosnia, America wading into a civil war marked by horrendous genocide and ethnic cleansing.
            “I talked to my Mom,” says William. “I said, Mom, I’ve fought in one war. I’ve done my duty and served my country. I really don’t want to be sent to another.”
            William left the Army in April ’92, moved to Waco, Texas and got trained as a Certified Nursing Assistant. He lived there for 15 years, working in various convalescent centers. He once owned a home but lost it. Though he was engaged a couple times, he never got married, never had children. He described himself as very careful, reticent to make any commitments. He wanted to make absolutely sure that if he took on the responsibility of a wife and family, he would be able to fulfill his duty.
            After 28 years of marriage, his parents divorced, and his father moved to south Texas. In 2007, his mother died—a deep blow to his spirit. When his dad also got sick, he felt moved as the oldest child to go south and take care of him. It was his duty, and there was more to it.
            “Losing my mother caught me up in the brevity of life. It made me realize I wanted to get closer to my dad. I had only seen him about once a year, so I moved south. I lived with him for a while here in Alice, working in a nursing home. But I lost that job and living with my dad just didn’t work out due to his need for privacy. That’s how I ended up on the streets, sleeping in my car. Yeah, I was down for a little bit. But I still counted my blessings, because it could have been worse. Besides, I was always taught that if you fall down, pick yourself up again and try harder.”
            After two months of homelessness, William found a new job at a nursing home in San Diego, Texas. Most of us have been to places like these. Even in the best of them, the pall of old age and death is palpable, almost suffocating. For many of us, it could lead to depression. Listen to how William describes it.
            “I love my residents. It’s an honor to care for them. They tell me they miss me until I come back to work. When I get there, they say, where you been. I say, well, they do give me a couple days off. (He grins). It means a lot to me that they care about me that much. I give my best all day. I make them feel special. I show them dignity, always remembering that these are my elders and I was raised to show them respect. Yes, Ma’am, Yes Sir. I make sure my men are shaved, and I put a little cologne on them, you know, so they feel like men. I try to do any little thing I can do to enrich their lives. I’m determined to make them smile if it takes all day. And I’m the one who gets the most blessings in return—smiles and hugs.”
            I ask him if those memories from long ago in Iraq still plague him.
            “I don’t have as many nightmares as I used to. Sure, there are certain triggers. If I smell burnt meat, my mind flashes back instantly to that time in the desert. But I have asked God to soften these memories, even take them away. Being able to help other people has been part of my rehabilitation. It keeps me calm and level-headed. I’m responsible for my residents. It’s my duty to make sure they eat right and that they are safe.”
            Very few of us have motives that are completely pure. Only God has final, intimate knowledge of the inner workings of our hearts and minds. But I can tell you this: as my interview with William concluded, I felt a moment of pure clarity. I thought about the concept of duty—for country, family, church, my neighbor, the homeless man or woman who might walk through my office door the very next day. My calling crystallized inside me and gave me a sense of purpose and dignity. William had blessed me mightily and I told him so. He rose from the chair on the other side of my desk and straightened his bearing. Though he was not in uniform, I could see it.
            “My privilege, sir,” he said. “I hope to see you again soon.
            Then he did an about-face and left.

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The Human Rights Champion You’ve (Probably) Never Heard of

In my decades as a cleric, I heard the stories of people from many walks of life. Sometimes their memories opened portals to dramatic moments in history, like this one from a homeless man who came to my office early one morning. He smelled of alcohol and had slept in his car all night. I still salute him!

Lately, I’ve been thinking about Ernestine (Ernie) Glossbrenner and the short time our lives intersected. Ernie was a member of First Presbyterian Church, Alice, Texas, where I served for a season. She was well-known in the community, not only for her years of teaching in local schools, but for her eight terms (1977-1993) as a Texas State Representative. In that role, she was an advocate for lower income families, abortion rights, the ERA, worker safety, and education reform.

Ernie was suffering severe health problems by the time we met, coping only through the assistance of her companion. Still, when I visited her, she enlivened our wonderful conversations. We shared our commonality as Democrats in a deeply red region of Texas, our universalist view of religion, and our love of literature.

In her final days, Ernie required regular dialysis at a facility in Corpus Christi. Her companion called me one day and said that Ernie would like me to bring communion to her during one of those treatments. I gladly packed up my kit and drove to that city on the Gulf.

The room at the facility was sterile and smelled of antiseptic. A number of patients were simultaneously receiving therapy, most of them staring blankly at the ceiling. Ernie looked up at me, smiled weakly, and nodded. She was near the end; we both knew it. Her voice was a hoarse whisper and her skin ashen-colored. As we partook of the bread and the cup, I reminded her of the untold number of witnesses who gathered with us in that sacramental moment.

When we had finished, I held her hand. “Ernie, thank you for your years of service to so many people. You have left a rich legacy. When you look back over your career, is there an accomplishment that gives you special satisfaction?”

I was surprised at how quickly and decisively she answered, her voice suddenly rising above a whisper and hinting at her lifetime of boldness.

“Legislation to banish the short-handled hoe,” she said.

I confess that later I had to educate myself with some online research. Here’s the summary.

Part of the United Farm Workers’ movement in the late 1960s and early ‘70s was a call to ban the short-handled hoe used by braceros working in the fields. Called el cortito or el brazo del diablo, it was only 18-24 inches long, requiring laborers to bend over or work on their knees. This often led to lifelong back deformities, beginning even with children. The tool was also a clear means of oppression, because if someone took a break and stood up, field foremen would immediately notice and order them back to work.

In their book The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement, Susan Ferriss and Ricardo Sandoval say, “(El Cortito) was the most potent symbol of all that was wrong with farm work in California.”

Thank God, this devil’s arm was finally banned in California in 1975, the first state to enact such legislation. When the movement spread to Texas, Ernie was cosponsor of a bill to do the same.

Ernie died with specific instructions for her memorial gathering, including a mariachi band that was to stand in the balcony of our church and play De Colores. People packed the sanctuary that day, and as I walked down the aisle, I carried a long-handled hoe, lifting it above my head with both arms to signify the beginning of the service. Numerous politicians and educators gave eulogies – testimony to Ernie’s wide-ranging influence.

It was truly a celebration of life. But it was more than that. It was a call to all of us to care about the lives of every person. Like this woman, this champion, who had empathy for every migrant worker bending low in a furrow.

As I heard these final lyrics of De Colores, I whispered my own “thank you” to Ernie for her example of service to others.

And this love
This great love of all the colors
Is very special to me

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Will You Speak Their Names with Me?

After the words of committal. After the plaintive playing of taps or the drone of receding bagpipes. After the folding of flags and the scattering of petals. After the tears and sighs and final thup thup of loam on caskets. Even after everyone had gone, I – conductor of countless graveside services – would remain. And I would wander among the tombstones, the monuments, the shade trees and new mown grass, losing myself in the preternatural stillness.

Today, retired from my years as a cleric, I still frequent cemeteries on my travels. The historic presence of death is a tonic, a prophylactic against apathy, a memento mori in names and dates chiseled on stone. I always thought these reminders of mortality were the primary reason I felt drawn to these places. But recently, I realized there’s another motive that inspires me.

Quite simply, these moments deepen my compassion for humanity, lifting the veil of cynicism that can so easily shroud my feelings about our species. It reminds me that we all grieve, and that our grief could bind us if we let it. Because, in the end, despite our warring madness, our endless divisiveness, our greed, our envy, and our competition, we share the same destiny: the soil from which we arose. This is a common theme of poets, but do we really feel it in our bones on any given day?

As my eyes scan the dates and epitaphs of people who passed before us, I am especially moved by the markers commemorating children. So many of them! Their years cut short before they experienced the rites of passage common to human life. I imagine the visceral agony of their mothers and fathers. We have a word for children who have lost their parents. They are orphans. We have words for men and women who have lost their spouses. They are widows and widowers. Yet we have no moniker for parents who lose their children. It is too unnatural. Unspeakable.

And yet so many children are dying, even as you read these words! Lost in the murderous alleyways of Tegucigalpa, buried in the rubble of Gaza, or blown apart by shrapnel in Ukraine. Others, still alive, walking alongside their mothers in refugee caravans, or languishing in poorly monitored foster care, or living by their wits – with an estimated 100 million others – in ghettos around the world. Street urchins. Unseen, thrown away, forgotten.

So, where am I going with this post? Well, I want to ask you a favor. I fashioned this collage from grave makers I recently found in the Lockhart Cemetery of Cuero, Texas, and the Oak Hill Cemetery of Goliad, Texas. They represent only a portion of the young ones interred at these sites.

Will you speak, out loud, one of more of their names and the dates they lived? Here they are:

  • Elizabeth C. Smith, born February 7, 1857; died February 14, 1862.
  • Charles Louis Brown, born October 7, 1896; died January 30, 1897.
  • Alma Adelea Smith, died on September 11, 1901, age 8 months and 17 days.
  • William Newton Simpson, born 1869; died 1876.
  • Louis Alexander Reed, born August 28, 1910; died April 17, 1912.
  • Aileen Box, born July 26, 1903; died October 13, 1905.
  • Unnamed infant of Richard and Ann Miller, born and died in 1857.

Speaking the names of the dead (known as necronyms) is taboo in some cultures, shrouded in superstition about the afterlife. However, in my hometown of San Antonio, there is a different attitude, summed up in the yearly Dia de los Muertos celebrations. Families build altars to lost loved ones, then encourage us to not only speak their names, but to view objects and photos that elicit their presence. The celebration also binds us with the living, calling us to treasure whatever precious days we are given with them.

So, if you have conjured the presences of Elizabeth, Charles, Alma, William, Aileen, or the unnamed child of the Millers, my hope and prayer is twofold. May you commit yourself once again to the protection of children everywhere on this planet, no matter their nationality or race. And may you breathe the air of this day with an uncanny gratitude for every loved one that graces your life.

Namaste.

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