Memorial Day

Earlier this month Miss Cornelia visited Normandy with her 8th Grade class. They had studied French since kindergarten and this trip was to see how well they learned the language. But like most places in the world, the United States is never really far away.

A beautiful sunny day, she and her classmates played soccer on Omaha Beach. None gave much thought to that day nearly 67 years ago the sand was sticky with blood. After they visited the American Cemetery and Memorial. They walked among the over 9,000 graves of mostly young men who gave their life during the D-Day landings and ensuring operations.

Unlike her peers, Miss Cornelia had a mission that day. Her mother had sent her on a quest on behalf of a grandmother she never knew and long deceased. She sought out the grave of Pvt. Gordon Mannix who had died barely two weeks after D-Day.

Less than three months earlier her mother had found Pvt. Mannix's letters to her grandmother, his high school art teacher begging her to write. The grandmother had found and encouraged, it seems, a rare artistic talent. She had helped him win a scholarship to art school. But he was drafted and off to war before he could accept.

I don't know if my mother ever wrote him. But finally, by some fate, part of her visited him and said goodbye.

Gordon Mannix

Gordon Mannix died on the road to Montebourg. He had survived storming Utah Beach on D-Day and two weeks of fierce fighting against the Germans near the beaches of Normandy.

On June 19, 1944, he was one of 12 soldiers of Company C killed when an ammunition truck exploded as they fought their way east. Pfc Mannix was a member of the Army’s famous 87th Chemical Mortar Battalion that provided devastating fire power in support of the American infantry liberating Europe from fascism.

The 19-year old aspiring artist from Plainville, Connecticut was awarded a Purple Heart and buried at the American St. Laurent Cemetery established by the U.S. First Army on June 8, 1944. It was the first American cemetery on European soil in World War II and is now the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial.

No, I am not related to this soldier buried long ago in France. But our lives intersected a few weeks ago as I finally dug through the boxes of letters and papers my mother left behind when she died 30 years ago this month. Since Christmas, this is how I have been spending my free time: piecing together my mother's younger days and learning about the people she knew.

I am supposed to be reviewing and sorting the last of my parents effects. It is a job I avoided for decades. Finally, the boxes landed in the middle of the living room and the mission, I told myself, was to find ephemera to put on Ebay.

Thus, how I found a 1943 Christmas card to my mother from Pfc Mannix who was stationed at Camp Rucker, Alabama. I put it aside as a curiosity that I might, as so many other things she saved, put it on Ebay. Then in another box I found a letter from one of her friends from Plainville where she had her first teaching assignment. The letter, barely seven months after the holiday card, contained a yellowed obituary for Gordon Mannix. 

Suddenly, it made sense. I understood why she saved the Christmas card, and possibly other letters from Mannix that I likely tossed before I knew their significance. She was his high school art teacher and she had discovered an unusual talent among her first classes. He had even won an art scholarship to college, but was drafted before he could accept it. I regret very much now tossing out the Plainview High School’s yearbooks that she had so carefully saved.

The information about how he died and his battalion I found on the Internet. There is an excellent day-to-day history of the 87th and an admiring account of these unsung heroes, The Mortarmen, 2005. A small memorial to these men can be found at Aberdeen Proving Ground on the edge of the parade ground near the post chapel.

My mother never mentioned Mannix to me. But often, after watching the war news on TV, she would sigh on how war was such a waste, so many talented young men were killed. She was never specific, but I am sure that as a young art teacher during the war years, she lost many students.

If I ever visit Omaha Beach and the Memorial, I will go "see" Gordon Mannix. For now, I will keep his Christmas card.

As it is written in the Memorial Chapel in Normany, “think not only upon their passing, remember the glory of their spirit.”

Ambition

http://www.despair.com/ambition.html

Part of the charm of the late, great Richard C. Holbrooke is that you could insult him to his face and he would take it as a compliment. He was not one for much self-reflection. More amazing was that those who knew him felt no need to dispute the slur—it was likely true. He did not embarrass and he was not restrained by humility or sentimentality.

Washington always attracted and encouraged men like him, confident, glib, and self-aggrandizing—bullet-proof. They befriend the important and flirt from high-profile issue to the next.

Holbrooke went from opening China to resolving Yugoslavia’s civil war to containing Afghanistan. He attached himself to Averill Harriman and Clarke Clifford (both men who had their own detractors). Holbrooke tagged himself as a problem-solver.

He was successful and influential, but never trusted. He was well-known and always available. He was everywhere. His greatest attribute was an ability to seek out and ingratiate himself to the famous, talented, and important.

Holbrooke instinctively knew how to separate the important from the unimportant people; whom to ignore or step on. He did not associate with the worker bees nor give them much credit. Despite all these “talents,” he never attained the position he most coveted, that of secretary of state. There was just something too untoward about him. Not every diplomat is a statesman.

Although there are many contenders for the “next-Holbrooke” (send me your list), one name is most often heard: Steve Clemons  of the New American Foundation and blog, The Washington Note. He used be a Japan hand, but is currently an expert on Egypt.

A recent New York Times article “A Guy as Keeper of the National Guest List?”  seems to promote Mr. Clemons as the next Holbrooke. Indeed, the article coyly refers to Holbrooke at the end of the article.

The Times White House reporter, Helene Cooper, interviewed a clearly bemused Les Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, as to his suggestions for the next White House social secretary, a position that has never been held by a man.

“How about Steve Clemons?” Mr. Gelb suggested, referring to the Washington foreign policy wonk and social butterfly whose “salon dinners” at Restaurant Nora in Dupont Circle are popular with diplomats, journalists and government types. “I’ve never heard of a meeting where someone didn’t tell me Steve was there,” Mr. Gelb said. 

Ms. Cooper then proceeded to interview Mr. Clemons over an expensive lunch:

Mr. Clemons, the director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, said no one from the White House has called him yet, but if they did, he’d jump at the chance for the job. “When I used to live across the street from Spago in West Hollywood, I’d say, ‘that’s what I want to be one day,’ ” Mr. Clemons said over lobster tails at BLT in Washington. “I wanted to be the D.C. maître d’ at Spago.” 

There you have it; ambition in Washington is simply being the maître d at the right venue. And not being embarrassed about it.

Antigone

Ismene begs King Creon to spare her sister Antigone in the Forum of Paestum.

Antigone is a tragedy by Sophocles written before or in 442 BC. Family ties, social mores, and the king's law all clash. Antigone wants to bury her brother Eteocles, while King Creaon has decreed that his corpse be left to the vultures. Antigone disobeys him and gives her bother an honorable burial.

Doing the right thing sometimes means disobeying the king and those who fear him. And it does not always end well. He orders her to be buried alive. She instead opts for suicide with her beloved, the King's son Haemon.

It takes uncommon courage to stick to humanity's higher values.  

The Yahrzeit

Marc Chagall (French, b. Belorussia, 1887-1985)

Publisher: Tériade (Paris)

Abraham Weeping for Sarah, from the Bible suite, 1958

Etching and drypoint with hand-coloring on paper

Sheet: 21 x 15 3/8 in. (53.3 x 39.1 cm) Image: 11 3/8 x 9 3/8 in. (28.9 x 23.8 cm)

The Jewish Museum, New York

Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Henry Dolger, 1996-21

© 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Ruth Muroff (1919-1984)

Unfriended

Today, Thanksgiving day in the U.S., is the year anniversary of when I became part of a new "social" trend. The New Oxford American dictionary institutionalized it earlier this month.

I was “unfriended.”

It was more than the destruction of a friendship. The greater ruin was of a powerful professional alliance. It had already produced incredible results. And more was possible.

But as it was explained to me, sharing values does not make us friends.

I thought over time things would change. Maybe he would become as anxious as I was over the opportunities missed. And personally, surely, my being in the hospital on my birthday warranted an email or a card.

I was wrong.

[Photo courtesy Museum of Modern Art, Adam Frank, Lumen Oil Lamp.]

Condolences from the Class of 1974

On Friday, November 13th, Amb. James R. Lilley, class of 1945, died. He was an inspiration and mentor to some in the class of 1974.

I believe he would appreciate the picture above.

Requiscat in Pace

In Sorrow

[Graphic borrowed from this interesting website, AisleOne]

In Memoriam

There has been much sadness in Washington of late for the passing of great men. To leave this life having improved the lives of others is a privilege few allow themselves.

Ken Bacon, president of Refugees International, was one of these decent people. As a journalist, a Defense Department press spokesman, and advocate for the dispossessed he was always a passionate spokesman for the most voiceless people in the world. He died on on August 15th at 63 of melanoma. The memorial service for Ken will be held at 11:00am on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 at the Washington National Cathedral.

He possessed all the qualities that our high school tried to instill in us. We were blessed with strong bodies and extraordinary minds and the dons (teacher does not quite convey the power they had) every day demanded the best from us for the best, they said, was what the world needed. Our talents were not to be focused only on self-improvement or aggrandizement. We were to stick close to the school motto: Non Sibi [not for oneself].

Ken and I were friends. I often found him on the bus to Dupont Circle and we would discuss Japan's contributions to refugee issues. I had know him since the 1980s when I accidently became president of our high school's Washington alumni association.

This was a position that mainly entailed managing the annual dinner, explaining to the executive committee that no we could not hold events at the Cosmos Club because I and other alumnae refused to go in the back door (at the time women could not be members and were restricted to certain rooms), and attending funerals. The latter I would go to with one of my classmates who had a Porsche and who liked to demonstrate its performance capabilities; I always was grateful to return home alive.

My friendship with Ken was cemented when he came to my rescue.

In the late 1980s, I wrote an article for an obscure and now defunct journal on Japanese lobbying in Washington. In it I mentioned the curious history of the Japanese Embassy-sponsored Japan Economic Institute (JEI). The Institute played a particularly interesting role in the textile row in the early 1970s. Their unregistered lobbying persuaded prominent members of Congress like Wilbur Mills, who was considering a run against then President Richard Nixon. Mills apparently cut and announced a deal with Japan on the textile dumping problem. Unfortunately, Nixon was not informed of it. His vengeance is legend and it certainly was in this case. The results were the famous Nixon Shocks and the IRS coming down hard on JEI and Mills.*

Well, the JEI of the late 1980s was a very different place than the 1960s and early 70s. It was an extremely valuable resource and had an excellent library, which I often used. About a month after the article was published, I happened to attend a meeting at JEI. When the meeting ended the new executive director called me into her office and started screaming at me. She was very annoyed with the article of which JEI only took up two paragraphs. I asked if I reported anything wrong or inaccurate. No, she said, it just did not needed to be brought up again. And she ended by declaring that I was banned from ever coming in JEI again.

Needless to say I was in tears (and so was my friend who worked at JEI). I first sobbed to a friend who was an actual Japan lobbyist. He thought the incident funny and said it would blow over. Then I collected myself and did what any graduate of one of the most connected high schools in America would: pick up the phone and call alums. Thus I told the story to the president of the Washington Post, a Senate staffer, and Ken Bacon who was then with the Wall Street Journal.

Ken was most amused by the incident and quickly dried my tears. He said he probably would not write about it, but he would make a call. A school boy mischievousness floated in his voice. The next day he called me back. He reported that he had phoned JEI and had asked the director "how long have they had this practice of banning people?"

I can only say he died way too young; there was so much more good for him to do. I will miss him very much.

Requiescat in pace et in amore

New York Times Obituary

*The Textile Wrangle by I.M. Destler is a good history of this incident. After the textile debacle Wilbur Wills was in over his head with Japan and he, as chair of the Japan Society, was tasked with accepting the first check from Japan (Sumitomo Heavy) to influence the policy discussion on Japan. The check for $1 million was originally intended to go to Brookings, but President Kermit Gordon was old school (like Ken Bacon) and refused to accept funds from the countries the Institution studied. The deal was then to give it to the Japan Society and most of it to go back down to Brookings. There is a wonderful picture in the Japan Society annual report of Mills accepting the check from the Chair of Sumitomo Heavy.

The Burial of the Dead

Everyone’s favorite April poem is T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. It is more about death, however, than springtime hope. Like the beautiful crab apple tree above, the poem memorializes many confusing feelings. Under the tree, which is across the street from my house, my beloved Abyssinian cat is buried. Along with him is buried a friendship that I had hoped would flourish.

Osiris, as he was called, would wake me every morning so that I could let him outside. He spent his days hunting on the grounds of the historic home outside my door. In the evening he would return with some “present.” Often he slept curled up at my side. He was not a cat that would sit on your lap and purr; he was independent and selective with his attentions. Sometimes he purred for me.

When Osiris died one April from a horrible wasting disease, my friends did what they could to console me. They indulged me and conceded to my grief. All except one. And of course it was the one I wanted to hear from most, and the one whose opinion always meant the most to me.

But, as I have warned my daughter, beware the man who does not acknowledge the loss of your cat. He will never care for you, let alone respect you. You will not be remembered. And time proved me right. Never did I receive a birthday note or a nengajo card. He never initiated a conversation and was quick to point out my many mistakes.

Yes, I should have been more guarded, but I work every day alone on issues of apology and torture and rape and genocide. What I do is neither popular nor recognized. I do this because I believe that it is important for man to aspire to his better nature. And it was an irrational exuberance for me to be so charmed to find that rare someone who shared my values and interests.

But “the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water.” As it turned out, he said, “sharing values does not make us friends” and knowing me was a professional liability, thus he concluded that “we should stop” being friends. And we did.

I rarely get beyond the first section of The Waste Land. I don’t really understand the details; there is just too much to look up. Does Eliot mention the Starnbergersee because Mad King Ludwig died there or is it just another symbol of Germany and WWI? Who the HECK is Marie? Do hyacinths really symbolize resurrection? Maybe they just cover up the stench from the rot. Stanza after stanza is of death and disillusionment.

Memorials don’t always do the job that they are intended. They mean to symbolize hope and the endurance of the human spirit (and I will write more about this later). Every April the tree outside my home blooms a beautiful pink, memorizing the pain from my two losses. Like Eliot, I feel no hope only defeat and miss even more what is gone.