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Waging Peace: From Vietnam to VolgogradBy Jack Mallory (reviewer)
Waging Peace: From Vietnam to Volgograd I started reading Waging Peace in July. By the time I began writing this review, the importance of veteran voices in the public sphere was once again evident, as armed National Guard troops had been imposed on Washington, DC, with threats of imminent military control of Chicago and other cities and states. First impression: it's a tome! Big (8.5x11, an inch thick. 106 chapters, 300 pages). Prose, poetry, photos. However, I'd say you can feel free to read it from beginning to end without any commitment. It's a melange of topics, some of which may grab an individual reader, some of which may not. It's a leaf through it, scan the chapter titles, read what grabs you, pick it up a different day, and see if other chapters grab you, kinda book. A resource, not a history—though plenty of history is involved. I'm a Vietnam vet, a VVAW member since 1970, and subsequently a high school teacher and college professor. Along with my efforts against the war in Vietnam, I have worked against US military intervention in Central America, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. After 30+ years in classrooms, I look at Waging Peace, how it addresses issues that have concerned me for decades, and think about how I'd use it in a course. And in what course? Take the second question first: Book title—Waging Peace might be the course title. How Jan and a myriad of other peace activists, mostly veterans, worked to make peace happen—waged peace, around the world. Yes, mostly peace in Vietnam, but also Korea, the Middle East, Central America, Eastern Europe… Not just wheres but hows. Peace waged in written prose, from Jan's own essays to Eisenhower's Farewell Address, to A.A. Milne's (yes, the author of the Winnie the Pooh books) Peace with Honour, as I learned in reading Waging Peace. Peace waged in poetry, again from Jan's own work to Bill (W.D.) Ehrharts' and Dan Berrigan's. Hows in examples of peace waged through actions, including a strike by Jews in the first century AD against the orders of Emperor Caligula; a 1943 demonstration by the non-Jewish wives of Jews in Berlin; the non-violent general strike in El Salvador in 1944 that drove a military dictator from power; and the victories of peaceful actions that that toppled Communist regimes in Eastern Europe in the 1980s. As you might be starting to realize, this is a very wide-ranging book. These topics are treated in brief, though pithy, chapters of a few pages each. It can make for quick reading, slowed by focusing on people, places, and events that may grab each reader according to their own particular interest hooks. It is a melange of topics and genres that both introduces the general subject and allows for focus on details. Which is, then, the reason that I suggest the use of this book in the classroom as a topical intro to the waging of peace. I imagine a classroom of students who might be fulfilling a general education requirement, or picking up some literature or history credits to augment their business or engineering education (OK, yeah, this is a liberal arts/social science guy being snotty). The instructor would assign particular chapters for the whole class to read and subsequently discuss. But each student would then also be responsible for X number of self-chosen chapters and an essay explaining why they were chosen, what the student believes their importance/interest to be, and why. Given time, extra credit could be given to students presenting their essays to the class. This would make the eclectic nature of Jan's chapters suitable for a class of students with wide-ranging interests, allowing them to tailor the chapters to their personal curiosities. The best way to quickly understand the breadth of topics Jan covers is through a review of his section and chapter headings. The book begins with an excellent preface by Tara Krause, like Jan, a former West Pointer whose life also led her to live life as a peace activist, as she puts it. Krause shapes an understanding of Jan's multitude of themes.
Sections:
A few of the 106 chapter titles, chosen because they reflect my own special interests in the great variety of topics: A recurring theme, woven into many of the sections and chapters, is the importance of the arts in bringing understanding to our wars, both to ourselves as veterans and those we try to explain our wars to. Jan and many others quoted in Waging Peace write poetry. I suspect that in that writing, they construct their understanding, and writing their poems brings a form of peace. I understand and deeply appreciate Jan's work in this area, and it provides my closest personal connection to much of Waging Peace. As an academic, writing my dissertation, I came to understand that I learn what I think through the writing process. But sitting down and putting fingers to the keyboard was the way I organized, formalized, the information in my head. I can't call what I do in my writing "art," because it is far more utilitarian than creative, and I feel no aesthetic sense as I write. I later used writing to reveal my Vietnam experiences to myself and others as I began to explore my post-traumatic stress and moral injury, much as Jan and other war poets have done. My story The Little Girl at My Door, published here in The Veteran, is the best example of that. I know that in my own prose writing, from my dissertation to my later attempts to write about Vietnam, I discover what I think and feel through the writing process. I am also a nature and wildlife photographer. Along with the peace and beauty I sometimes capture, my pictures are a way to wage peace within or around my mind. The Little Girl at My Door is very explicitly about how I discovered that peace and beauty. While writing this review, the ongoing efforts of the current administration to achieve political control regardless of Constitutional constraints became increasingly evident. Today brought news of another mass shooting at an American school. Minutes ago, my partner put down her newspaper, unable to consume any more of the current events. Reading Waging Peace will help anyone understand why I took a couple of hours away from writing today and went for a hike with my camera. An hour spent with no companion other than a Great Blue Heron; 111 photographs; not a thought of fascism or mass murder. Not escaping reality, but an hour focusing on a different aspect of it. Jan understands, and you will as well if you read his book. The photos on this page are of a young girl I saw on our boat on the Mekong River during my 2001 visit; she reminded me of the girl I wrote about in The Little Girl at My Door. And a Great Blue Heron from one of my walks, which gave me a momentary respite from reality. Jack Mallory was in Vietnam 69-70, VVAW 70-present. 30+ years of teaching, 30+ years of being a dad. He still looks up when a chopper flies over.
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