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I opened my email to discover that I had gotten another one! You know, those emails that well-meaning friends send around to raise our ire. The one that came today arrived from someone whom I admire. This person does good work in our community, is talented, and well-spoken. So, when my mailbox said, “You’ve got mail,” I hoped to find good news from my friend.
I should have noticed that the subject field said,” FW: Mad and Sending to Everyone.” Uh, oh. I should have heard that tin-can robot from “Lost In Space” yelling, “Danger, Will Robinson!” as he flailed his arms about, alarms blaring, lights flashing, spinning in circles. But I got lured in. I read it.
It was “The Story of the WWII Memorial Revisionist History Scandal” a story that has been drifting through cyberspace since 2004 when the memorial opened. Apparently four words were left off of FDR’s inscribed quote, and according to the email….INTENTIONALLY! Oh, what words? Four little, tiny, hot-button issue words: So Help Us, God.
This week’s blogpost is my reply. You don’t have to agree with me…never! (Unless you do agree with me, of course.) So, here you go: The email that I sent back, complete with links…
To my dear Friend,
I hope you’ll understand and even appreciate my reply. Please indulge me:
I was a history major in college and worked as a librarian for many years. So it’s in my bones to check sources, to verify the facts.
I found many sites that analyze this story (which has been circulating on the web since 2004). In about 10 sites, the story is proven to be false, or AT LEAST out of context. There were a couple of sites that gave support to this author’s premise, but most established that the premise is mis-guided.
According to the research that I did after receiving your email, the inscribed quote is actually just a very few words lifted from a much longer speech. The words “so help us, God” are contained in the speech, but they were not Roosevelt’s final words, as the circulating story states–“the end of the quote.” In fact, there is another paragraph of the speech that follows these 4 words.
I’m sending you links to some of the sites I explored. The first one is an audio clip of Roosevelt giving the speech. You’ll hear several outbursts of applause, including a round of applause for the sentence under scrutiny. The second link contains the entire text of the speech. The third link is the WWII Memorial’s official website.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrpearlharbor.htm
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/w/wwiimemorial.htm
http://www.wwiimemorial.com/default.asp?page=home.asp
http://hnn.us/articles/7899.html
http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/memorial.asp
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_war_memorial.htm
Were those 4 words important to the speech? Yes. Were they left out intentionally as a deliberate act of revisionism? I doubt that. To begin with, anyone taking the time to find the facts and the actual speech could do so in just a few minutes, as I have done today. Revisionist history by definition is where there is a conscious attempt to completely re-write the facts. These facts are just too easy to find, too readily out there in the world for anyone to deliberately try to revise their meaning. And if the omission was deliberate, or even perceived as such, then do what it says to do in our Constitution: Petition. According to the WWII Memorial’s official website there are reserve funds to maintain the memorial. If enough people petitioned, perhaps some of that money could be used to add the 4 words. If there are enough people who are called to Citizen Action in a true grassroots effort, I’m sure it could be done.
My only reason for taking the time to dig around and to send you what I hope you’ll believe is a well-intended, thoughtful response is this:
Right now our great nation is torn on so many fronts. Too many people from all sides are trying to poke holes in the strength, “the righteous mighty power of the United States” (phrase borrowed from the FDR speech that is in question).
When I was teaching, every day I walked the kids through an explanation of the words of the Pledge of Allegiance, to give them context that would be meaningful to a little kid. I always loved getting to that word INDIVISIBLE! I would explain that our 50 great states had chosen to join together into one great nation–a UNION! We are UNITED states. And INDIVISIBLE means that no one can tear us apart. We will work together to get through our differences, our difficulties. Then when we REALLY need to rally, we will all UNITE.
Now I see so many people intentionally tearing at that fabric, trying to pull us all apart. The most clear evidence of this is the recent announcement from the Gov. Rick Perry of Texas that he might support a secession. I was born in Texas, a 7th generation Texan. I do not want that to happen!
Our parents demonstrated the full meaning of being UNITED on that Great Day of Infamy. Our fathers signed up to go to war. Our grandparents and mothers dug in to help out. Victory Gardens, Rosie the Riveter, The Women’s Air Service Patrol, Recycling–like we still haven’t seen since. SACRIFICE to hold a nation together in its glory, in its darkest hour. Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Atheists, Nativists, Muslims, Mormons, Quakers, 7th Days, and everybody else–They all united to serve our country after the attack on Pearl Harbor. No one was untouched. Just like what happened to our generation on September 11, 2001. No one was untouched, and we won’t ever forget that horrible day.
Yet even in the shadow of 9/11, the problems that we face today are nothing compared to the great struggles of our parents’ generation. An agrarian society geared up and transformed itself into a manufacturing super machine in just two years! Our entire nation was forever transformed as people left farms, and urban centers flourished. How in the world did one country manage to create such huge systemic change in such a short time? They were united around a common cause–to win a war, to stop Fascism. Today people throw that word around, Fascism, and they don’t even really know the actual definition of what a Fascist government is. Today too many people do not take the time to study, to check facts, to learn!
Everyday I think of my own father. He gave valiant service in the U.S. military for 22 years and then continued as a military contractor for many years after as a consultant, a flight instructor and a contract pilot. He fought in WWII, in the Korean War, in the French-IndoChinese War, in the Burmese War and in the Vietnam War. And this I know for certain: My dad loved facts. He loved history. He loved learning and knowledge, pushing my brother and me to excel in school. He taught his kids to love their country with all its warts and bumps and all its glory. He also taught us to ask questions, to shed the light of learning where there was ignorance and to never accept somebody’s story as gospel until you’d done your homework.
So help me. Let’s check these kinds of emails out for their basis in fact before we send them along. If we do not, we only serve to further DIVIDE our great nation. And right now none of us needs to be pitted against the other.
Friend to friend. Neighbor to neighbor. Let’s all pick up our shovels and help give glory to our nation.
And if you want to send THIS email along, I invite you to do so…
With great respect,
bz
And to my dear blog readers, if YOU want to send this link along….Please do so.
I’m B.Z. Smith. I tell stories. This is one of them.
We all need heroes, those people who give our society guidance by their own deeds.
One of my heroes was Eunice Kennedy-Shriver, who died yesterday. While the world was mesmerized by those handsome, powerful Kennedy men, I kept looking at their sisters. And I saw that Eunice and her sisters were born to serve the people. In a time when women were not allowed in The Boys’ Club, this one woman made her own mark on the world and changed the lives of millions.
Eunice Kennedy-Shriver valued each person’s worth. Inspired by her mother Rose, Kennedy-Shriver witnessed the joy and strength that her disabled sister, Rosemary, gave to their family. Eunice championed the rights of people with mental disabilities. She pushed her brother, President Jack Kennedy, to address the needs of people with mental retardation, to set up commissions that would reveal the abhorrent conditions of injustice that our most vulnerable citizens suffered. She worked to establish programs that would provide decent education for people with special needs. She helped countless families learn to accept and even love their fate, to embrace and celebrate their special needs children.
The Summer of 1969, an American walked on the moon and I had just finished my first year of college. I needed a job in order to pay for books the next Fall. I saw an ad to work with kids, right up my alley. But not just any kids. This job was at The Hospital for Exceptional Children in Long Beach, CA, a “home” for mentally retarded children. I was so excited that I could serve. Like Eunice, I would make these children’s lives richer.
I got hired! I’d be a daytime aide for 20 children. One other worker and I fed, bathed, diapered and watched 40 children. From sun up until sundown, I ran around trying to keep these children safe, happy and clean. But there were no toys, no books. There was no program or curriculum. No one had ever even encouraged these kids to speak, to find their words. Instead, they were warehoused, thrown away, out of sight from “normal people.” Forty children slept in one big dormitory room, beds crammed in row after row. I have faint recollection of any professional staffer coming to check on them. When someone did come, it was to administer meds…sedatives. “Keep them quiet and calm,” that was our edict.
None of their families ever came to visit. Oh, there was one girl.
She was the only one who had any words. She was 13 and had severe autism. She’d go to her family home every other weekend. When she returned she would mimic T.V. ads…that’s all. Over and over and over, singing jingles, echoing the ads’ messages. When I’d feed her, she’d sing and chant: “Plop, plop. Fizz, fizz. Oh, what a relief it is,” Or “Mystery Date,” Or “You’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent.”
For exercise, we would take them to the “play area”– a small concrete courtyard wedged in the middle of the building. There were no swings, no slides, no sandbox. And one tricycle. Even the plants were all dead. Most of the children could not really walk, but not because they weren’t capable. They weren’t allowed to run or walk. “Keep them still”–another edict.
But all they wanted was to be touched, held, rocked. In those few free moments, I’d sing songs, recite nursery rhymes and do fingerplays. One two-year old boy with Down’s Syndrome looked like a 10-month old baby. He loved to cuddle and be held, nuzzling against me. It was easy to nurture him. He was adorable, filled with smiles and coos. I wanted to take him home.
It was much harder to give love and nurturing to the 14 year-old boy. He needed to shave, and when I changed his diapers…Well, you can imagine. He was a teenage boy, and how he loved me to clean him up (and I mean, UP). I can remember telling him, “Take it easy, Mikey. Don’t get so excited. Let’s get this diaper on and be done!”
But 8 year-old Jason, another Down’s Syndrome child, broke my heart. This boy was a mischief-maker! He had a funny little “evil” laugh that would echo through the cavernous room when he escaped the clutches of the well-meaning aides. He’d throw food, bounce on his bed, and grab anything in his reach. A wild child! No one liked Jason…except me. His will, his burning desire to be a regular little boy held my heart.
I begged the supervisors to let me take him for walks, to read to him, to play with him. “There’s no time for that. You have to take care of the others, too,” I was told. Ah, yes, keep the Warehouse clean. That was my job, after all.
At night, we’d get all forty kids ready for bed. No sweet night-lights, no lullabies. As the door closed, the night-shift on detail, sad, lonely whimpers and sighs slipped into my ears. And of course, Jason never wanted to go to bed. He wanted to play! Like a wild monkey, he would escape from us, scurrying across the floor on all fours. Night after night the orderlies came in to put a net over Jason’s bed…to keep him tied up.
Then one night, they told ME to tie up Jason. That moment blazes in my memory as I draped the big heavy net over his crib. As I tied down the corners, he wailed and looked deep into my eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Jason. I have to do this, to keep you safe. Forgive me. I don’t want to do this either.” Tears streamed down my face as my heaving sobs rocked in chorus with Jason’s sobs. Eight years old, powerless.
The next day I quit. At 19 I could not take the pain, the sorrow and injustice. Like Jason, I was powerless, too. I only lasted six weeks on that job, but I’ve never forgotten one moment.
So, today I thank Eunice Shriver for she changed their lives. And like all true heroes, she did this almost single-handedly while building a devoted army to join her worthy cause. When The Hospital for Exceptional Children closed, I rejoiced, knowing that those 40 kids had been given a chance, a new beginning. Eunice had unlocked those doors and given their families hope and direction.
In her later life Eunice Kennedy-Shriver, the daughter and sister of kings, stood by her husband when he sunk into Alzheimer’s. Sargent Shriver was his name. A giant was he–The founder of America’s most influential international relations program: The U.S. Peace Corps.
The Shrivers lived a graceful, generous life. They knew the importance of authentic public service, and they understood that putting a price-tag on humanity is evil, is immoral. The Shrivers worked to help the disenfranchised find dignity and compassion, education and empowerment. Two great American heroes. Tonight I will look for their stars in Heaven.
I’m B.Z. Smith. This is one story from my life. What’s yours?
(Here is a post that I wrote on July 30th, 2009…Originally I posted it at “Gold of the Mother Lode” SN site.)
From Getty Images
Today I sewed a Poodle Skirt, something I never thought I’d do.
I never had a Poodle Skirt. I was just a bit too young for that fad. Truth is…Poodle Skirts were a short-lived fad, but somehow they sunk into our American psyche and popped out as an Icon of 1950’s Teen Fashion.
I wanted a Poodle Skirt…briefly. At age 9 I was into crinoline! The more petticoats, the bigger the whirl and twirl. At recess all the little 3rd grade girls would cram into the bathroom to count layers. One day I wore more petticoats than Kathy Fabian, the Petticoat Queen of 3rd grade! Fortunately Kathy was not miffed, so I didn’t suffer for out-slipping her. (Fact is, K.F. was nice, really. She knew how to be kind, and she loved books! Were it not for Kathy F, I might not have turned into the bookish gal that I am today. She got ALL the little girls into the library.)
On that fateful day, my over-powering layer was my Inflatable Petticoat. It was based on the idea of a bicycle inner tube. The clear plastic tube was sewn into a casing near the hemline.
You just blew that puppy up and POOF! I’ve always thought that mechanics, welders and carpenters should pay more attention to the Art of Sewing. It’s just a soft version of hard construction: Basic geometry, good tensile strength, the right tools, a powerful engine and a little skill. So, at 6AM I was up sewing a Poodle Skirt for my granddaughter. Well, really it’s for the costume department of her upcoming play: Seussical, Junior. They’ll be prancing on Summerville High’s stage this week: Thursday, Friday & Saturday 8PM. There’s a great bit of Family Entertainment, brought to you by Meyer Hideout Children’s Theatre and their unsinkable director Kyla Meyer.
I’ll be in the audience, looking for my Poodle Skirt.
So, why have I kept my prom dress from 1968? The worn out T-Shirt from the first Strawberry Music Festival? My husband Rick’s Little League baseball shirt?
And what about that cute little skirt that barely covers my right thigh? Certainly it no longer would cover anything that it was supposed to cover. But when I opened Box #14 and held it up, a flood of memories washed over me.
I was 18, just starting my freshman year of college. The wild excitement of being on my own was heady, like some delicious intoxication. I strutted under the canopy of giant sycamore trees, passed Hallowed Halls of Learning. On that Fall morning I sported a wool plaid pleated skirt. The pleats swung with the rhythm of my step. The hemline, daring those college boys to look, stopped a few inches above my knee. My stride, strong and filled with drunken confidence. It was all in that skirt.
How can I pass it on? How can I just toss out such a powerful image of stepping into the prime of my life? I need a system. There are some things that I’m just not ready to give away or throw away. And I think that skirt is one of them.
Don’t worry: I’m not planning to starve myself into wearing it again. I have the letters P.D. behind my name–Practical Dreamer. So, while I long to be that size 6 and wear that skirt again, I’m practical. The dream is not about being that young thing with those really cute, sexy legs (Oh, they were cute!). It’s about conjuring that feeling of complete Wild Independent Woman Power, for me first truly expressed in those early days of college.
There we were, free of our parents’ eyes, free from high school’s pressures. But more importantly, free to let our flaming creative intellect ignite incredible sparks of passion, of discovery, of life’s immeasurable possibilities. For me going to college was the most exciting new beginning of all! (A decade later that moment was dwarfed by motherhood.)
That glorious moment! I found it again, tucked into the folds of a navy blue, sanguine red and golden yellow pleated wool skirt.
The stuff in boxes triggers these bright illuminations of a life. Like yours, my life is sweetly, beautifully ordinary. No Academy Awards, no New York Times Bestsellers’ List, No spot on Oprah–Just waking up each day putting one foot in front of the other.
Well, I guess I’ll go take a peak into Box #15. I wonder what mystery lies within?
And to my dear Lizzy Restivo and Sofie Segerstrom…Good adventures, dear girls, as you take off for college this month. xoxoxo.
On the Mother Lode 