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Posted on 10/14/2003 12:59:45 PM PDT by gunnyg
"ALL HANDS AND THE SHIP'S COOK -- NEW POEMS FROM MIKE TANK"
The following is a selection from GyG'sMailbag, from "Sully"
GyG's Globe and Anchor Weblog!
For: All Hands and the Ship's Cook. Subject: New Poems by Mike Tank.
Have added two new poems by Mike Tank to our web site, "My Father's Tears," and "Nightmare #9."
Please look at the background photo on "My Father's Tears." I saw this photo many years ago for the first time, and to me it is one that rivals the second flag raising photo on Iwo Jima. When I saw the photo initially, it had to be during the summer of 1945. I was on Okinawa at the time, and, of course the photo was taken on Okinawa. It shows a father kneeling by the stretcher of his son, who had just been killed in action. The original caption read:
"6/14/45 MARINE FUNERAL IN OKINAWA WORLD WAR II. Lest we forget--this photo shows how one father spent Father's Day. Marine Colonel Francis I. Fenton of San Diego, Calif. kneels beside the flag-draped body of his son, Pfc. Michael Fenton, killed in action in Okinawa. Michael, 19, was a scout-sniper in the first Marine Division, in which his father is a regimental commander. Of the boys who died with his son, Col Fenton said, "The poor souls, they didn't have their fathers here."
When I first saw the photo I had no idea who Col Fenton or his son Mike were. A very few years later, I was to meet Mike's twin brother in the 1stMarDiv at Camp Pendleton prior to the Korean War in 1950. His name? Why Ike, of course. By that time Col Fenton, retired as a BGen, had been killed by a drunken driver in an automobile accident. Now, only Ike was left to carry on the Fenton name in the Corps. Ike went to Korea with the 1stProvMarBrigade in July '50 as an understudy to Captain John Tobin, CO of "B" Company, 1/5. Those of you who may know the photos of David Douglas Duncan, collected in the coffee table sized photo-journalist book "This Is War," have seen the picture of Captain Ike Fenton. Captain John Tobin had been seriously wounded and left the company a few hours before the picture was snapped during the first Battle of the Naktong. Ike, now commanding "B" Company, stands in a pouring rain, with a fire fight raging on all sides, as he was told, "Captain, we're almost out of ammunition." Every time I see that photo I think of the biblical Job, already beset with nearly every affliction on the face of the earth, being told that there is a huge hole in the Ark. I'll see if we can't get that picture posted here one of these days just so you'll be able to judge whether my take on the photo is the same as yours.
"Nightmare #9" is another on the theme of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There is an underlying thread of PTSD that runs through so many of the writings and poetry that emanates from veterans of all wars. Many of you reading this will recognize precisely what Mike describes in his poem. A few nights ago I was watching the biography of Lee Marvin. As some of you are aware, Lee was a Marine PFC wounded seriously on Saipan in June '44. Lee, although a talented actor, had the same trouble "finding himself" when the war was over, and eighteen months in hospital recovering from his physical wound. His psychic wound would never heal. His social history is full of broken relationships and marriages. It is also full of a continuing story of drug and alcohol addiction. Lee's second wife was interviewed for the biography, and her description of Lee's behavior could have been taken directly from the description of PTSD in the American Psychiatric Association's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)."
The problem for Lee Marvin, and other vets of WW II and Korea, is that PTSD was not "invented" until the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual III was published in 1980. Anyone complaining of the symptoms of PTSD was told to "Get over it." Now we know that sufferers of chronic PTSD have had biological changes to the brain that no one is ever going to get over. Psychotropic medicines help many sufferers, but they are palliative at best. The essential condition remains, and will emerge inevitably when the meds are stopped.
If you enjoy Mike's poems, why not drop him a line and tell him so at miketank@cox.net
As always, please go to my site at "Sully", click on "Menu," "Writers and Stories," "Mike Tank," and finally his poems "My Father's Tears," and "Nightmare #9." Should you wish to be dropped from my distribution list for this site, just drop me an email with "Remove" as the subject. "Stay off the Skyline. Keep a ten pace interval."
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