My Redacted Life: Chapter One (Cont. 3)

There is something about crossing the Mississippi River. No matter which way you’re going, you’re going someplace new. Certainly, that’s how I felt as I continued my second full day after separation from military service.

The ancients must have been in awe when they saw it for the first time. Wide and muddy, it has no reason to argue or brag. It’s the goddam Mississippi River and you can take or leave it. Much of America takes it. The basin covers more than 1,245,000 square miles, including all or parts of 31 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.

Years later I would read, at least three times, one of the greatest books ever written about one river. Back then, I was just fascinated all over again by the muddy expanse.

I descended into Arkansas and immediately came upon Lake Chicot and the city of Lake Village. I couldn’t have counted the many happy hours I’ve spent fishing on that Lake. It was divided then into two parts, one was constantly muddy from undeterred runoff. They used to have powerboat races on it when I was young. The other half was dark blue water that housed some of the best fishing in the state.

My father had taken up fishing trips when my brother was old enough for excursions. Lake Chicot was a favorite. It was long and narrow. You could paddle across it easily. As I drove by that day, I could almost re-smell the soft fragrance of willow trees of an early morning as we set off to our favorite fishing spot. No wild rides, no fancy musical shows, no entertainment spectacles, just a boy and his dad crossing a welcoming lake in the pre-dawn stillness. If there is a better time on earth for a young boy, I can’t imagine it.

There had been times, when I stared, rifle in hand, at the jungles leading up Monkey Mountain at Da Nang, when I had tried to relive one of those trips in my mind, just to pass the post-midnight hours. Now, here I was, all grown-up and wiser, back again.

Leaving Lake Village, I headed toward McGehee, then a thriving farm community that still housed an active railroad depot and thriving business district. Although I didn’t know it at the time, a few miles to the north one could find the remnants of the Rower Relocation Center, a World War Two concentration camp where Japanese-American families had been held as prisoners by a country that had abandoned love and grace. All that is left there is a cemetery and a monument to the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team.

442nd Monument at Rower

That was a regiment manned by Japanese-American citizens, whose families were incarcerated in places like the Rower Center. These men wanted to prove their loyalty to their country and were finally allowed to participate in the European Theater. The 442^nd became the most decorated unit of its size in U.S. military history. In less than two years of combat, the unit earned more than 18,000 awards, including 9,486 Purple Hearts, 4,000 Bronze Stars and 21 Medals of Honor.

A few years ago, my family and I attended a ceremony in McGehee to dedicate a museum in memory of the Rower Center. A college classmate attended. He had been born there. George Takei attended as well. He spoke, and described how, as a five-year-old, sent there with his family, He was forced to face the American flag each morning, with the barbed wire fences in the background, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

I didn’t know all this at the time. I was simply heading down the highway of my future, across a country that had just robbed me of four years of my life.

The Mississippi River drainage basin

Epiphanies

Since a photography road trip with a friend last week, I find myself fascinated by the existence of the Rohwer and Jerome, Arkansas Japanese Relocation Centers. Few in our state seem to realize that we bear scars from this dark episode in American history, even as some in our country seem hell-bent on repeating it.

I found a clip of actor and activist George Takei discussing his family’s imprisonment at the Rohwer camp. The interview occurred a couple of years ago on the Daily Show. Click here to see it. I hadn’t realized the role Earl Warren, now a liberal legal icon, in the internment program. He's more well-remembered for his role in “Brown v Board of Education.”

It is said that Warren came to regret his role in the imprisonment of American families. One wonders if his change came slowly over the years, or as a sudden epiphany, where the evil gives way to the good. I call those "Thomas Becket Moments," in honor of the saint as featured in Becket, or The Hour of God, by French playwright Jean Anouilh. Seems Becket and England's Henry II were great hell-raising pals, so no one was shocked when Henry appointed him Archbishop of Canterbury, a plum ecclesiastical posting. As portrayed, however, once elevated to this lofty position, Becket succumbed to a higher calling and defied the king in favor of serving his, Becket's, god. The act led to Becket's murder, but gained him both his sainthood and a revered place in what many now call the right side of history.

 As America heads into unknown waters, we might take heart in the notion that any person is human, and may rise from the deplorable to the sublime in one lifetime. What might save us from the darker passions of our souls would be a few "Thomas Becket Moments." As Anouilh himself once said, "Nothing is irreparable in politics."

The line marking the right and wrong sides of history will not change, only the honored rolls containing the names of those who choose well.

Today, one only sees decaying
monuments and peaceful fields.