Veterans' Day Reading

By: Kelli Wilhelm, 336. 001

The third annual Veterans’ Day Reading took place this past Tuesday at Main Street Books. The atmosphere created by the stout podium and mismatch of chairs at the rear corner of the book-filled shop was made complete by the warm offerings of freshly baked goods and brewed coffee. The audience’s perusals of the surrounding bookshelves quickly ceased as Dr. Mary Ann Lutz announced the beginning of the reading. After a brief introduction, Lutz turned the podium over to Rebeccah Pruitt, President of Sigma Tau Delta, which organized the event in conjunction with Main Street Books. Pruitt acted as an unofficial MC throughout the event.

As the readers took their places at the podium and read their varied selections, it became clear that this event was more than just a reading. It was about telling the stories of veterans and thereby thanking them for their services. The reading began with an introduction by Raymond Keller who briefly described his own experience as a veteran and commented that each veteran has his own call to serve others through his civilian occupation.” Next the event features a series of personal letters from relatives of featured readers. The first of these is read by Rebeccah Pruitt who begins by saying “I grew up in a military family” and continues to read letters her father wrote while overseas. The first was to her mother and begins simply: “I hate war” and ends with the uplifting idea of dancing together. The second is a letter written to Pruitt as a child, just in case he would never get the chance to meet her. These letters tell the story of hope which letters can represent.

The following letter takes the form of amusing story. It is read by Robert Spahr and was written by his grandfather, Sam, while in a Japanese POW camp during the Second World War. The story describes Sam’s friends in the camp and their attempts to make the best of their diet during their stay. Laughter follows this light example of war correspondence. In a different approach to correspondence, the next letter is a more detailed account of day-to-day events. This letter is read by Holland Hamilton and was written by her great uncle, a chaplain, during his military service in South Korea. Hamilton’s uncle was unique in having given a mass in North Korea, enemy territory, while in service. Later during the event Sally Stephenson read from a collection of letters from the Second World War, which displayed varying perspectives from across the theatres of the war including, Italy, the Pacific, and Panama, North Africa.

Aside from personal letters, the wide selection of literature concerning war was recognized at the reading. The St. Crispin’s Day speech, and its well known lines: “But we in it shall be remembered; / We few we happy few, we band of brothers; / For he today that sheds his blood with me / Shall be my brother,” from William Shakespeare’s Henry V. Sarah Galvin read a poem, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade” which she considered a celebration of a soldiers “ultimate sacrifice.” Poems were also read by Dr. Keith Schlegel and Samantha Wagner. Schlegel’s reading of Walt Whitman’s “The Wound Dresser” conveys a more realistic view of a field hospital during the civil war. Wagner’s Civil War set reading, Minna Irving’s “Marching Still” describes a mother waiting for the marching soldiers to return. Wagner said she was reading the poem “for all the men who never returned.”

Selections were also read for books pertaining to war. Kathryn Barrow demonstrated the burden of soldiers by reading from Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam novel, The Things They Carried. An illustrative description of trench warfare was read from Erich Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front by Vince Morton Jr. The event ended with Dr. Mary Anne Lutz reading a selection from Thich Nhat Hanh’s Peace is Every Step, which describes part of the healing process at a veteran’s retreat.

The readings honored veterans through personal tributes, famous images of war, realistic images of war, and the ever present hope for the safety of our country’s soldiers.