BULLETIN # 11 (June / Juin 2003)

1 - Introduction

Annetna Nepo II is almost in print! Despite certain difficulties, it will hopefully be here by the end of the summer, and it will be big! Annetna Nepo III is already planned and we’re not currently accepting submissions. We will be accepting submissions for Annetna Nepo IV as of January 1st 2004. Next month is Annetna Nepo’s 12th bulletin and will include an interview with the Irish poet Fred Johnston and various articles/poetry.

Annetna Nepo II sera bientôt imprimé! Malgré certaines difficultés, ce deuxième numéro devrait être prêt avant la fin de l’été, et il promet d’être un numéro excellent. Annetna Nepo III est déjà projeté. Vous pourrez à nouveau nous envoyer des poèmes à partir du 1er janvier 2004 pour Annetna Nepo IV. Le mois prochain, nous publierons notre 12ième bulletin dans lequel vous trouverez une interview avec le poète irlandais Fred Johnston de même que divers articles et poésies.

Phillip John Usher and R. Richard Wojewodzki

2 - Talk about the passion (RRW)

(Traduction française à suivre)

My father and I have never discussed war. Not that we've had that many great conversations about anything, nonetheless we've never discussed war. His father, blind and shaky by the time I knew him, had sailed bravely to the Philippines in the Big One; my father, graduating with honors from a military college, served in Europe as an officer in the US Army in the mid 1960s. He was captain of a great transportation corps on the buttresses of the Iron Curtain. But things were brewing a bit further east, and as the late '60s approached, conceding to my mother's wishes, he got out. Many of his buddies stayed in. Many of them went to Vietnam and never came home.

Still, my father and I have never spoken about war.

My father dreaded the thought of my wife and I living in Washington, DC. We were there for a couple years in the mid-90s enjoying the pleasures of apartment-life in bustling Adam's Morgan, enjoying bike rides down 16th street to the White House, enjoying the free museums and parks; we were thrilled by the fact that we were so close to the heart of it all. My father would not come to DC because of the Bomb. My father knew that the moment he stepped off the train at Union Station, DC would go up in a mushroom cloud.

But he and I never talked about war.

I'm a teacher. I've spent a bunch of time talking about war with my students. I was encouraged by others not to talk about war with them. Just like my father didn't talk about war with me.

I decided to talk with them about war.

My high school freshmen told me many interesting things about war. Things my father never told me. They told me that sometimes it was okay to shoot people. They told me that you have to trust your president. They told me that you have to deal with evil dictators.

And they told me other things, too. Some told me that they expected to enlist when they finished high school. Some told me that the military was a good option for a kid because it gave you real-life experience. Some told me that they were afraid of dying far from home.

My father always wore a suit to work. In fact, I only ever remember him wearing a suit, though I seem to recall a snapshot of him wearing a bathing suit at a cousin's house one Fourth of July when I was just a toddler. I remember in high school, long after my father had split, thinking that the business suit was just a replacement for his military uniform; last year I saw a recruiting poster in our school which on one side depicted a soldier in camouflage climbing a rope and on the other side portrayed a day at the office, busy on the cell phone.

Thinking about that picture of my father in a bathing suit got me thinking about the Fourth of July and the meaning of the Fourth of July. You see, the Fourth represents this country's independence. Our forefathers won our independence by killing a bunch of Brits and Germans. The French helped us do it. In fact, I read that George Washington led his troops to sneak in and kill a bunch of drunk enemy soldiers during the cold Christmas holiday at Valley Forge; it was sort of like Odysseus leading the Greeks to pummel the partied-out Trojans the night after they brought that Horse inside the city walls. My father never told me any of this; of course, my father and I never discussed war.

This Fourth of July, I'm going to start a new family tradition. I have two little boys and a little girl. The little girl is just a baby, but the boys are old enough to have a conversation with. Starting this Fourth of July, I am going to start an annual tradition of sitting down with my kids and talking about war. We will talk about the Declaration of independence and the Minutemen; we will talk about Fort McHenry; we will talk about Grant and Lee and Lincoln; we will talk about Churchill and Roosevelt. We will also talk about Jackson and Custer; we will talk about the U.S.S. Maine; we will talk about Hogan's Heroes and John Wayne; and we will talk about the Bomb.

We will talk about whether or not it is sometimes okay to shoot people. We will talk about whether we should always trust the president. We will talk about what it means to be evil.

We will talk about military service. We will talk about options. We will talk about dying far away from home.

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