Robert L. Koepcke, Sr., one of the poets featured in this post.
The connection between veterans and poetry surprises much of the public. But it should not; the conditions of combat, moments of sheer terror separated by long periods of boredom and waiting, can create fertile ground for creative thinking by those who serve. This month is National Poetry Month, and Wisconsin veterans certainly contribute to poetry as a creative form.
Those who serve in the military write poetry before, after, and during their military service. Veterans also participate in the life cycle of poetry by reshaping existing poetry to fit their own creative purposes. Shaped by intense experiences, veterans grapple with them and may attempt to recreate the essence of their experience in this creative form or to escape from them—this is just one possible purpose of poetry. The motivations for creating poetry can vary widely, from thoughts about war and expressions of belief to dealing with loss and therapeutic expression to pure creativity.
Interestingly enough, veterans explain the purposes of the poetry they write and the poetry they interact with. Wisconsin Vietnam veteran George Kamps, a social worker who used art therapy, including poetry, to reconnect veterans with their right-brain and how art and poetry stimulate those creative parts of the veteran’s brain for therapeutic reasons, in his opinion:
“Trauma tends to sever the bridge because that right brain becomes more danger than help. We need it to solve problems, to figure out, to think outside the box. We get trapped in that box. That's what I see expressive art has been able to do and that's why the last few years working with veterans and seeing what they can do given the tools, that's been really rewarding because some of the guys I've counseled, I've helped them over the years with conventional counseling to recognize the effects of trauma, see how its effected them as a normal response to an abnormal event.” (OH1983a)
Wisconsin Vietnam veteran Donald Heiliger recalls his experience as a prisoner of war and memorizing specific poems, word for word, and how that kept his mind stimulated while in captivity. He also reveals that being able to recite these works from memory aided in the courtship of his wife post-war. It was important to Heiliger to keep his mind and his fellow prisoners’ minds active during captivity:
“Other things I learned, poetry, for instance. And you tried to memorize it because you wanted to make the mind useful. And so you memorize, memorize, memorize because you didn't have books to read.” (OH293)
Veterans also actively chose and promoted the poems they believed reflected their stories. Wisconsin World War I veteran John Pavlik recounts the story surrounding the well-known poem, In Flanders Fields, oft recited by veterans of World War I:
“As you know when we got home we soon found out that some of our newspaper people that were covering the war by looking in the files of Stars & Stripes and some of the other newspapers and they found a poem written by a Canadian physician who was serving his mother country England in Belgium in the province of Flanders. And at that time the good doctor was on constant duty there, and that was the first time that the gas was used by the enemy. And he contracted pneumonia, and he had died a year later. However, the poem was written, but it never was published in the newspaper or much was said about it. We World War I veterans, after it was published, discovered that and put that as part of our ritual at the opening and closing of our meetings and so forth.” (OH1722)
In a recurring theme, veterans like Robert Swanson, who served in World War II, clearly saw, desired, and understood the connection between poets and veterans:
“One of the other heroes in that World War One Division was--who was the poet "I think that I shall never see, a poem lovely as a tree--?" Kilmer! Joyce Kilmer. The camp that we shipped out of there was Camp Kilmer, and I believe Joyce Kilmer was killed in World War One. And so, he was one of the idols of this division, he and Douglas MacArthur. So, we had had these two famous people from World War One in there. I always thought it was odd; I didn't think of a poet being an Army guy [laughs], or anything like that, but there's nothing about that-- And, he wrote poems that we learned in school--and, of course, they were easy poems to learn, and pretty easy to see what the point of them was, and so forth. So, we were at Camp Kilmer.” (OH915)
People like Robert B. Herriot wrote poetry that grappled with what they saw of war. Here is veteran Herriot’s poem dealing with what he is saw in the south of France during World War II. It was important to Herriot that others read his poem and he said as much (OH407):
Spring in France
I saw spring come to southern France,
It comes the same in Wisconsin.
But it came early as though, perchance;
God’s plan to help the Allies win.
I’ve seen the springs come in before
But never in the midst of war.
Natures process remains no change;
But war reveals what I found strange,
Fields plowed by shell instead of share;
Livestock bloated are lying where
They should have grazed; also there
The men who gave their lives still stare
With sightless eyes at spring fresh air—
These then, are what the spring lay bare;
The secrets that the snow retained.
Better if the snow had remained?
Written 2/19/1945 in southern France.
(Mss.2008.238)
The following are poems written or recited by Wisconsin veterans in their own words so that you can see and hear how they sound. Some of these poems you may be familiar with already.
Wisconsin Vietnam veteran Linda J. McClenahan recites her poem about the nature of war.
MCCLENAHAN: You want my poem?
INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
MCCLENAHAN: Ok. Alright. You ready?
War is hell a wise man said.
And those who knew so nodded
War is hell a young voice cried
And with his friends he plotted
To lead his troops of neighbor chums against imagined foes.
To charge and die a thousand deaths up and down he goes.
Charging bushes tall and green
Around his father's yard
Collapsing upon the soft green grass
After fighting brave and hard
Then gather round and re-choose sides
New strategies to form
Then charge and fall and rise again
No losses do they mourn.
But suddenly the boys grow up and the game's no longer fun.
Their friends, they die and don't get up and they're not sure just what they won.
And the neighbor girls who couldn't play with little boys at war
Become nurses and support troops who give them care and more
And soon they find what others know they learn the lesson well
It's just the wise man said truly war is hell. (OH1326)
Dale Bender, a World War II veteran, tells us a little about the poetry written by one of his sailors about him.
BENDER: Oh, I should have brought; I had--one of my men, he was married and he was probably into his forties and he was a beautiful poet. I should’ve I brought it--or did I bring that poem in? It's--I think you got it somewhere.
INTERVIEW: I think I do.
BENDER: I know how it starts; it says
Down in the engine room we have a gear
That is causing Mr. Bender a lot of fear,
and then so on, he goes on and he ends up and he says
I hope it goes to hell, because then we can get more stateside liberty. (OH1060)
Wisconsin veteran Lisa E. Kromanaker remembers treating a wounded soldier who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan and the poetry he wrote.
KROMANAKER: Yeah--I wish I could remember his name--I had him autograph his poetry. I went to a patients' room and I found him writing poetry. And actually I didn't see him actively writing it, I saw it on his bedside table and I asked his permission if I could read it, you know, for privacy. He agreed and he let me actually have his original writings because he was keeping a website or on MySpace--he had an account on MySpace where he was documenting all his poetry. So just for fun I had him autograph it but unfortunately his signature is illegible [laughs] and I didn't write his name because I actually want to contact him and see how he's doing. And I encouraged him to keep it up as part of his healing and therapy. But there's one that I think kind of sums up what I think a lot of what I keep talking about a lot of the veterans are going to have to deal with - life after war. That's the title of his first poem that I saw.
Life After War
We are trained to live a certain way,
which we know we will have to change unless we stay.
How to fight, how to kill, and how not to express emotion.
And then try to change as soon as we cross the deep blue ocean.
People think we are crazy, because we won't talk about what we've done.
And how killing and blowing up things can actually be fun.
We try to show love and not think about the war.
We know we've changed but accept us because we're not like before.
I look around and see everybody living a normal life.
Men come back and try but cannot connect with his wife.
Not many people appreciate what we do.
We want like everybody else for the war to be through.
We sit for hours and think about this god-forsaken war
and wonder what it was our brothers had to die for. (OH1414)
Here Robert Koepcke, Jr., reads a poem his father Koepcke, Sr, a World War II veteran wrote:
KOEPCKE SR: And I would like at this time, if you would take the time to read the poem I wrote back in 2009, right after I took the trip.
KOEPCKE JR: Oh, your Freedom Honor Flight.
KOEPCKE SR: My Freedom Honor Flight.
KOEPCKE JR: Right. Yeah. So on your reflections here, you wrote the poem, Reflect and Respect. And it goes:
On Veterans Day, as I reflect,
One fact stands out with all respect.
The soldiers of any year in war
Share one belief that all adore.
Peace on Earth. Let freedom reign.
War is horror and not a game.
The soldier knows it is never free.
He must pay the price for liberty.
So honor those on Veterans Day
Whose sacrifice allows us to stay.
Here in the land of the free and brave,
safe and secure, for all our days. (OH2186)
George F. Banda, a Wisconsin Vietnam veteran, shares a powerful poem from his war experience:
BANDA: And I think back and I know how fortunate I am to be here you know so. I think of a poem that--do you remember, back then he was a young captain, Captain Michael Davis O'Donnell, out of Dak To. He flew helicopters. I think he was with the 170th Aviation Company, 17th Aviation Group. But he wrote a poem and it's been out and I've seen it every once in a while. And it's--how's it go?
If you are able,
save for them a place inside of you
and save a backward glance when you are leaving for places they can no longer go.
And be not ashamed to say that you loved them,
though you may or may have not always.
Take what they have left and taught you with their dying
And, in that time, when men decide, and feel safe, to call the war insane,
take a moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind.
BANDA: I always remember that. I embrace those guys, everyday. (OH1379)
These and other veteran related poems are publicly available at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum.