Pizza with the "Devil"

When I first joined Facebook, one of the first people that I accepted as a friend was "Vet".  Vet and I go back thirty-two years or so; I met him at my brother's arcade business in 1982 on Washtenaw and 38th Street.  I worked there on weekends, mostly in the evenings.  I would say that most of the people that came to play the video games were friends from Burroughs, Kelly, SJSA, St. Agnes, De La Salle, and a few from Curie, too; they were young people from the neighborhood.

Brighton Park Elementary School: New building where Duckie's once stood.

Vet lived down the block from my brother's business, Duckie's Arcade (I still have no clue why my brother called his business Duckie's!)  Regardless of the name, the youth from the neighborhood came by the bucket loads to spend their quarters.  First day was a hit because it opened on a Friday, and the weekend of that first week was a great success.  However, during the week, business would get a little slow.  And that's when Vet first appeared.  He strolled in with a couple of quarters, wearing a green army coat, and walked over to the machine, put his quarter in, and he stayed there for some time playing.  The name of the arcade game- "Frontline".  Within a short time, Vet became a pro at that game.  At one point he held the high score on "Frontline" until Duckie's was no more.

Interestingly enough, that's how Vet and I met.  Since I worked at Duckie's part time, I occasionally would play a game or two.  Everyone would crowd around to see how players advanced to another level, what tricks they used, and if it was worth it to play against them on the next turn; I would do the same and observe the guy with the green army coat playing "Frontline".  I don't know how or why, but eventually we struck up a conversation about military history; I was an avid World War II student, and Vet was an avid student of the Vietnam War.  

The corner of 38th Street and Washtenaw.

I remember one of my first comments about the Vietnam War was that the U.S. really didn't lose the war.  Vet's comment was an absolute, "No, we lost the war."  Because of conversations we had on occasion about military history, I was motivated to read about the Vietnam War from the perspective of oral history.  I read, "Nam" by Mark Baker for the first time that year, one of the best books on the experience of Vietnam through the eyes of the veterans who fought in the battles.

Vet and I stayed in touch on and off for some time even after Duckie's closed.  I occasionally saw him on the Archer Avenue bus, riding home from Curie High School (I would catch the same bus heading home from Brother Rice High School).  We always talked and had a few laughs, until we both graduated from high school in the mid-80's.

Fast forward to 2002 when I was being interviewed by WGN for a piece on employment opportunities for people with disabilities.  When I returned to my office for the non-for-proift I worked for, I found an email from a very familiar person: it was Vet.

A wonderful surprise!  A blast from the 80's past!  We exchanged some emails a couple of times.  I was going through a difficult time in my life at the time and eventually lost contact with him.  But good friendships last through years, distances, and experiences, and our friendship stood the test of time!

So on to Facebook in 2008.  While searching for old friends from the neighborhood and school, either I found Vet or he found me.  It was great to add him to my new Facebook account.  Of course, sharing this experience with my wife and daughters was it's own experience.  When my oldest daughter saw a picture of Vet, she stated that he looked like the devil!!!

Thus when he and I got to together to have pizza at Falco's last week Tuesday, I was having pizza with the devil.  He's no devil, he's a friend from my teenage years in Brighton Park.  A friend that has his own views in the form of absolutes, but someone who is always willing to listen to someone else's opinion (sometimes).  Someone that loves the Beatles not Led Zeppelin, reads about the Vietnam War experience not the World War II experience, and someone who follows the sport of running more passionately than any other sport I know.

It's not unique to Brighton Park or unique to me, but friendships like that never fade and last through any chasm that our society can create.  

The War Around Us...

Living in Brighton Park in my early years, the late 1960's and early 1970's, the Vietnam War was winding down. I do not recall anything at all about the Vietnam War; I really don't. Out in the corner of my world on Pershing Road, I had no idea men were dying by the thousands, thousands of miles away in a foreign land. I had no idea we were losing the war. And I had no idea we were losing because of so many complicated factors: misguided foreign policy, the loss of public support here in the US and globally, and a bad military strategy.

Yes, war was foreign to me and I assume to most of my neighborhood friends. We were young and we were preoccupied more with Tastee Freez, bike riding, and who was leading off for the Cubs or White Sox. Yet, what seemed to be close were the memories of World War II.

It was during the early afternoon on Saturdays or maybe Sundays that I recall watching World at War and Victory at Sea. I was fascinated by the black and white film, the D-Day footage, German and Russian offensives, the African Campaign, submarine warfare, the sinking of the Bismarck. I enjoyed watching the episodes weekly. Less than thirty years had passed since the war ended, but somehow it seemed like such an ancient set of events to me.

My friend and neighbor, Gary, his father had served in World War II. I am not sure what theater, but he had his M-1 Garand mounted on the wall in the basement over his work bench. He even had the bayonet fixed at the end. It looked like the size of a bazooka, but I was only a little kid, so that is how I remember it.

I didn't know many WWII vets. A couple of Korean War vets that served in the Navy and Army, but not many. When I attended SJSA I remember going to mass and seeing the vets that served as ushers sometimes wearing their caps with the VFW logo. Once, my 3rd grade teacher took us to see the memorial to WWII vets that died in service on the side of the building of SJSA, right there on California Avenue facing west. That was a solemn moment as my 3rd grade teacher's father was one of the men killed in action and his name was engraved on the memorial.

The World War II Memorial on SJSA Elementary School Building.

Again, this was from World War II. The Vietnam War wasn't even on my mental radar unlike the rest of the city and country. At least, that's what I thought. Yet, the country was so divided and in such turmoil. Sure I was throwing up the peace sign and making fun of Nixon, too, but I had no clue why.

So I wonder if Brighton Park and other communities are currently isolated from war in Iraq and Afghanistan. If they are, what then does WWII, Korea, and Vietnam mean to them?

I, like many, have veterans in my family. My brother served in the Army as a medic. He shared with me the experience of East and West Berlin, watching the Russian tanks rush the gate, then abruptly turn and head back east. Of course, my nephew, his son, a medic as well, and now part of the 82nd Airborne. When he left to Iraq, war became close to home. War was real, not a black and white film, not a memorial, not a paragraph in a history book. It was 13 months of worry! I wonder how my brother would have felt if he were alive while his only son was serving in the Iraq War?

I wonder, what was Brighton Park like in the midst of WWII, Korea, and even the early years of Vietnam? How do we remember those days, the people that died, and the changes that came with it - the Red Scare, the fear of Communism, rationing, the suburban flight, the evident of super powers, protests, a new kind of music, civil rights, industry, unity, the Cuban Missile Crisis and even death?  Did we feel safer then?

Ultimately, military history moved me enough to complete a Master's Degree in History, but the books can't and won't tell the full story. That belongs to the veterans: neighbors, uncles, brothers, cousins, and fathers...maybe you, too.