Anniversary

Today marks the anniversary of the end of the Second World War.


Monthly, I have the privilege of meeting with veterans, and spouses of veterans, and diving into the stories that are carried around.


Each meeting, we use a writing prompt, put pen to paper for 20 minutes, then come up for air and see what emerged.


What emerges is always incredible, and often surprising.


One of the things I love about group writing is that there is a limited time, and people move quickly past what might block them if they were writing alone.  The focus is sharp and the result is that stories begin.  Meaning, 20 minutes is a perfect amount of time to go into a story, and often, we are left wanting to return to and complete what we have written.  The first step taken, the next step is less daunting and more exciting. 


Here is what I wrote, or began, at our last gathering:


I am reading a book of 125 letters.  There is a letter from a little girl to Abraham Lincoln, before he became president, telling him he might stand a better chance if he grew his whiskers, as every lady loves whiskers and could convince their husbands to vote for him.
There is a letter from Beatnik poet Jack Kerouac to Marlon Brando, asking him to make his recent book, On The Road, into a movie.  Brando never responded. 
There is a letter from Clementine Churchill to her husband, Winston Churchill, telling him he is not as kind as he used to be.  There is the famous letter from Sun Magazine Editor to Virginia, stating, Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.


I come upon a letter from WWII soldier, written to the President of the United States. 
The sidebar to this letter states that there were over 20,000 soldiers who, in the midst of chaos, fled.  This soldier, found guilty of desertion, was sentenced to be executed by firing squad.
His letter to the President asks for mercy, and a second chance.  He writes that he made some mistakes, served jail time before becoming a soldier, and wanted to live for his wife.  The letter is riddled with misspellings, those that speak of desperation.
He writes that upon finding himself in battle, his bad nerves took over, and he ran.


His appeal did not win what he sought, and not long after, he was executed by firing squad, the first punishment of its kind enacted since the 1860s. 


20,000 soldiers did what he did---rather---20,000 soldiers found that when dropped into a chaos they could not comprehend, their fight of flight instinct took over.  The one that they were trained to activate---fight---was overruled by the other one----flight.


Both responses are meant to keep us alive, but in an instant which belongs only to the one experiencing it, sometimes our animal brain takes over and says, Flee.  Now.


There is a third response of the Three F's, one that can be found after an intense experience:
Freeze.  It is the paralysis between fight or flight.  It is a deer in headlights.  It is the center of unknowing.  It can preserve a life, or cost it.


The soldier killed by firing squad had an instinct: flight.  Then later, another: fight for his life through letter writing.


I go through the letters and keep coming back to his.


A bad case of nerves, he wrote.  I have some awfull bad nerves. 


And then time was up.


The soldier's name was Eddie Slovik.