Herb Greene

“There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have consequences for the world around us.”

Alfred North Whitehead

 

Yesterday, Herb Greene reminded me of the role architectural education played in shaping my time in Hanoi’s prison.  He talked to an audience of students, professors and others in the university community about his education, teaching and work while at the University of Oklahoma.  He spoke of how he was influenced by the genius of his mentor, Bruce Goff and how he found inspiration in the writings of Alfred North Whitehead.

He was 29 years old when he waltzed into my first architecture design course in tennis shoes, jeans and a tee shirt, looking more like a student than some other professors in three-piece charcoal suits.  He slapped open a large book of paintings on the drafting table next to mine and began pointing out the subtle genius of the impressionist painter’s skill in directing the feelings of the observer.  That was always his teaching method; to bring you to feel the essence of design, rather than try to describe it in words.

I occasionally caught a glimpse of his latest painting while walking by the open door of his office.  Across the room, chin in hand, with wrinkled brow he puzzled over the next burst of color to be applied.

One afternoon in second semester design lab, my classmates shoved tee-squares and triangles, frantically applying lines to a drawing while I stared at the blank tracing paper in front of me.  Herb walked up next to my drawing table and asked what my idea was on the latest design assignment.  I told him I was having a bit of trouble coming up with a concept.  He pursed his lips, folded his arms across his chest and rocked back and forth while gazing into the distance out the window.  I waited, not sure if I was about to receive reprimand or motivation.

“I’ve been working on a design for my house,” he said.  “Something about it wasn’t quite right.  But last night I began drawing and it started to take shape.”

He picked up my 2B pencil and began to draw on the edge of my paper.  “So, I made this sketch.”  Tight strokes of graphite went first one way and then another creating a solid textured shape about an inch high and two inches wide.  Interesting, yes, but did I see a house?  No.  When he finished, he studied it for a minute and then walked away.

I wish I would have saved his tiny drawing; I would like to have it framed.  When he built the “Prairie House” two years later, the house that made him famous, I was shocked.  It looked exactly like that assemblage of scribbles he shared with me that day.

When I found myself alone in a dark room seven years later Herb Greene had taught me something about how to use the creative potential of the mind.

/1 Comment/by

Looking Back

Trip 6 is history.  The significance sustains.

With our telescope pointed toward our big bang what can we see?  How we got here?  Perhaps . . . if we consider how our view of the past is pummeled as it passes through our personal context.

On our trip, Veterans looked back at memories, some vivid, some suppressed.  Ghosts of the past were examined in the new light of the present.  One of our Vets told me he was ready to go back and talk openly with his children about his feelings and experiences of the war that he had previously kept bottled inside.  I revisited past trip experiences and saw other places for the first time, but the best thing for me was the chance to see through the eyes of other Veterans and students.

Khe Sanh

Students saw beyond what the classroom could say about a war.  They looked through the eyes of the Veterans at the horror, bravery, sorrow, humility, dedication to duty and patriotism that each one faced all those years ago.  Images from the trip, seeing where it happened, made it real, brought it to life.

  

We gained a new feel for the history, culture and mindset of the Vietnamese, different from North to South, different from Midwestern thought, ideas and values, yet still a part of the humanity we share.

    

/by

Graveyard Battle

The shadow of a graveyard hung over Joe for fifty years; the Vietnamese graveyard where he almost died.  The graveyard where more than half his unit did die.

As the consummate Marine, he had voluntarily left the relative safety of his assignment at Phu Bai to join the battle to regain control in Hue after the 1968 Tet offensive.  When his convoy was surrounded by the North Vietnamese Army on the road through the graveyard, the nightmare of battle began.  After taking out an enemy machine gun emplacement and engaging enemy troops at close range he was severely wounded in both legs by a grenade, but continued to fight until reinforcements arrived.

On the way to Hue our bus pulled to the side of the road as it passed through the ancient cemetery.  Joe led our group as his gaze swung from one gravesite then another.  “There was a sharp bend in the road,” he said.  He swung his right arm in an arc, then settled on a spot facing downhill toward the road.  “This is the place.”

The low grey overcast and quiet mist created a sanctuary for our mixed congregation.  Joe offered up a prayer for those who died in the battle and healing for those who remained.  With a vial of holy water brought from home he consecrated the site in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

/by

How Goes the Trip

This is the way we have rolled in the past week:  Up for sunrise and the hotel breakfast.

Grab your suitcase and bottle water and find a seat on the bus.

We’re off to see the sites of the day.

At Cu Chi we crawl through the tunnels;

In Saigon we stroll through the Presidential Palace;

At Chu Lai I remember the time my trusty A-4 tested the aluminum mat runway for the Marines;

A stop at China beach then swing around Danang;

We walk from South to North across the old bridge at the DMZ;

We go into the underground Village at Vinh Moc;

and visualize the battle at Khe Sanh as we walk the ground.

Traveling from place to place the tranquil fishing villages and rice fields we see from the bus seem remote from the years of war represented by the Veterans on our trip.

Each significant area we pass through is a chance to get a pinhole view into what went on as each Veteran recounts his story.

It would take thousands of pinholes to patch together a coherent picture of all that happened.  But, when a Vietnam Vet returns for the first time to where his personal war unfolded and tells his personal story of what it was like, you get a tiny picture of the tragedy, heartbreak and valor that are wrapped in the package we call the Vietnam War.

 

 

/by

Can Tho Handoff

What a trip.  So much to do, so little time.   For me to describe the excitement and experience of this trip will take some time and more thought. Free time and wi-fi are hard to find.

The best I can do is to hand you off to the College web site where the students are creating a blog that will keep you updated until I can catch up.

Go to https://cofovietnam2017.wordpress.com/

Meanwhile here are a few pix from Can Tho:

 

/by

Beginning the Tour

 

This is the entire tour group after our first day in country, in pretty good shape except for a bit of jet lag.

When our flight reached the Vietnam coast yesterday, several of the Vets moved around in the cabin trying to get a better view, looking for something they might recognize on the ground.  That’s their personal odyssey playing out. As we go through the trip we will share our stories with each other and the students.  The trip is primarily about education for the college students.  But still, we’re all students.

/by
,

Family

This picture is the Friday Night Club waiting for dinner.  Sherry and I got together yesterday with my sister, brother, sister-in-law and cousin.  Let’s call it a small part of the family of Dan.  That’s a miniscule part of the family of man.  Before you roll your eyes and quit reading, let me explain.  After taking my malaria pill this morning, I fought my way through two airports and now, sardined into an airline seat, I’m underway on a trip to the other side of the world, typing to the whine of the engines while bumping through turbulence.

So, as I look around at my fellow travelers, that has me thinking about family, extended family and tribes we identify with — groups I’ve found myself in from grade school through the Navy and beyond.  I don’t expect to have a problem assimilating into The College of the Ozarks group I’ll meet up with in San Francisco.  After all, I did go to college once . . . a long time ago.  And I was a part of that large tribe called the military with all its branches and subdivisions.  Looking forward to meeting the Vietnam Veterans in our group.  That tribe bonds around taking enemy fire in a common war.

/by

Trip Planning

 

This is how the packing goes.  It’s rather alarming to think that in two days all this will step up to the American Airlines counter as a well ordered checked bag, a carry-on and a personal item . . . I hope.

 

How could we miss?  Look at these sterling aviators heavily engrossed in a planning session last week. 

/by

$2.10

Yesterday, I received a very complete packet from Valor Tours, containing ticket information, visa, itinerary, luggage tags, etc.  It makes me realize how unorganized I am and how I need to pack all the important stuff.  You’d think after the previous trips I’d have this packing thing down to a science.  Wrong!

Now that I think about it, I wasn’t all that prepared during the war, particularly when I touched down in the rice paddies of Ha Tinh province.  All the things I held in high esteem like my g-suit, torso harness and survival vest became worthless when overeager villagers destroyed them by roughly cutting them away.  I tried to say “Hey, I can show you how to make that easy by using the zippers,” but the language barrier got in the way.

When I made it to Hanoi, I never saw the stuff again, but for some reason I thought about the two one-dollar bills and a dime I had buttoned into my left shirt pocket. I carried them in case my flight got diverted to Danang, so that I could get a burger and a beer at the O-club.  Later in discussions with cellmates they would tell me what they lost when they were shot down: a good luck charm, a wedding ring or in one case two weeks’ pay stuffed into a pocket on the way from the pay line to the flight line.  I always emphasized, in mock seriousness, how devastating it was to have lost that $2.10.

Flash forward to 1973.  The first release group had gone home and those of us in the second group were hanging around with hopeful expectations for release without a glitch.   The prison staff had the same attitude — biding their time until they could get rid of us.

“Ghi, some officer would like to talk with you.”  Mark, the turn-key guard approached where a group of us stood in a corner of Hoa Lo’s courtyard.  “That’s weird,” I thought, “What could this be about?”

I followed Mark across the courtyard to a building normally used for interrogation.  Inside, a man sat behind a long table, officious but not unfriendly.   He waved to the chair across the table for me to sit.  I couldn’t remember a time when “the chair” wasn’t a low stool.  On his right, a man leafed through a ledger, his pencil at the ready.  The man on his left rested his arm on a flat grey metal box.  I waited while they conversed in Vietnamese.

“Mmm-umm,” the officious one cleared his throat.  “You had some money when you were shot down?”

“Yes,” I answered, “Two dollars and ten cents.”

“Ten . . . cents.”

“Yes, ten cents.”

“Unh, what is cents?”

“Cents, pennies.”

“Ah, pennies, ten pennies.”

Another Vietnamese conversation ensued, with knowing nods and smiles. Then he turned back.  “And two dollars?”

“Yes.”

The man to his left tilted the lid of the grey box open, rummaged around a bit, pulled out a two-dollar bill and placed it on the table.  More conversation, then he counted out ten pennies on top of the bill.  The officious one nodded to me.  “Is this correct?”

So it was, when I flew out of Hanoi two days later I had 2 dollars and 10 cents in my pocket.  I got everyone on the plane to sign my new two-dollar bill.  Or was it my old two-dollar bill in a different form?  Was I the same guy or was my makeup forever altered?

/2 Comments/by