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Call for Submissions: ISSUE 7, “The Chicana/o Collection”

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MAY 2019,

The Almagre Review, a Colorado literary journal, is now open for submissions for the Chicana and Chicano Issue, to be published in Fall 2019. Deadline for submissions will be September 16, 2019.

Butterfly Issue 6

We are primarily looking for fiction and essay/memoirs. We are also interested in black & white artwork. The focus of this issue of The Almagre Review is the identity of Chicanos, who can be characterized as Mexican Americans with a conscience-consciousness.

We are looking for stories of the Chicano/a Movement and how the 1960s and 1970s shaped our lives, how the influence of that era is still with us, and most importantly, how we can pass that history onto the younger generation.

Send us intelligent perspectives on the current political and social status of Chicanas/os, and the prognosis for the future. We understand the struggles of our immigrant brothers and sisters, but we want to focus on the realities of those of us who have deep roots in this country, in many cases going back hundreds of years.

On the fiction side, we would like to see short stories about the every day lives of Chicanas/os. Again, to be clear, we appreciate that there are many kinds of Latinos in the U.S., but we want to devote our attention to the lives of  the largest population group of Latinos–the Chicanos. Stories can often reveal hidden truths in ways that essays and memoirs cannot. We ask that submissions be no longer than 5000 words. Please contact Joe Barrera and John Lewis at thealmagrereview.org

Joe Barrera, Publisher
La Revista Almagre

Joe Barrera: The Christmas Truce

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It was not the same as the famous WWI Christmas Truce of 1914 on the Western Front, when French and British soldiers came out of the trenches and mingled with their German enemies, exchanging gifts and singing Christmas carols, to the consternation of their commanders. The truce in my war was a ceasefire nevertheless. At least for a few hours, or even for a day or two, depending on where you were. The ceasefire had been announced by both the U.S. and South Vietnam. The Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese agreed to it, somewhat reluctantly. They immediately violated it, firing their ubiquitous mortars at U.S. base camps. That was our version of events. The VC and the NVA said that we were the instigators.

Christmas Flower

Christmas 1967 was a clear, peaceful, sunlit day. We were set up on a hilltop near the Laotian border somewhere west of the 4th Division’s 1st Brigade Base Camp at Dak To in the mountainous Central Highlands of South Vietnam. The series of bloody hill fights known as the Battle of Dak To had terminated a few weeks earlier. Like other battles far away and long ago, Dak To is largely forgotten. I cannot forget it and I am forever sorrowful because too many comrades died. The NVA mauled the 173rd Airborne Brigade on Hill 875 and 3/8th Infantry of the 4th Division at Hill 1338. 1/8th Infantry, my unit, had been involved on 1338, and firefights, ambushes, mortar and recoilless rifle attacks on unnamed hilltops. Now we dug in, licking our wounds and wondering when the next attack would come out of the North Vietnamese sanctuaries in Laos. Soldiers always know it. They had deliberately put us out there. We were the bait to entice the North Vietnamese out of their holes.

But for a short time the Prince of Peace reigned. Out of the bright blue sky a double-rotor Chinook helicopter swooped down and landed at the LZ we had hacked out of the thick forest. The ramp lowered and crewmen pushed bulging orange-colored sacks onto the ground. They ran back into the cavernous hold and emerged carrying mermite cans full of hot food. People we never saw out in the field appeared: the company XO, the supply sergeant, the mess sergeant, the company clerk, and the usual shammers and profile-wavers. These base camp commandos lined up the mermite cans, broke out the paper plates and proceeded to serve the less-fortunate grunt infantry Christmas dinner, turkey with all the trimmings. Others opened the orange sacks and out tumbled cardboard boxes, packages from home. The Army had come through. We were not forgotten after all.

I got two packages. The smaller one was from my lady love in Mercedes, the little dust-blown south Texas town five miles north of the Rio Grande. In 1750 my ancestors had settled on the north bank of the Big River, on “la merced,” the Spanish land grant which gave the town its name. I remembered my great-grandfather’s land. But he lost it to the American taxes he never understood. How I longed to be back there, dust notwithstanding. The bigger package was from my Dad, stationed with the Army in Kaiserslautern. The whole family was in K-Town, frolicking with the frauleins. I could have gone with them but I chose Vietnam instead. My girl had sent stationary, pens, envelopes, and sweet-smelling lotion-saturated wipes. She was ready for the first kiss and knew that I had not bathed in months. My father’s box was full of canned Mexican goodies, tortillas, hot sauce, tamales, cinnamon-laced chocolate, all the usual Mexican Christmas delicacies. How did he get all that stuff in Germany? That must have been some commissary in Kaiserslautern.

 

Joe Barrera, Ph.D., is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS, and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

Joe Barrera: First Thanksgivings

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We should always give credit where credit is due. I’m thinking of the Native Americans in this season of Plymouth Rock, Captain Miles Standish and John Alden, who both wanted to marry Priscilla Mullins, the only marriageable woman left after all the others died of disease and sheer heartbreak on the pestilential tub called the Mayflower. Priscilla must have been pretty tough. Tisquantum was there, the kidnapped and returned Patuxet Indian better known as Squanto. He had learned English during his sojourn in Europe and was able to translate for the Pilgrims and negotiate with hostile tribes, which saved the Plymouth colony from annihilation. Indians helped Europeans in the New World. This relationship is part of Thanksgiving lore, a gift from American mythology. We think of Captain John Smith and Pocahontas at Jamestown, Leatherstocking and the Mohican, Chingachgook, Sacagawea and Lewis and Clark, and the cowboy version–the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Native Americans helped white people in this land, which for Europeans was often strange and savage. Of course, it never seemed to work the other way. We give thanks for Indians like Squanto, who introduced us to the turkey which the Pilgrims ate at the banquet in 1621, when they celebrated the anniversary of their arrival. Except they ate venison, not  turkey, but turkeys are part of the myth. Besides, they are so much more fun for kids to draw, along with men carrying blunderbusses and wearing hats with buckles.

Frozen Berries Color
     photo by: Marian Lanham

We honor the New England Thanksgiving, but there was an earlier one, on the banks of the Big River, el Rio Grande, when the Spanish mining magnate, Juan de Onate, brought 500 settlers north from Santa Barbara in the the present state of Chihuahua, in 1598. This is important to know because American history is incomplete without the Spanish contribution. Knowledge of Spaniards, Indians and Mexicans is crucial if we are to understand our present situation. Onate’s aim was to colonize northern New Mexico, which meant that the Pueblo Indians had to bear the brunt of European exploitation. This was true whenever Europeans encountered native peoples. But the Spanish were different from the English. Spain did not drive out the Indians to make room for white settlement, unlike the English. Spain sent mainly soldiers and priests to the New World, unlike the English who sent entire families. This meant that Spanish men often married Indian women. Onate was married to the granddaughter of the Aztec emperor, Moctecohzuma, and the settlers he led had already begun el mestizaje, the mixture of Spanish and Indian blood and culture, which characterizes Mexico and the U.S. Southwest.

The settlers crossed 600 miles of waterless desert, a journey every bit as hazardous as the Atlantic crossing. They finally reached el Rio Grande in what is now El Paso/Ciudad Juarez. So grateful were the people to find water that they had a real thanksgiving, the same as the Pilgrims more than twenty-years later. They prepared a feast of fish from the river, and staged pageants, among them the reenactment of los moros y cristianos, the battles between Moors and Christians, celebrated to mark the reconquest of Spain and the expulsion of the Moorish king Boabdil in 1492. The Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabela, drove out the best part of their industrious population, the Muslims, and also many Jews.

The Spaniards, in spite of extensive intermarriage with Native Americans, transferred their rage against Muslims to the Indians  The following year, 1599, Onate sent his nephew, Juan de Zaldivar, to Acoma Pueblo, to demand provisions from the people there. The Indians attacked the soldiers, which prompted Onate to retaliate. He punished the Acoma people by cutting off the right feet of the men and selling many of the children into slavery. The Acomas have never forgotten this but Spanish justice caught up with Onate. He was tried for his crimes and banished from New Spain. I cannot think of similar punishment for English crimes. Regardless, we can learn from this and truly give thanks for the Indians who made European settlement possible.

Joe Barrera, Ph.D., is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS, and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

Issue 6: Submission Deadline

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This is a quick update to anyone who might like to contribute to our sixth edition, the “Veterans Issue,” which is scheduled for winter.  We’d like to have all material in by October 25th. In past issues, we have reached out to writers locally and all over the world, but in this particular edition, we hope to really focus in on our Colorado community and those along the front range.

AR monogram H

We are looking for stories — fiction, essays, memoirs, poems — from those who have served. While it might sound like we are interested only in the military experience, we recognize that veterans are not only soldiers, but members of our community in every capacity. If one has served, she or he may send us a piece about their military experience…or anything else under the sun. And, if you are not a veteran, we still invite you to share, so long as the piece is relevant to the veteran experience. Many civilians are involved with veterans, are married to them, or are raised by them. Please continue to send us the high quality work we have been so generously provided now for two years.

We hope this clears the way a bit, and look forward to carefully considering each piece. If not, feel free to tug our sleeve with a question or two.

With Gratitude,
The Almagre Staff

Joe Barrera: Comanches in Downtown Colorado Springs

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During Hispanic Heritage Month we honor the true history of this region. This year marks the 239th anniversary of an event that occurred in what is now downtown Colorado Springs. In 1779, don Juan Bautista de Anza, the Spanish colonial governor of New Mexico, came down Ute Pass with 800 soldiers, militia, and Ute and Apache Indian allies. They were in search of the feared Comanche chief, Cuerno Verde, so called because he wore a buffalo headdress with the horns colored green. Cuerno Verde had been terrorizing the isolated colony of New Mexico on the northern frontier of New Spain. So deadly were his raids and so ineffective the response from the decaying Spanish empire that New Mexico was in mortal danger. But then Anza was appointed governor. His task was to destroy the Comanche menace and restore peace to the colony.

Anza was not a Spaniard, but a Creole, born in Sonora. Creoles ranked second in the social hierarchy of New Spain. Above them were peninsular Spaniards, who were the general officers. Below the Creoles were the mestizos, those who were a mixture of Indian and European. Further down were full-blooded Indians and Africans. In this racial caste system, Anza was considered “white” but he could not ascend into the higher ranks of the Army in spite of his proven ability as a soldier. “Los gachupines,” the Spaniards, kept him forever a lieutenant colonel. But they needed him. In 1776 he led an expedition from Sonora across the Mojave Desert and up the California coast and founded San Francisco. This was the first time that Spaniards and Mexicans had crossed the waterless desert into California. Anza did it in record time, with a large party that included women and children, and without loss of life.

To understand Anza we need to know some history. The Spanish frontier was unlike the Anglo American frontier. It was a static frontier that did not advance, like the Anglo frontier. Native Americans lost their lands on the Anglo frontier. On the Hispanic frontier Indians and Mexicans lived side by side. On August 15, 1779, Anza left Santa Fe with an army made up of Spaniards, Creoles, mestizos, Indians, and Africans, people now known as Mexicans, and marched northward into what is now Colorado. He wanted to go up the San Luis Valley, through South Park, down Ute Pass, and catch the Comanches in their usual hunting grounds, the plains east of the Front Range. The New Mexican “vecinos,” the settlers, were familiar with this vast area. They had been hunting and grazing sheep here for generations. “Los vecinos” guided the expedition down Ute Pass, and on August 31, 1779, Anza and his troops attacked a Comanche camp at the confluence of Fountain and Monument Creeks. They had surprised the Comanches, just as Anza intended. They chased the Indians for miles, down through what is now Pueblo, all the way to the foothills of Greenhorn Peak. It was near this mountain, named after the Comanche Chief, that on September 3, 1779, Anza met and defeated Cuerno Verde. It was a huge victory. Anza had saved New Mexico and perpetuated the eternal presence of Indo-Hispano people in this region.

Joe Barrera, Ph.D., is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS, and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

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John Lewis: Why Moby Dick?

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Because, not to cheek my reader, it’s Great!

Moby Dick jpeg

Melville did perhaps the one thing most harmful to a writer, even more so than failing to achieve publication. His first novel was a huge commercial success, followed by several other successes. This set a high bar, but also the wrong one, which Melville through natural talent and vision, veered away from. It wasn’t the success that troubled him, it was the simplicity of storytelling which provided this success. In the long run, he was bound to follow his artistic sensibilities, which proved incompatible to prosperity.

Along came “Moby Dick” or “The Whale” as it was titled in England. Melville had just passed thirty years of age, and whereas the first several novels were adventurous, lushly exotic, and did not place too great a demand on the reader, Moby Dick fell flat. By tackling such an immensely heady and symbolic work, he broke trust with his readers. Following publication, Moby Dick sold poorly and was largely misunderstood or neglected by readers.

But what a story it turned out to be! Melville died much less a literary figure than he had been in his young adulthood — Moby Dick a failure, waiting full rediscovery in the 1920s, thirty years after the author’s passing.

For me, this is the great American novel. It reads almost biblically, in that the story is long, but broken into 150 mostly short chapters. Each chapter is a self-contained masterpiece, and can be read on its own. Like the bible, one can pick it up, randomly open the book, and enjoy these micro-universes on their own merit, tilling the prose for a chance elevation from the daily routine.

The prose drips with metaphor and symbolism. Each sentence is a miracle of craftsmanship; the cadence and rhythm a near breathless prescription of fluidity. And one can extract deep personal meaning from her reading… declaring, “This! This is what the story is about.”

An old trick is to hotbox characters within a trap setting. An ex-boyfriend and girlfriend get stuck on an elevator. The ship’s councillor and her unwilling patient get stuck on a small spacecraft. A competent but motley whaling crew is buttoned up with an insane, vengeance-minded captain with a partial body!

It’s the captain’s body which is important. Moby Dick is a story about many things; a startling avant-garde depiction of racial harmony, an adventure tale, revenge plot, religious commentary, eco-thriller (after all, it is the pursuit of oil), class screed, or even a story suggestive of homoerotic romance.

I find in it the deepest of spiritual matters; it speaks of blasphemy and illustrates the peril of abandoning free-will. Captain Ahab is a mono-maniac, whose sole purpose is to destroy the thing which destroyed him years ago. Ahab was almost killed by the white whale years prior to the telling of Moby Dick. Unbeknownst to the crew, the chartering company, and family back ashore, Ahab has a secret plan to hunt the beast which took his leg. This is a man who has relinquished the gift of free-will, and if the western religious tradition is to be believed, free-will is given him by God.

Ahab, a man of God, has rejected this. He blasphemes his maker by renouncing the most important of all divine bestowals. In his previous encounter with the white whale, Ahab loses his leg. He is made incomplete by the ocean’s carnage. And the ocean is a metaphor so pregnant it will yield itself forever to the service of large literary tales. But, the other physical scar, though often overlooked, is important. Years before the novel takes place, the whale’s daggered tooth cut Ahab along his entire body, producing a scar that twists up his abdomen and chest, and finishes above his face along the eye and forehead. Melville has done us a treat here, symbolically cutting Ahab in half. This is a man who is no longer a man. We all know about the missing leg, the madness in his cabin, the nailing of the doubloon to the mast, but it’s this scar which has rent the captain asunder. In that, he is no longer human according to the author. The looming byproduct is a monster who has forfeited the power of choice. Ahab becomes the supreme animal, transformed into a beast, for he will imperil his crew, his company, to the annihilating goal of vengeance. This is what it looks like for us to surrender the power of choice.

Or so I believe.

I love this story, because at each opportunity to discuss it with a fellow traveler, I find that it means something else entirely. We have the same list of ingredients, the same simple plot — captain leads crew to destruction in pursuit of vengeance — that it continues to astound me, and contemporary audiences, with the diverse fruit of meaningful experience.

John Lewis
Artist/Editor
The Almagre Review

Joe Barrera: History of the Southwest Needs Revision

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I often wonder why U.S. schools ignore so much that is important when teaching history. It’s a strange thing for a patriotic people, but much of mainstream history is unknown, leaving students ignorant of the foundations of the country. “Minority” history, of course, is almost a complete blank. The Southwest, in particular, is ignored. I tell anybody who will listen that history is important, but as a young man once said to me, “I don’t need to know that because it happened before I was born.” In my eternal quest for enlightenment, I was in Taos last week at the annual international meeting of the Anza Society, a group devoted to research and education on the life and times of Juan Bautista de Anza, the Spanish governor of New Mexico, 1777-1787, and intrepid trailblazer who explored much of what is now the U.S. Southwest.

Juan Bautista de Anza jpeg
Juan Bautista de Anza

Anza’s main claim to fame is the campaign against the Comanche Indians, led by a chief named Cuerno Verde, who wore a buffalo headdress with green-painted horns, hence the name, Greenhorn. In 1779, Anza led a large force of Pueblo, Ute, and Apache Indians, along with presidial troops and New Mexican settlers, down Ute Pass through what is now Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs. This was a trail-blazing feat which is only poorly known. Known or not, the  Spanish and Indian presence here makes me feel good. I am happy that our patch of ground was the site of events important in the history of the region. The war against the Comanches is important because it shows Anza’s genius, his ability to organize an allied expedition of Native Americans, Spanish soldiers and mestizo settlers against the destructive Comanches who were raiding in New Mexico, indiscriminately attacking indigenous people and settlers. Anza took the Comanches camped along Fountain Creek by surprise, ultimately defeating and killing Cuerno Verde near what is now Walsenburg. This victory and other battles resulted in the Anza-negotiated Comanche Peace of 1786, saving the remote colony of New Mexico from likely destruction by the fierce Comanches. This puts Anza in the same league with famous American frontiersmen, people like Daniel Boone, Kit Carson, John C. Fremont, and Lewis and Clark. Yet we never hear about him. Fortunately, a group of dedicated community leaders are planning a Colorado Springs Anza Memorial at the confluence of Monument and Fountain Creeks, possible site of the first skirmish with the Comanches as Anza descended Ute Pass.

Sometimes history can play tricks on you. I was with the Anza conference attendees when we toured Taos Pueblo. On the edge of the adobe apartments of the thousand-year-old Taos Pueblo are the ruins of the church of San Geronimo, destroyed by Colonel Sterling Price’s 2nd Regiment of Missouri Mounted Volunteers and Captain John Burgwin’s 1st U.S. Dragoons in February, 1847. The New Mexican and Taos Indian insurgents had revolted against the American occupation, killed the governor imposed on them by the U.S. Army, and were now holed up in the church. I gazed at the wooden crosses in the campo santo, the church-yard cemetery, the mounds of decomposing adobe bricks, and the bell tower that still stands, repaired just enough by the Taos people to keep alive the memory of their slain compatriots. Then I saw the dragoon captain rally his troops for a charge. He was out in front. He fell, mortally wounded. At that moment I felt that I was fated to see what once was, was not now, invisible, but yet still visible. It was real to me. I suppose the experience just came from the knowledge of history.

Joe Barrera, Ph.D., is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS, and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

Joe Barrera: The Real Meaning of Cinco de Mayo

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Once upon a time there was an emperor who wanted to make his country great again. He thought, “if we conquer more lands we will become even more feared and respected. If we send the army on an extended deployment we will find the military glory we have always wanted.” Thinking like this, the emperor knew that he had to find a country that would be ripe for the taking. Trouble was, all the neighboring empires were too strong to attack. The emperor didn’t like it, but he was compelled to look far away for a weak country to conquer. Try as he might he could not find one. Then he had a stroke of luck, or so he thought. It turned out that there were some wealthy people who had been driven out of their own country by a revolution and were now living in the capital city. They decided that they had the answer to the emperor’s problem.

The exiles went to see the emperor, who at first received them with some skepticism, but then became quickly interested in the scheme they proposed. “The man who is now president in our country,” they said, “is very unpopular and could be easily overthrown by the army of Your Imperial Highness. Not only is he unpopular, he is also a radical socialist who has confiscated our estates and left us destitute. He deludes the masses by pretending to liberate them from the tyranny of the rich.” The emperor heard this and felt a twinge of conscience. He knew that many of his own subjects were chafing under the oppressive social order he was enforcing. But not to worry. He felt very secure in his power. The oily exiles continued with their blandishments. “Your Highness could appoint your nephew, the Archduke Maximilian, to be the king of our country. He is a man who is ready to serve you and is just looking for an endeavor worthy of your greatness. The people will welcome him with open arms. They will throw flowers at your soldiers when they invade our country. The people will embrace your enlightened rule and all the benefits it will bring.”

The emperor believed them. He sent his army with the Archduke at its head across the sea. But the promises of the exiles were a pack of lies. The president was not unpopular. The people did not welcome the foreign soldiers with bouquets of flowers. They resisted the invaders and mounted an insurgency that lasted for years. The president led the guerrilla war and was never caught in spite of many defeats by the superior forces of the empire. Finally, the emperor gave up. He recalled his army and as soon as the soldiers left the Archduke was shot by the insurgents. The emperor who had dreamed of glory was himself soon deposed when another stronger empire invaded his country.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? With a few minor changes this could be the story of our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. In this sense it is a cautionary tale for the United States. But this is the story of Mexico and France, and el Cinco de Mayo. Emperor Napoleon III, nephew of the first Napoleon, had delusions of grandeur. These were shattered at the Battle of Puebla, May 5, 1862, when a rag-tag Mexican army defeated the vaunted French. The battle started a war that lasted until the French were driven out Mexico. This flagrant European colonialism–the attempt to make brown-skinned people subject to white-skinned people–has become a lesson that teaches freedom. But we don’t know this. Instead, we have American el Cinco de Mayo, time for parties, time for Latinos and Anglos to get gloriously drunk and make the beer companies rich. If only we knew its original significance. The real meaning of this holiday is that we need to “decolonize” our minds. To “decolonize” means that we throw off the mental shackles of inferiority. For U.S. Chicanos, inferiority is always a problem. This is because we are always fighting inferiority, something that is more real internally than it is real externally. Mexican Americans can look at Black Lives Matter and at the Me Too Movement for inspiration. These are examples of human beings reclaiming their own inherent self-worth.

Joe Barrera, Ph.D., is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

Joe Barrera: Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of the Tet Offensive

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On Feb. 3, 1968 I was sitting on the banks of a muddy river in the village of Thanh Canh, or as we called it, Tin Can. I never learned the name of the stream. Reflecting on that time, Tet 1968, I see a microcosm of our misadventure in Vietnam. The situation revealed lessons we should have learned but did not.

Tet Offensive (Warren K Leffler)

Convoys of U.S. and South Vietnamese jeeps, APCs (armored personnel carriers), trucks loaded with troops, M-48 tanks, dusters (armored vehicles with 40mm cannons) crossed the river on a pontoon bridge. The convoys looked powerful but it was an illusion. On one side of the bridge there was a French fort, an enclosure surrounded by berms, mounds of dirt. The defenders burrowed into the mounds to make fighting positions. We called it the “mud fort” because it was just a triangle of muddy dirt, a relic of the French Army’s futile attempt to control Annam. The fort was a harbinger for us. Along the river, bamboo hooches (shacks) stretched for several kilometers. The fort was manned by the Regional Forces/Popular Forces, RF/PFs, trained by U.S. Green Berets, part of our futile effort to control Vietnam. We called them “Ruff Puffs.” They hid in the fort at this crossing on the road between Kon Tum and Dak To and never came out. We were out all the time. We walked up to the French mission. There were dozens of kids, Vietnamese nuns, an exquisite Catholic church, an ascetic French priest–the lone survivor. The mission, the church, the mud fort. I doubt that anything is there anymore. Shades of Beau Geste and the Foreign Legion.

A horde of villagers came running downstream and into the ramshackle fort. The North Vietnamese were advancing. They were a short distance away. Immediately, the U.S. tanks patrolling the road formed a defensive lager next to the fort. We infantrymen had to content ourselves with holes along the banks. But all was quiet. That night one of the tankers fired H&I (harassment and interdiction) up and down the river with his M79 grenade launcher, which fires a 40mm projectile. In the morning the Ruff Puffs yelled and shook their fists at the tanks. The H&I had sunk numerous sampans, boats the villagers used to fish in the river. There went their livelihood. So much for winning hearts and minds.

In the afternoon loin-clothed Montagnards filed into our perimeter. Their leader, a dignified old man, sat down with us. I gave him a can of Coca-Cola. He drew a map in the dirt. We compared our map to his. The others were disdainful but I insisted that he was telling us something: a concentration of NVA troops. I read the coordinates and convinced one of the tankers to use his powerful tank radio to call in an air strike. The jets came in. That took care of the imminent threat. The Montagnards melted into the forest. Did they escape reprisals from the North Vietnamese?

We won every battle in Vietnam, including Tet, but lost the war. There are reasons why we lost in Vietnam and are bogged down in our present wars: We have good motives but our empire treads the path of older empires. We do not effectively engage the enemy. We are too road-bound, too inflexible. We build too many “mud forts.” We do not understand local cultures and alienate our friends. We dismiss nationalism, the impulse to throw out the foreign invader and recover past glories. Nationalism inspired by religion is what motivates our present enemies. It’s almost impossible to stamp out, and now it has terrible forms–the Taliban and the horribly twisted ISIS.

 

Joe Barrera, Ph.D., is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS, and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

Book Chat: Along The WatchTower

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In our next Issue, “Language & Music,” coming out December 26, we’re proud to feature an interview with award-winning Oklahoma author, Constance Squires, whose work has appeared in the Atlantic, Bayou, Eclectica, Identity Theory, New Delta Review, and many more.

Watchtower

Along the WatchTower (2012) is Ms. Squires first novel. Set in the 1980s, on an American army base in Germany and then in an Oklahoma small town, the novel chronicles the growing up of young Lucinda Collins, following her from adolescence on into young adulthood. We get to experience the growth of this eager-to-please, yet strong-minded woman through the world of a military family — overseas and Stateside.

The setting is something we don’t really see in fiction, that of the military family. And it would take someone with Ms. Squires’ particular talent to truly color and people an environment that is often institutional and drab. But there is no doubt, this novel is vigorous and alive.

The book gives us a wishbone with young Lucinda at the vertex and her mom on one side of the V, her father on the other. What makes the story wonderful to read is the author’s ability to deftly and clearly portray the characters’ cosmic arcs, and from the start we sense the tension bending on the bone where we find young Lucinda.

Faye Collins, Lucinda’s mother, obviously has the artist’s soul, the Creative’s gravitas; her’s is a mighty intellect harnessed into the world of being an army wife. She is always the volcano under the bulk of crust…waiting for release. The manner in which she has arrived in this marriage, as illustrated by Ms. Squires, makes complete sense. The fact that she appears unfit for the life it provides is obvious, yet her world is bruised by the desperate and inescapable need for her husband and kids — by the things they can and can’t provide.

Jack Collins, Lucinda’s father, is a relentless contradiction; the consummate military personality who is lovable and impossible to love, both devoted to the family and completely remote. Every awful action or comment for Jack is followed by a moment of redemption, which is then followed by a cold indifference, which is then followed by utter selflessness, which is then followed by callous bravado, which is then followed by incredible warmth and so on. He can piss us off. But…he also has our sympathy. One thing Ms. Squires clearly conveys is a permeant awareness, as seen by the children, the damage to men and women in the military…before caring about that sort of thing had any public traction.

This wishbone creaks from the start. It is Lucinda, our young protagonist who has to figure things out inside this arrangement. To be in the military, to grow up in that kind of family inevitably means the lowering of expectations in our friends. It’s not that we need them less, or that they’re worse…we just have to replace them all the time. So, standards might be a bit more flexible.

Throw in Rock and Roll — Punk — booze — a touch of fascistic background radiation — devastating metaphors — and we have a wonderful, coming-of-age tale spread across the Atlantic, in a setting that is too little represented in literature.

We need this author, and we need her to tell us her stories. Regardless of topic, Ms. Squires has the gift for flesh and blood. It’s impossible to think of Along The WatchTower without the people in it coming alive. For instance, Jack Collins has one of the clearest voices I’ve ever read. His dialogue crackles in the head with the clarity of a Holden Caulfield. And Ms. Squires’ energies are not wasted there; the minor characters pop as much as any.

As part of the Almagre community, we encourage you to support creative thinking, Great Storytelling, and find your way to a copy of Along The WatchTower. It is a pleasure from start to finish.

John Lewis,
Artist/Editor
AR monogram O