S.C. Morgan

—Photo, WWII Dog Tags, courtesy Wikimedia

Dog Tags

My uncle, Elliot R. Corbett, was one of those who fell at the Battle of the Bulge, fought over an 80-mile stretch from Belgium to Luxembourg from Dec. 16, 1944, to Jan. 25, 1945. It was the largest land battle involving American Forces in World War II. More than a million Allied troops fought in the battle; more than 19,000 troops were killed.

I never met my uncle Yottie, as my mother always referred to him, but I gather he was a charmer. I’ve seen pictures of a dark, curly-haired man grinning for the camera as he stands easily next his horse, reins in hand. He was a handsome and easy going man who loved the out of doors. I understand he had a girlfriend before he was drafted, or enlisted, but no one in my family seems to know what became of her after Yot’s death.

Apparently, he tried to join the 10th Mountain Division to fight alongside his brother, Alfred, but the Army refused his application.  According to my mother, he was sent without training of any kind. Like so many, he ended up as cannon fodder in the European theatre. Alfred came home. Yottie did not.

But the Battle of the Bulge happened five years before I was born, so all this may seem like old history, and it is, but yesterday my 92-year-old mother wrote to say that a woman contacted her several weeks ago, wanting to know if my mother was a relative of Elliot Corbett. Yes, she said, she was his sister. The woman said, the Army will contact you shortly. Four days later the Army called to say they were sending some articles for the family.

After Yot’s death my grandfather, with help from his political friends, established the Elliot R. Corbett Memorial State Park, located off US Highway 20, fourteen miles west of Sisters, Oregon. It is mountainous country and the park is only accessible by foot. I have hiked there among Ponderosa, sage and wetlands and felt a kinship with the uncle I never knew. It is a living testament to Yot’s love of nature.

This week, true to their word, a small package from the US Department of Defense arrived in McMinnville, Oregon. In it were some papers from my grandfather assuring the Army that his son should be buried in the Margraten cemetery in the Netherlands, some official forms, and documents.

And, Yottie’s dog tags. Sixty-five years after his death. His dog tags. Where have these things been all this time, and what do we do with them now?

I just finished reading a book by Craig Childs about artifacts and the conundrum of where they belong and to whom they should be entrusted. Childs’ view is that they are best left where they were found; it gives the land a sense of history. As he points out, an artifact can outlive you, your children, and your grandchildren, so once they are in your possession the responsibility is enormous.

My mother asked me what I thought she should do with the dog tags. I told her I didn’t know. But what I thought was, I want to hold them for a moment’s reflection and then fling them onto the field where he died.

That is where they belong.

CP

S.C. Morgan grew up in Oregon, where she learned not everything is black and white. Now she lives in the jungles of Costa Rica where shades of gray cover the full spectrum. She writes because she can't help herself. Sometimes she gets published. You can read more of her work at http://www.scmorgan.com/

S.C. Morgan

Facebook

I'm on Crackbook
again
this time searching for you,
elusive as ever.
But I remember those years.
We shared stolen time
in my bed.
Your family waited
and I neglected mine.
In the end,
a total waste of
time

CP

S.C. Morgan grew up in Oregon, where she learned not everything is black and white. Now she lives in the jungles of Costa Rica where shades of gray cover the full spectrum. She writes because she can't help herself. Sometimes she gets published. You can read more of her work here.

S.C. Morgan

Guaro

Her face is as hard and
drawn as desiccated beef liver.
Chopstick thin legs wobble
under a swollen belly.
Her companion,
with his wild blond Rasta braids askew,
gesticulates at druggies in the street,
proffering a quarter bottle of cheap guaro rum
for another fiesta:
tourists from Hell,
come to visit this tropical paradise.
Crossing the street, she staggers,
catching her balance
on wonky platform espadrilles,
and then drops
her dirty yellow Capri pants to her knees,
urinating for all the world to see.

Oh, señora, do you have parents?
And how do they reconcile
the child they knew with this lost life?

CP

S.C. Morgan lives on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. An American expatriate, her writing has appeared in Escape From America, Real Travel Adventures, and Notre Dame Magazine. She writes about nature and human nature—anything that is interesting.

Some Thoughts on My Father-in-law
S.C. Morgan

He shuffles to the opposite end of the yard ever veering to the right, his upper body cantilevered over twisted lower limbs. Like an old horse with one blind eye he steadfastly compensates for the loss of ground and ends up at the irrigation ditch­­ where he wants to close the weir.

I can see translucent skin and bony spine between shirt and jeans as he bends down. The belt has a few new notches punched in it since I saw him last. Some in the family think he may have had a stroke because he drools now and when he sits he slumps to the right.

He would never go see the doctor about it unless coerced, and he sure as hell wouldn't go in for any of "that therapy business."

“I’m as good as I ever was, just a little slower,” he says.

There is no forcing this man to do anything. His jaw is jutted forward the same way it has been his whole life. He closes the weir; the sprinklers give a final spurt and fall silent.

My father-in-law grew up an orphan in North Dakota and came of age during the Great Depression. He was a CCC kid. Most people don't even know what those letters stand for anymore, but they saved his life. He loves Franklin Roosevelt although he has voted as a registered Republican in every election since.

Unasked for, he outlived his wife and having survived that blow fifteen years ago he will not go down easily. Who are we to tell this man how to live out the last years of his life? Would he really be better off if he went into a Home to rest?

The end is only the same as the rest of his existence and although he may complain about it occasionally, he accepts it. There is nothing wrong with his brains, it is simply that the mechanical parts are failing him.

I watch him shuffling back to the house and am reminded that he is only thirty-five years older than I. An eye-blink in time. Recently, on a trip with my adult children, I was looked after as though I might get lost—not remember the way back to the car. It made me angry. Now I understand the evasive answers my own parents and my father-in-law give me when I ask about having someone come in to help around the house. I’m sure they feel suggestions of incompetence are implied.

All of us know who we are. We have lived in our skins for our entire existence and even if we aren't always comfortable with who we are, we are at least familiar with the terrain. We cling to that dignity and carry ourselves to the grave fighting to retain as much of our essence as humanly possible. All the older members of my family seem to be doing that with as much class as they can muster.

There is not that much time left.

CP

S.C. Morgan lives on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. An American expatriate, her writing has appeared in Escape From America, Real Travel Adventures, and Notre Dame Magazine. She writes about nature and human nature—anything that is interesting.

Learning to Listen
S.C. Morgan

The first time I married I did it in haste, like a pebble propelled from a slingshot.

I married the year after I graduated from high school—the same November America elected Richard Milhouse Nixon president, the year Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were gunned down, and the year after my little brother was killed in a shooting accident. If you believe in omens—as I have learned to—I ask you, what good could come from all of that?

I remember the day he asked. We were living in Bavaria—Garmisch-Partenkirchen—in a funky room we rented from a hausfrau so I could work while he went to The Goethe Institute to learn German.

"Because I want to," he'd said.

He sat straddling a wooden dining chair—the only chair in the room—his arms crossed over the back. I sat on the edge of the bed. A shard of light fought its way through the weathered drapes. As he spoke I examined the dust particles suspended in flight, floating in that single beam of light. My recollection is that he didn't actually ask, but rather suggested that "we might as well" as we were already living together. Confronted, I felt vulnerable and didn't know the right answer.

A small moth of a thought fluttered through my brain and whispered, Don't do this. But, the voice was ineffectual, too timid, drowned out by the crashing circumstances of life.

Then, as though listening to someone else, I heard my own voice say, "Okay, why not?'

Okay? Why not?

So casual, so little regard for myself, and, looking back, so little regard for him. I believed then that life was long; a person could make mistakes and move on. I was only along for the ride.

He seemed happy enough with my answer and hugged me, but I felt like a liar, too afraid of being alone to end it.

I'd say our marriage was a bit like the proposal, offhand and with little regard for each other's intrinsic value. We had no idea what to make of life, we simply made it up as we went along. We paid the price for our mistakes.

Eleven years and two children later, when the little voice inside said, You better leave him now, at 30, or you will be doing it at 40, it thundered in my ear.

CP

S.C. Morgan lives on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. An American expatriate, her writing has appeared in Escape From America, Real Travel Adventures, and Notre Dame Magazine. She writes about nature and human nature—anything that is interesting.