Leaves of the Palm

Monday, April 4, 2011

A Blast from the Past

"Sarge" and friends, Vietnam, 1967

Confession being good for the soul, I will admit a special connection to one of the pop tunes of my wayward youth. Every time I hear the Four Tops rendition of "Just Walk Away Renee" I find myself flashing back to the last half of 1967 and to "Papa Three," the Combined Action Platoon I served with in Vietnam.

The sergeant in charge of our platoon--Bill Cooke, or "Sarge" for short--joined Papa Three after a 30-day leave back home, his reward for extending his Vietnam tour of duty by six months. One of the things he brought back from "The World," as we called it then, was a small battery operated tape recorder. Along with the recorder he brought some tapes of "the latest sounds."

I suppose that my memories of that tape recorder remain vivid for two reasons:

First, before going to Vietnam, I had one very much like it. My mother, who worked for a wholesale electronics company, had purchased two battery-operated miniature reel-to-reel recorders--one for me and one for my girlfriend. Mother thought my girlfriend and I would like to record and send tapes back and forth to one another. We used our recorders a few times when I was stationed at Camp Lejeune, but I did not take mine to Vietnam.
Second, it was strictly a voice recorder, meaning that it didn't have the dynamic range necessary for recording and playing music. Hence, while the music Sarge had recorded was still recognizable, it played with a screechy, almost metallic sound.

"Just Walk Away Renee" is the one song that stands out in my memory. I don't think Sarge played it more than any of the other numbers he had recorded. I think it was because that song, for some reason, really taxed the limits of Sarge's recorder and sounded so bad that it was almost good. It was at least memorable.

Of course, I have no way of recreating that distinctive sound. I can only share a tolerable You Tube video of the Four Tops singing their version of the song. The title to this post is a link to that You Tube video.

I am still in touch with four of my fellow Papa Three Marines. I am hoping they can remember some of Sarge's other selections. --EFP

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Palm Makes a "Splash of Red"

The online literary magazine Splash of Red has been kind enough to give me some exposure as a photographer. (I can never resist that one.) The lead photo appears below. The title to this post is a link to my work in the magazine. Be sure to click on the lead photo in the magazine for a better view. --EFP

Monday, March 21, 2011

The March Super Moon

I tried my hand at photographing this month's "super moon." I took it Saturday night (3-19-2011) from a hill overlooking Silverdale's Dye's Inlet. Click on the photo for a better view. --EFP

Back to the Shores of Tripoli!

Our Libyan intervention is likely to be yet another instance of no good deed going unpunished. Even if we succeed in deposing Qaddafi—and that’s doubtful--the extremists throughout the region will turn that success to their recruiting advantage. This is bound to reinforce the notion that we are leading a crusade against Islam.

On Sunday, for once, I found myself in agreement with Monica Crowley, the right-wing woman on the “McLaughlin Group.” She reminded the rest of the group that, just because Qaddafi is scum does not mean that the people trying to unseat him are all wonderful. Libya could very well go from bad to worse. --EFP

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Under Suspicion

Good news--I think: My ophthalmologist, who has been treating me for glaucoma for the past year, finally sent me to a specialist, and she has downgraded me from a "glaucoma sufferer" to a "glaucoma suspect." I am to keep taking my Travatan drops and to come back for a recheck in six months. Perhaps at that time, if I have continued to improve, she will downgrade me again--from "glaucoma suspect" to "glaucoma person of interest."
You never know! I may just beat this rap yet.--EFP
P.S. I wonder if, like Emerson, I can now claim to have become "a transparent eyeball"?

Sunday, March 13, 2011

The NPR Blues

Here is a prime example of what goes around comes around if I ever saw one.
   I am not a fan or a supporter of the Tea Party, but I just can't pass on the irony of NPR president and CEO Vivian Schiller's recent fall. She was forced to resign over the recent sting interview in which the head NPR fundraiser, Ron Schiller (a namesake, but not a relative), was derisive of the Tea Party and its members.
   Vivian Schiller was the one who publicly defended the firing of NPR commentator Juan Williams last October. Williams made the mistake of admitting that he feels anxious when he sees a person in Muslim garb on an airplane. Williams had confessed to feeling such anxiety on the Bill O'Reilly Show. He was speaking for himself and not NPR. But that distinction mattered not to Schiller,who got up on her high horse and pronounced Williams guilty of falling short of NPR's high standards of journalistic objectivity.
   I wonder: can Schiller spell "karma"?
   I confess to some little insight into this controversy. After a promising start--five commentaries in a little over a year--"All Things Considered" suddenly cooled toward me. The producer I had been working with was "reassigned," and I never did click with the new one. More than once, she pointedly reminded me that "All Things Considered" was a "news show" and that commentators who had been contributing for years were no longer getting on the air.
   The full impact of those comments didn't sink in at first. Clearly, NPR has been running scared over its federal funding for some time now. They have been desperate to rebut accusations of liberal bias.
   Truth be told, I'm not likely to get back on the air. I wasn't very good at it to begin with. My writing was much better than my delivery. Still, at the risk of being accused of self-interest, I have to recommend that NPR stop trying to curry favor with conservatives and resume calling them like they see them.
   Say it loud, NPR: "We're liberal and elitist and we're proud! --EFP

Monday, March 7, 2011

My Rebuttal

The Kitsap Sun was kind enough to give me some space to respond to a critic who charged me with being insensitive, inhuman, and sexist. I plead guilty to the first two charges, innocent to the third. The title above is a link to my rebuttal in The Sun. --EFP

Reflections on the Current War and on the All-Volunteer Force

Maybe I am indeed what a university administrator once termed me, an avis rara. I am a former enlisted Marine, a Vietnam veteran, and a retired Marine officer who believes we did indeed start "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time" in invading Iraq. An America that starts wars, that keeps political prisoners, and that tortures people (and waterboarding is indeed torture) is not the America I grew up in. It would seem that we as a nation have learned none of the lessons of Vietnam, and that pains me--so much so that I've been moved to try to share my thoughts and opinions on how we are going wrong in a series of op-ed pieces.
I've also has some success recently in placing commentaries on the war and the All-Volunteer Force with National Public Radio's All Things Considered. I intend to include the introductions and the web site links to those pieces. Please feel free to e-mail me and let me know if you find my writing insightful or perhaps inciteful.

My NPR Commentaries

[Click on the links to listen.]

Spending Your Christmas in a War Zone
by Ed Palm
[3 min 29 sec] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6632117
All Things Considered, December 15, 2006 · Commentator Ed Palm spent two Christmases in Vietnam during the war. During the first, he got to go to the Bob Hope USO show. But despite the good cheer, Palm says he left sadder than he arrived.
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Knowing Haditha Could Happen; Wishing It Didn't
by Ed Palm
[3 min 47 sec] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5614040
All Things Considered, August 3, 2006 · The Associated Press has reported that an initial U.S. military investigation supports allegations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November. The Haditha case is one of a string of cases in which U.S. troops are accused of deliberately killing civilians in Iraq.
Commentator Ed Palm is a retired U.S. Marine major. He says that he would like to think that Marines were not capable of this kind of killing. At the same time, he knows from first-hand experience how it might happen.
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Vietnam Vet Sees Changing Receptions to Service
by Ed Palm
[2 min 33 sec] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5455027
All Things Considered, June 6, 2006 · Commentator Ed Palm, a veteran of the Vietnam War, says that for many years, Vietnam veterans were sent the message that they should not talk about their experiences. But that has changed. He says that since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, all service members are lionized as heroes, regardless of whether they did anything heroic.
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Problems with an All-Volunteer Force
by Ed Palm
[3 min 16 sec] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5157068
All Things Considered, January 13, 2006 · Commentator Ed Palm is a retired Marine officer who lives in the Seattle area. He's also a Vietnam veteran. Palm sees a disturbing new trend in the all-volunteer force.
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Draft Left Fighting of Wars to Younger Soldiers
by Ed Palm
[3 min 58 sec] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5066475
All Things Considered, December 22, 2005 · Commentator Ed Palm says when he fought in Vietnam, most of the men he served with were 19 or 20 years old. It seems to him that more of the troops in Iraq are older. He says this is one advantage of the Vietnam-era draft: It kept the business of fighting wars to the younger men.
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Women Warriors: Shouldn't We Talk About This?

Friday, January 18, 2008
Seattle Times
By Edward F. Palm
Guest Columnist
Special to The Times

In one of the most affecting scenes in Homer's "Iliad," a condescending Hector, knowing he is about to face the indomitable Achilles in single combat, in essence, tells his distraught wife Andromache not to worry her pretty little head because "War shall be the business of men."

The scene is affecting for its dramatic irony. We the readers know, as Andromache would have known, and as I believe Homer knew, that war has never been and never will be just the "business of men." Women have always supplied the sons and husbands and lovers who fight and die — and in Homer's day and beyond, of course, women were typically counted among the spoils of war.

I am reminded of this passage every time I hear that another woman warrior has been seriously wounded or killed in Iraq. The irony is that women are still barred by law from serving in direct combat roles, but the distinction long ago became meaningless with so many women assigned to direct combat-support roles in an unconventional war with no front line.

Personally, as a Vietnam veteran of a certain age, I don't have a problem with women serving in combat. I look at this development in the same way that former New York Mayor Ed Koch viewed allowing women to join the Fire Department. In his book, as long as a woman could carry a 180-pound mayor down a ladder, Koch observed, she was qualified. If a woman can hack the training and wants to do it, then so be it.

What surprises me is that we, as a culture, have evolved to this point with so little discussion or debate.

I remember, for instance, all the controversy when women were first admitted to the service academies in 1976. One pundit on the conservative side predicted that the American people would react with shock and outrage when the first servicewomen come home in body bags or missing limbs.
That pundit was wrong. From Jessica Lynch onward, a lot of women have come back seriously wounded and maimed, others have been killed, and there has been nary a ripple of protest based on gender from the American public.

Clearly, the question of whether women can or should serve in combat has been overtaken by events. The fact is, women are doing the job and doing it well. We might as well amend the law to reflect the current reality.

But the unanswered question, it seems to me, is why the American public has been so accepting of this development. Are we now acknowledging that women can and should be allowed to do it, or are we merely willing to relegate military service to whoever will do it, regardless of gender?
The Army's current recruiting difficulties suggest the latter.

Either way, one thing is certain: War is no longer the business of men. Or, to fall back on a retrograde advertising slogan of some years ago: "You've come a long way, baby."

The problem is, you seem to have gotten to this point largely by default.

Edward F. Palm, a former enlisted Marine and a Vietnam veteran, is dean of the Social Sciences and Humanities Division at Olympic College in Bremerton.
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
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