Honoring WWII Heroes

My father never talked about his experiences in the Navy during WWII until late in life. He was in his 80s when I learned he’d been on a destroyer off the coast of Normandy during D-Day and that his ship, the USS O’Brien, had been hit by a kamikaze pilot when the war shifted to the Pacific. He never glorified war or his role. Like so many men who served in WWII, he said that he hadn’t done anything special—he was just doing his job like everybody else.

WordSister Cynthia Kraack coauthored 40 Thieves on Saipan with Joseph Tachovsky, whose father Lieutenant Frank Tachovsky, led the elite Marine Scout-Sniper platoon known as the “40 Thieves.” The younger Tachovsky didn’t know the incredible scope of his father’s role until his father’s funeral, which sent him on a quest to learn more. In 2016, he came to Cynthia with hours of interviews with surviving platoon members, letters, and military research that he’d gathered.

During an informal interview with Cynthia I asked, “What was the story you wanted to tell?” She explained, “The book is a fairly accurate capture of the story I wanted to tell. Understandably, the old men he interviewed found it easier to talk about the lighter side of their Marine service—the jokes, the pranks, the exploits. They said a situation was tense without describing the conditions. Joe wanted to pay tribute to the men and we focused on a line of his father’s: ‘War makes men out of boys and old men out of young men.’ The 18-year-old who went to church with his family and had a last Sunday dinner at home before reporting for training would never come home. The man who came home would need time to rebuild his connection to living outside of war. I also found myself wanting to write a book that would help women understand war’s imprint on the men in their world.”

Last fall, I visited Omaha Beach and other sites associated with the D-Day invasion. Part of me understood that although I was hoping for a glimmer of Dad’s experience, I wouldn’t find it. There’s no way I could possibly understand what he went through. Maybe a soldier or sailor could, but not me.

I sensed that longing in Joe and Cynthia, whose father also served in the Navy in the Pacific Theater during WWII. As coauthors, their main focus in writing the book was to remember and honor the men known as the 40 Thieves. Ultimately, their work was personal, too. They hoped to gain insight into their fathers, access those younger men, honor and remember what they did. As coauthors, they have.

Crossing the Threshold

I didn’t notice the absence of my siblings, the eight closest living relatives to me. At other times, I have. I felt the longing for people who knew me, grew up with me, had a similar life. There was a time I yearned for them to see me and acknowledge my accomplishments.

The room was full of friends. People who supported me. Listened to my words. Really, listened to me.

Imagine if that teenager had had that support when she was 13, 14, or 16. Instead of the silence that accompanied the aloneness that scraped at my young heart. I was a pariah in my own family.

“When’s the baby coming home, Ann?” My 5-year-old brother who did see me would ask. “When’s the baby coming?” He wasn’t yet trained to pick up the subtleties, of who was in or out of the fold. He’s now dead. Died of a heroin overdose when he was 29 years old. I don’t hold any notion that he would have been there Friday night if he lived. My family runs in a pack or as a lone sheep in a gully.

With a sunkeness, I’d pat his sun streaked hair. It had the look and unruliness of summer cut straw.

Every time I speak of my birth son, the baby who didn’t come home, it’s a homecoming.

author     age 8

I live in this body. I breathe this air. I’m here to tell you that it does happen. Sisters sometimes get pregnant by a brother and have their baby and then if they are lucky enough, they get to write a book about it that people will read and celebrate with you at a book launch.

I recently read a Facebook post from a high school classmate who read, House of Fire, and she said that it had a happy ending. She was encouraging another classmate to read it.

Think of that. Out of tragedy you can have a happy ending. You can be a happy ending.

I was very happy Friday night at my book launch. Because you were there. And, if you weren’t, you sent me good wishes. All of me was up there at the podium, and it was enough. It has always been enough.

At the podium, I thanked relatives who came. And someone asked me later if my relatives were actually there. I smiled. It would have been something to point out a brother or sister. I would have wished for that before Friday night. But on this Friday what I had was abundance. “The relatives that are here are the chosen aunts and uncles that are in the book,” I said. Except my niece. That brave niece who came. Who fortunately doesn’t have the same story line I do though she’s looked across the fence at mine and knows it to be true.

My 40^th high school reunion has come and gone. Not that I attended it. My book did though. Classmates are now reading, House of Fire. I’m in awe of the support. It’s unbelievable to that young teen who had nobody.

Coming home can be a difficult journey and yet the most wonderful. It has a happy ending.

If you’d like to hear more of my voice or you weren’t able to make it to my book launch, please join me and Su Smallen on October 21^st at 7pm at Hamline University.

“Su Smallen´s new poems, a lexicon of snow, sing with notes of grief, sorrow, joy and resilience, pondering that great Midwestern element. . . . I am grateful for what this talented poet brings forward: pressing with renewed trust her words onto the pages the way you step — well, through snow.” – Spencer Reece

“House of Fire is a book of naked, sharp-edged truth, a journey into and through immense darkness. Yet it is also a profound testament to our deeply human ability to heal and transform.”
– Scott Edelstein

 

 

 

 

 

 

You Are Invited! Finding Your Bones: Speaking the Truth with Prose, Poetry, and Spoken Word

September 30th, 7pm at Loft Literary Center, 1011 S Washington Ave, Minneapolis, MN

Celebrate the publication of House of Fire: A Story of Love, Courage, and Transformation, a touching and provocative memoir from author, educator, and incest survivor Elizabeth di Grazia. Elizabeth will be joined by award-winning writers Christine Stark, R. Vincent Muniz Jr., and Keno Evol for a powerful evening of stories of survival, transformational poetry, and bare bones honesty. A wine and appetizer book signing reception will follow the readings.

Participant Bios

Elizabeth di Grazia is the author of House of Fire: A Story of Love, Courage, and Transformation, a memoir about her triumph over neglect, incest, and childhood trauma. Recipient of a Jerome Travel and Study Grant and participant in the Minnesota Loft Mentor Series, she is a founder of WordSisters, a shared blog (wordsisters.wordpress.com). Her work has been anthologized in Illness and Grace/Terror and Transformation and Families: Front Line of Pluralism. She has published prose in Adoptive Families Magazine, Minnesota Parent, Adagio Verse Quarterly, Edge Life, and elsewhere.

Christine Stark

Writer, visual artist, and organizer, Christine Stark’s first novel, Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Her writing has appeared in periodicals and books, including Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prize-Winning Essays; When We Become Weavers: Queer Female Poets on the Midwestern Experience; The Florida Review, and many others. A Loft Mentor Series winner, Chris is currently completing her second novel and conducting research for a non-fiction book.

Keno Evol

Keno Evol is a blogger for Revolution News, an international group of independent journalists, photographers, artists, translators, and activists reporting on international news with a focus on human rights. Poet, essayist, spoken word performer, and educator, Keno is the board chair of the Youth Advisory Board for TruArtSpeaks ,a nonprofit dedicated to cultivating literacy, leadership and social justice through Hip Hop. His work has been published in Poetry Behind the Walls, Gazillion Voices Magazine, Black Girl In Om, and elsewhere.

Vincent Moniz Jr

An active force in the Twin Cities artistic community, R. Vincent Moniz Jr. has received numerous literary awards and fellowships for his writing and live performances. Reigning champion for the Two River Memorial Indigenous Spoken Word SLAM World competition, he has performed spoken word at Equilibrium: Spoken Word at the Loft, Intermedia Arts, Pangea World Theater, and elsewhere. An enrolled citizen of the Three Affiliated Tribes located within North Dakota on Ft. Berthold Indian Reservation, he was raised in the Phillips neighborhood of South Minneapolis.

I HOPE YOU CAN JOIN US!

Other events coming up are Barnes and Noble, Maple Grove book signing on August 13^th, 1-3pm, and with Su Smallen at Hamline University, Kay Fredericks Ballroom, October 21, 7pm.