Piece of my heart by Peggy Aycinena
I hear you showed up at the Palo Alto VA event – the only tech trade editor! You're the only human being in that bunch. Anon ********************* Dear Anon, I had to get a beer and crank up Janis to write this. When Janis was in her prime in 1969, we were embroiled in Vietnam. I had one brother in uniform – a Navy pilot – and one brother bucking to be a conscientious objector. My mother was becoming increasing rabid in her opposition to the war. My father was less vocal – he had served with distinction during and after WWII as a medical officer in the Navy, and was not intrinsically anti-military. As a Quaker, however, he was intrinsically anti-war. My mother and my father loved my Navy brother, but hated the war. They loved my CO-wannabe brother, but hated that in supporting him, they seemed disloyal to my other brother. Meanwhile, my sister's fiancée was on active duty, training for the next 10 years that he would spend in the reserves. December 1969, a bunch of kids who were friends of my older brothers and sister, kids between the ages of 19 and 23, sobbed and screamed their way through the holidays in their family kitchens and living rooms in my town. Some of that sobbing and screaming carried over into our living room during one particularly brutal evening that started out as a holiday 'party' and ended up as a verbal bloodbath for everybody involved – whether they were at the party in uniform or not. The kids at that party in December 1969 were either home from college where they were demonstrating against the war and bragging about it, or they were home on leave, in uniform and dreading the return to wherever they had come from – afraid and conflicted, but unwilling/unable to admit it even to themselves. Like a thousand thousand families in the U.S., the Vietnam War tore my family apart – and the friends of my family. Those wounds inflicted in and around 1969 took 30+ years to heal. And that says nothing about the physical wounds inflicted on the ground in Vietnam. Last Monday, I drove to Palo Alto to attend what was billed as a 'Surprise' Press Conference announcing something that involved Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and Cadence Executive Chairman Ray Bingham. Apparently nobody else in the EDA press corps showed up – probably because they suspected as I did, that it was a publicity stunt. When politicians and corporate executives get together, usually the only item on the agenda is self-promotion. But I already knew my way to the VA campus in Palo Alto. I had spent some amount of time there last spring, hanging out in the Hospice Ward keeping company with an elderly family friend who was terminally ill with cancer. On most of my visits there, he entertained me with stories of his years spent in the Pacific Theater during WWII. The memories and the stories faded in and out as his days grew short. Anyway, I decided to make a quick visit to the 'Big Surprise' Eshoo/Bingham Press Conference. It was Valentine's Day and although the skies were gray, recent rains had made all of the hills around Palo Alto green. I parked in the same parking lot I had used last year when I was visiting the Hospice Ward in the main hospital. This time however, I walked the other direction into Building 7 where the Press Conference was scheduled to take place. I walked down endless anonymous corridors in Building 7, and eventually turned a corner into a small, crowded hospital Day Room – a room complete with balloons, valentine hearts on the walls, TV cameras, older people in suits, younger people in battle fatigues – and good health – and younger people in civvies sporting fresh, disfiguring battle wounds from Iraq. It was hard to miss the young guy who only had one eye and whose face had clearly been reconstructed after getting half blown off. It was hard to miss another young guy who wearing a brain injury helmet. It was also hard to miss the guys there in wheelchairs. Ray Bingham was there. Nicely dressed. Looking the part. Executive Chairman of the Board. Anna Eshoo was there. Nicely dressed. Looking the part. Congresswoman. I was there. Nicely dressed. Looking the Part. EDA Press. There were a lot of other people there. Nicely dressed. Looking the part. Hospital staff and administrators. The cameramen from all the local TV affiliates were there. Not so nicely dressed. Spiky bleached hair and earrings. Yet, looking the part. The 6 or 7 young men and women in battle fatigues greeting people in the room had the broad, warm smiles and regulation haircuts that broke your heart just to look at them. The broken bodies standing or sitting near them had neither warm smiles nor regulation haircuts. Nonetheless, they attempted to be nicely dressed as well. To look the part. Brave, wounded veterans. Looking at them broke your heart, too. As I stood there in the midst of the 50 or 60 people milling around in anticipation of the 9:00 AM (sharp!) start time for the Press Conference, I thought I was either going to faint or puke. Anna Eshoo had been a dear friend and professional associate of my late sister, the one who died of breast cancer in 1999. The last time I communicated with Anna Eshoo was to write a letter on behalf of my brother-in-law and his sons to thank her for her kind condolences on account of my sister's death. Looking across the room at Congresswoman Eshoo as she kindly greeted many around her, my sister's death was suddenly right there with me. So was the war in Iraq. So were the disfigured wounded right there in front of me. So was my mother's passionate hatred of this war. So was my father, so young and handsome in his Navy uniform in 1945. So was my oldest brother, so young and handsome in his Navy uniform in 1969. So was my other brother, so sure of his moral superiority in 1969. And so were the others of like mind I met in the early 70's when I went off to college at U.C. Berkeley. So was the entire EDA community there in the Day Room at the VA Hospital – with all their posturing and pretty manners and expensive suits. So was all of Congress with their determination to send somebody else's sons and daughters off to war – but rarely their own. So were my handsome and healthy young daughters and son – same ages as these young people in front of me wearing their battle fatigues or their battle scars. So was my late, elderly friend, the one who died last June just a few steps away from where I was standing amidst the balloons, the cameras, and the Valentine Hearts. I was miserable and thought to leave. But I didn't. Instead I tried to sit down in one of the few chairs available – one of the ones up in front near the podium. But I was asked to vacate my chair because Ray and Anna and another congressman who had showed up needed to sit there. So, I stood next to a table near the window, the table with the red, white and blue cupcakes, and the cookies and punch. I tried to steady myself by looking out the window, or by looking across the room at the guy who was missing his eye. There wasn't really any reality in between – except the reality of Ray and Anna. And they represented everything I was trying not to focus on. Somebody representing the VA Hospital stood up at the podium to start things off at 9 AM (sharp!). She greeted everybody and explained that the monies that will be raised in the upcoming Cadence Stars and Strikes Bowling fund raiser has generously been earmarked for the new Fisher House about to be constructed at the Palo Alto VA facility just adjacent to Building 7. The Fisher House will house families in town visiting their recovering wounded. That was the surprise – the naming of the recipient of this year's Stars and Strikes monies. Anna Eshoo stood at the podium. She told the walking and wheelchair-bound wounded sitting in front of her that she loved them, the American people loved them, and that their sacrifice would never be forgotten. She introduced Ray Bingham and almost started crying in explaining her feeling for his generosity, patriotism, and sense of community service. Ray Bingham stood up and took the podium. He thanked the hospital. He thanked Anna. And then he surprised me. He said his father had died two years ago in the VA Hospital on the campus there. Ray said his father had received the most loving and spiritually inspired care in his last days there, and that Ray would never forget the kindness the staff had showed to his father. And suddenly, I had no reason to avoid looking at Ray. For that moment, he didn’t represent the pretty, posturing EDA industry. He represented someone just like me. Someone who had hung out in a Hospice Ward watching a loved one slip into the next life. And I thought for a second that Ray choked on his words a bit, like Ana Eshoo had just minutes before. Ray moved on from his father, to his praise of the VA programs that encouraged things like the Fisher House to be built. Ray said he was delighted and honored to be able to announce that the 2005 Cadence Stars and Strikes money would go towards building the Fisher House. Ray said there are several Fisher Houses adjacent to several military hospitals here in the U.S. But, the Fisher House about to be constructed on the VA Campus in Palo Alto will be the only one available on the West Coast to the families of the wounded who want to stay nearby during the long recoveries associated with battle wounds. When he was done, the event was done – and it was only 9:20. I waited amidst the crowds until I could have my turn to speak with Congresswoman Eshoo. I told her I was Sheryl Parker's sister. She said how perfectly wonderful and asked warmly how Sheryl's two boys are doing. Then she gave me a huge hug and I almost started crying. Then I went over to Ray Bingham. I waited to speak to him as well. When I had my turn, I introduced myself and asked after his father. We spoke for several minutes about the marvelous Hospice Ward, and then he said, "What did you say your name is again?" I said, "I'm Peggy Aycinena." "Right," he said. "I think sometimes I read your stuff." "Excellent," I said. Then I went over to the guy who had lost his eye and half his face in Iraq. He's pretty mangled – his one remaining eye doesn't function very well. He showed me how the lower half of his right arm has been reconstructed, and told me that he'd gotten blown up walking down the street in Fallujah after one of the campaigns there last year. He couldn't track my questions too well. I know I talk fast, but it would appear that he had lost some hearing and some brain function as well. This was, after all, the brain injury ward at the VA. I wished him well, but I'm not sure he understood me. Then I left. I didn’t have a cupcake or a glass of punch. I didn’t take a bottle of water. I did get a press kit, however, kindly being distributed by Kathy Wheeler, a Senior Manager at Cadence responsible for the company's Global Community Involvement. I also chatted briefly with Nancy Szymanski, also a Cadence Senior Manager in Corporate Communications for the company. They did a nice job organizing the event and I think they knew it had been a success. I walked past Congresswoman Eshoo who was being interviewed on camera by ABC. I left the Day Room, retracing my steps down the long, lonely corridors out to the parking lot between Building 7 and the main Hospital. I looked up at the hills and over at the hospital – but only briefly. I unlocked the car and used my normal, functioning hands to drive myself out of there. I didn't look back. I went home and dug out Janis Joplin. I cranked her way up and cracked open a beer. I wondered if I would ever write any of this down. And then I got your e-mail. - Peggy ********************* I don't understand why half the world is still crying, man, *********************
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