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Community Performance Inc.

March 10, 2007

We did something different this year with the end of our Swamp Gravy play. I added this element in honor of my brother, recently home from a year and a half long tour in Iraq. He was with the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat team, whose tour was lengthened not by the standard 2-4 weeks, but by an additional four and a half months. We worried and prayed for him. The executive director of the Arts Council bought a brick in my brother’s name, Sgt. First Class Chris Curry, to honor him.

Chris visited home for the holidays. That’s when I learned that during the extension, he lost his best friend. There is so much we just don’t know about, even families, because the guys don’t talk much about it. My dad was the same way about Vietnam. I remember my brothers asking him questions about being in Vietnam, and my dad would just answer “All I did was shoot into the jungle.” And I sort of believed this for a while. Until the day this bully of a man came on the football field where my dad was coaching. The guy was ticked about the discipline his son was receiving, and was yelling at the other coaching staff, and my dad asked this man to leave. He did, but he was waiting in the parking lot for my dad. My brothers and I sat in the back of our truck after football practice, and as my dad approached the truck, so did this man. He started shouting, and telling my dad ‘You think you’re so tough, let’s have it out right now.” My dad was still a big, fit guy at this time, but he didn’t take any of the bait. The guy kept on, saying the usual redneck fight stuff (hey I live in Virginia, and we are red around the collar here) the usual stuff to get into fights, like chicken, and scared. My dad just stood still, and very calmly looked the man in the eyes and said, “I’ve killed better men than you.” The guy could do nothing but stand there, stunned, as my brothers and I sat in the back of the truck, also stunned, as my dad got in, turned the keys, and took us to 7-11 for our usual after practice Big-Gulp, as if nothing happened. It was the first time I’d heard my dad say anything like that, aside from the times I’d hear him talk with his buddies when I snuck downstairs to listen.

There is an entire side of my dad, and now my brother that I don’t know. There are people who were in his life and important to him, that I don’t know and won’t get a chance to know now. And aside from a brief obituary or a statistic number on the news networks, most of America will not know or remember any of these lives. And we should. We should care about this.

In Swamp Gravy, we always, at the end of the show, come to completion with the singing of Amazing Grace, and as we hum the second and third verse, cast members call out the names of those who have gone on, “Jakie Draper, I Remember You”, “Grandma Keaton, I Remember You”. It is a ritual which links our past with our present, and a way to keep alive the memory of those who taught us much and gave us much but who have moved on. It is the point in the play where, if an audience member hasn’t cried yet, they cry here.

On our VIP performance show, I collected the names of the men from my brothers 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team out of Fort Wainwright, Alaska, the men who did not come home. I privately went to the different cast members who would do an “I remember” that night, and gave them a name. As we did the “I remembers, it started out just the same, but now the names went like this”

“Staff Sgt. Stephen Southerland, I remember you”
“Specialist Daniel D. Bartels, I remember you”
“Specialist James L. Bridges, I remember you”
“SGT Kraig D. Foyteck, I remember you”

By then, the audience began to hear a pattern. The cast did, too. And it continued.

“Sgt. Nicholas R. Sowinski, I remember you”
“Staff Sgt. Jonathan Rojas, I remember you”
“Sgt. David J. Davis, I remember you”
“Specialist Alexander Jordan, I remember you”

I was teary eyed. I looked out, and some of our young men, Cedrick, for instance, was wiping his eyes.

“Staff Sgt. Eugene H.E. Alex, I remember you”
“Sgt. Irving Hernandez Jr., I remember you”
“Sgt. Bryan C. Luckey, I remember you”

We only have room for twelve names per night. But there were far more names than could fit in our first performance. Remember, I only compiled the names from my brother’s brigade. There are far, far more, of course. We didn’t have enough slots for the first night. Ruby came to me after the show, tears in her eyes. “This is right. This is just right to do this. I want to say my soldier’s name again tomorrow.”

I have sent the Biographies and obituaries of the men to the cast members who are calling their names. I told them there were more names, and they wanted them.

Through the run of the show, we will continue to remember these soldiers. Perhaps not all in one night, as we did on our opening night, but they will continue to be remembered. During the course of the production, audience members often ask that we remember someone special from their own family. We will continue to do that. But now, if we don’t have any special audience requests, we will call out the names of my brother’s brigade, instead of using the usual names we often used, of people who remain well-known in Colquitt and southwest Georgia. Ruby said to me, that if she doesn’t have any other audience requests, she wants to continue to remember her soldier, Specialist Shawn R. Creighton. And on future nights, we continue to remember the other names. Have I told my brother Chris? No. He thinks I’m some kind of radical, New York Times-reading, bra-burning, sign-holding, Perot-voting, crop-circling, Castro loving liberal. (Ok, so I read the New York Times on-line and I love their crossword puzzles, and once in Wyoming I made a crop circle with my Aborigine friend Keita, but that’s it.) I did it for my brother because it just felt right. He and I crack jokes together and do practical jokes and things like that, but the warm-fuzzies just isn’t our thing. And do I think he’ll come across my blog here on the CAN network? Did I mention he’s a little conservative? Haha. So, it’s just between us. And Miller County, Georgia, who became a lot more aware of the state of things today. And will all through the month of march as the show continues. And why not into the next production, too?
“2LT John S. Vaughan, I remember you”
“Sgt. Benjamin E. Mejia, I remember you”
“CPL Jeremy M. Loveless, I remember you”
“Specialist Aaron P. Latimer, I remember you”
“Staff Sgt Mark A. Wall, I remember you”
“PFC Raymond L. Henry, I remember you”
“CPL Kenneth D. Hess, I remember you”
“Specialist Dustin J. Harris, I remember you”
“Specialist Joshua M. Pearce, I remember you”
“Staff Sgt Christopher R. Morningstar, I remember you”
“Specialist Patrick W. Herried, I remember you”
“PVT Christopher M. Alcozer, I remember you”
“Specialist Lucas A. Frantz, I remember you”
“Sgt. Jeremiah J. Boehmer, I remember you

   

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