Memories of war

Updated 11:00 AM November 10, 2003

Memories of war

By Kevin Bergquist and Katie Gazella

From France and Germany in the 1940s to Iraq in 2003, employees throughout the U-M community have fought in bloody battles and sewn the wounds of fallen soldiers.

Their experiences were varied, as are their reactions to serving. Some didn't want to return home; others never wanted to go to war in the first place.

Throughout the University, many units are honoring veterans. For instance, the School of Dentistry has an annual reception honoring its numerous veterans. The Hospitals and Health Centers recently recognized staff members who served overseas or still are serving (see http://www.med.umich.edu/prmc/star/shine.htm for more). And other departments have found additional ways to thank veterans.

A service will be held on Veterans Day (Nov. 11), starting with an 11 a.m. flag ceremony at the VA Medical Center, 2215 Fuller Road. The flag ceremony with a 21-gun salute will be in front of the center and features the U-M Tri-Service ROTC units, under the direction of Major Robin Wimmler and Cadet Lt. Col. Nora Cothran. Keynote remarks by Dr. Eric Young, chief of staff at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, will be in the auditorium following the flag ceremony. The celebration also honors the medical center's 50th anniversary.

U-M-Flint will host its fifth annual Veterans Day remembrance ceremony at 10 a.m. in the University Center, Michigan Rooms. The theme is "Service and Sacrifice."

Elizabeth Allen, associate professor in the School of Nursing and a Vietnam veteran, says this of the holiday: "When you sing the Star-Spangled Banner,' remember that the freedom you're talking about—you owe to a veteran. And that freedom makes you duty-bound to care for veterans."

Far more veterans work at U-M than we could ever profile in one article, but this feature gives a glimpse of the stories of some of these doctors, nurses and soldiers, in honor of Veterans Day.

The veterans' stories

Bradford Perkins , professor emeritus of history, served in 1944-45 as a sergeant in the 30th Infantry Division. Of his Harvard class of 1946, about 90 percent of the 1,200 men served in the armed forces, he says—far above the national average for the age group.

From his experience, Perkins generalizes that only a small number of people see "real" combat—being exposed to enemy fire—and even then only sporadically. "Of course, being in the front lines of a quiet sector could be very traumatic, but the picture of battle as an uninterrupted scene of carnage and danger is a distortion of reality," he wrote in the September 1990 Journal of American History.

Perkins witnessed some dramatic scenes during World War II, including the Buchenwald concentration camp 36 hours after it was taken.

A more pleasant memory was his division's return to New York Harbor on the Queen Mary, greeted by a noisy, cheering crowd.

Tim Richards, a member of Veterans for Peace. (Photo courtesy U–M-Dearborn)

Tim Richards hopes people remember the past but also look to the future on this Veterans Day.

"It is appropriate to remember the real sacrifices living and dead veterans have made," says Richards, Vietnam veteran and director of the Mardigian Library at U-M-Dearborn. "But I hope [our nation's leaders] will realize the effect war has on the lives of people in the military and think about it before committing them to war."

Richards served in Vietnam as a U.S. Army advisor from 1970-71, and was an advisor to the Laotian Army. He was opposed to the war but served to honor his commitment to ROTC.

"I thought long and hard, and realized it was my duty," says Richards, a member of Veterans for Peace. He says the group actively works to speak on behalf of people who have been involved in wars. "I remember the sense of futility that we were not gaining or accomplishing anything there.

"It is a very difficult position for a young man to be in."

Elizabeth Allen regularly worked 20-hour days as a nurse in evacuation hospitals in CuChi and Pleiku in Vietnam.

Elizabeth Allen, who was a nurse in Vietnam. (Photo by Martin Vloet, U-M Photo Services)

Allen, who was a commissioned captain and rose to the rank of major, says she often started her night shift by putting seriously injured patients on the floor underneath the beds to shelter them from shrapnel coming through the roof. She assigned other nurses to beds with seriously injured patients so the nurses could protect them. When the night casualties came in, she often didn't have enough beds for them. Rapid surgery went on throughout the night.

Yet Allen, now an associate professor in the School of Nursing who has chaired a state commission on Agent Orange, didn't want to return to the states in 1968. As one of only about 30 African American nurses, she felt she was needed by the large number of Black troops. "When I left, there wasn't anybody for them to talk to," she says.

Dr. Maggie Brandt returned in mid-September from Afghanistan, where she was one of three general surgeons in a 40-bed hospital built by the Army. She and the other surgeons treated some 300 inpatients and countless outpatients.

Staff Sgt. Clayton Keene and Dr. Maggie Brandt take a break in the ICU in Afghanistan. (Photo courtesy Dr. Maggie Brandt)

Some of the most common injuries were those from mines, both among local people and soldiers. She and the other doctors also treated German soldiers whose buses were blown up.

A member of the Army Reserve for another two years, Brandt—an assistant professor of surgery in the Medical School—says she may be sent overseas again. If she goes, she once again will communicate with her husband mostly through e-mail, as she did about once a week from Afghanistan.

Even though she was there during a time of conflict, she remembers her three months in Afghanistan mostly in a positive light. "The people I worked with were great ... and the night sky was incredibly beautiful," she says. "We had a single rocket fired in our direction one night, (but) I didn't ever feel like I was in imminent danger."

Veterans Day 2003 will be the last as a member of the Naval Reserve for Bill Peters. Peters, an instrumentation engineer at the Central Power Plant, is retiring from the Navy Dec. 1 after 22 years of service.

Bill Peters, a chief electronics technician in the Naval Reserve, stands near the Navy piers at Souda Bay in Crete, Greece. The signpost indicates distances to the homes of personnel deployed there. (Photo courtesy Bill Peters)

After 13 years passed between tours of active duty, Peters was called up in May and was in Iraq for three weeks. A chief electronics technician, he served with the MIUW (mobile inshore undersea warfare) 201 unit.

"I was a little bit apprehensive because things were still going on, even though the initial combat was over," Peters says. "We went in, did our job and waited for the relief to come. I feel for the guys that are still over there. You are on pins and needles the whole time."

Peters served on the U.S.S. Yorktown in 1985 and was stationed one mile from the scene of the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship.

After spending five months in Greece before and after his stay in Iraq, Peters delivered the good news to his watch group: "Secure the watch," he said. "We're going home."

Memories of war

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