"Survival" and what it means
Before we begin, a story. Like all the stories you’ll get from us, this one is true. I walked off a battlefield onto a college campus, Rutgers University in Newark, a commuter school in the heart of a gritty city, in the turbulent year 1969. I was a working-stiff, a veteran holding down several part-time jobs to supplement the miserly support of the G.I. Bill. During the school year I worked in fast food joints and tutored underclassmen in English composition. Summers I was full-time at the county parks department, running a playground in a large park in the western section of the city near a large public housing complex.
I knew Newark and thought I knew the problems my staff would face. Heroin, gangs, toughs up to no good. And indeed there was some of that -- pushers who would move on only when I dialed the local precinct for a patrol car; muscled thugs hanging around the basketball court looking for trouble instead of a good game of two-on-two. But my biggest problem turned out to be the kids, the little ones, who showed up every day by the dozens in the morning, left by men and women who ran for buses or hurried off on foot to jobs as cleaning ladies or battery mechanics, bus drivers and boiler makers.
It was de facto day care. The county hired me to organize leagues and work with teenagers (I was a former college athlete and former Marine), but I spent most of my time playing Candy Land, jumping rope and sitting under the great oaks, telling a circle of children a story and watching the wonder in their wide eyes.
I’d grown up with two sisters and four brothers so I didn’t mind. In fact I quickly came to look forward to my job, working with the kids. (Overseas, we ignored the children we encountered in villages and along the dusty roads, looking past their hunger and wretchedness, or treating them like pests, shooing them away with a rifle butt. Now, I thought, here was a chance to get my balance back. Treat children like children, like the innocents they were, and had a right to be.)
One morning, one bright August day around 7:30 a.m., I arrived in my red Volkswagan Beetle, parked in my usual spot on Mt. Vernon Place, fetched some gear from the car’s front boot, then walked slowly along the iron fence toward the opening that led to the pavilion where we set up shop every day. The park looked empty -- it always was that time of morning -- and then…then I spotted something in the large concrete sand box in front of the pavilion.
An animal, I thought, a tawny short-haired dog that had nestled itself in the sand. But as I got closer, then closer still, I realized that the lump in the middle of the sand box was no stray mutt. It was a child. I could not see his face at first, just his short dark hair; he was lying with his knees up under him, face down, his cheek on the sand. He was small – he looked so little in the middle of that big box -- maybe four, five years old, I guessed. And he wasn’t moving.
I put my hand gently on his back. He was warm. Then I could feel him breathing. I rubbed his back. He didn’t move. I rubbed a bit harder.
“Hi,” I said, “can you get up, big boy?”
He started to whimper, a child starved for sleep who didn’t want to wake. I scooped him up in my arms, gently brushed off the sand that was sticking to his cheek, and sat down on the side of the sandbox with the boy in my lap.
He was groggy, cranky. His faded yellow pajamas were in need of washing, and so was he. He started to rub his eyes with the back of his hand, but there still sand on his face, and he began to cry again.
“Okay, big boy, let me help.”
By now the rest of the staff was rolling in, and one of the women went to fetch the child some breakfast. We got him cleaned up and then started to question him. He told us his name – Danny or David, I think – and said his mother had dropped him off at the park. He didn’t know where he lived, where or whether his mother worked. All he knew was, she’d set him down in the sand box, he was tired and he went to sleep.
We knew what to do: procedure demanded we call the cops and child services. And after one of them came and took him away, we later got word that Danny or David was familiar to them, and so was his prostitute mother.
For weeks I thought about coming upon that kid. I was sure he’d been there for several hours before I arrived, a small boy in the middle of a Newark park in the dark sleeping in a sandbox. I knew where the authorities would take him -- a county children’s shelter in a large hospital-like building set ominously on a hill near a county golf course. Yes I knew that forlorn place. (Once a week I’d go there at night to tell stories to the children. They’d grab at me, pull at my clothes, cling to me when I’d walk out.) They’d hold him there for a while, maybe return him to his mother, or maybe put him in foster care, in those years a scandal in the making.
Before the cops showed up to fetch the boy, my staff and I had argued about all of this, but I cut the arguments short. “One of you going to take the child home?” I asked. Still, I understood the arguing. Some of them felt we were simply sending Danny David to another sandbox, dumping him as his mother had dumped him on us. “How will he survive?” one the women staff members asked.
It was a good question. I’d always thought of survival as heroic, behavior in extremis or under duress. Was surviving a night in a sandbox the same as surviving an enemy ambush in which half your company was killed or wounded? It never occurred to me that survival was an everyday act, that it could take as much courage, heart and hope to get through a night as it did through a battle.
Danny David must have been very brave that morning when his mother set him down on the edge of the box in the shadows and half-light. In my mind’s eye I can imagine him sitting there at first watching her walk away, then perhaps playing for a few minutes in the sand before fear convinced him to curl up and seek safety in sleep. We do not choose survival, said the behaviorist B. F. Skinner, it chooses us. Most scholars say that Skinner was talking about our response, as biological beings, to a hostile world. But Beth and I are going to take a different lesson from the story of Danny David.
Survival chooses us not because it is in our genes to keep going or because our environment conditions us to keep holding on. We survive because, as Terrence des Pres once suggested, we are “glad to be alive.” Maybe we are born with the knowledge that the bottom can drop out at any moment, or maybe we come into the world with an innate sense of finality and understand intuitively what the Japanese call our “one precious life.”
Whatever it is, we devote a good part of our culture to thinking and writing and portraying the subject of survival, offering one another our example, or the example of others, as a way to get through the day, recover from an illness, rebound from a loss, live with want, struggle against the daily undertow.
Here, in this space, we will collect stories of survival and, along with you, consider their meaning. Sometimes I will write the blog, sometimes Beth, two sensibilities applying themselves to the same subject. We look forward to your comments, your examples from everyday life or from the blogs and journals of others. Sometimes our offering might be comments on some famous text, a Camus essay perhaps, but most of the time we hope to draw on the experience of the world at large – the diary of a Los Angeles teacher, maybe a letter from a soldier (or civilian) in Iraq, a note from a small business owner on the Mississippi gulf coast or an office worker in Omaha.
Survival is both an individual and collective act, as much a part of life in good times and it is in bad. We want to know how people survive and what makes them survivors -- those moments that both test and reveal us to ourselves. We begin with a single idea, an idea free of any politics or dogma: The one thing that unites us all, the single quality we share, is our right to live. Along the way from the cradle to the grave we assume a number of other rights, other beliefs and ideas, but the right to live our lives is fundamental, universal, and inarguable. It’s what makes the individual collective. It’s why we spend so much time trying so hard to hold on.
Michael Norman
(Special thanks to Adam Penenberg for our theme)
Comments
In my previous statement,
In my previous statement, could be resurrected, to the old me, it's like I had been injected with stain, how could you be so hasty? I mostly seriously, seems like you put your effort into me, what am I to go? SEXLEKSAKER
Thank you. I'm glad you
Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed the "Ghosts". We have placed videotapes, Ben Steele at the Library of Congress in the Veterans History Project. Hopefully, people will read your suggestion and record the experiences of World War II to family and friends. SEXLEKSAKER
Kudos for this post. Highly
Kudos for this post. Highly fascinating and accurately penned article. Thanks!
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I stumbled upon your web-site while trying to google my grandfather's name in regards to the Bataan Death March. His name was Thomas Collier. He passed away many years ago when I was in grade school. I'm 48 now. All I know is that he was a Japanese POW and survived the Bataan death march. He retired from the military and I believe he was from the Mid-West, maybe OK. His wife's name was Gertrude. I think he retired as a Kernal (sp?) from the army. I don't know if Mr. Steele remembers my grandfather? If he has any memories of him I would sure appreciate knowing it. There's really nobody left from his side of the family. My father and uncles have all passed away and I don't know of any cousins. I couldn't find anything on the internet on my grandfather. Thank you for any help in memories of my grandfather. Thomas Collier, retired US Army Kernal.
Cristine Collier
cristine.collier@merceradvisors.com
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W e _ a r e _ v e r y _ s o r r y _ f o r _ a n y _ i n c o n v i n i e n c e _ c a u s e d _ t o _ y o u _ b y _ o u r _ m e s s a g e . W e _ w e r e _ s e e k i n g _ f o r _ o l d _ " n o b o d y ' s " _ w e b s i t e s . _ I f _ i t ' s _ a _ m i s t a k e _ a n d _ w e _ d i s t u r b e d _ y o u , _ p l e a s e _ d e l e t e _ o u r _ m e s s a g e , _ a n d _ w e ' l l _ n e v e r _ r e t u r n _ h e r e . O n e _ m o r e _ t i m e , _ s o r r y _ f o r _ a n y _ t r o u b l e s _ t h a t _ w e ' v e _ c a u s e d _ b y _ o u r _ a c t i v i t y . levitra 10mg
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To the Normans and Ben Steele,
I have never been one interested in WWII history. I am a curious person and love to learn, but for some reason never got into the history of war, particularly WWII. Let me tell you, however; I could not put this book down! The account was captivating, the writing so interesting and the stories moving. I sincerely appreciate the account of
Mr. Steele and his openness to sharing his story and your talent for being able to tell that story.
I especially appreciate you taking the time to record both sides of the story. There are always more perspectives than just one. At the beginning of the book I was outraged by the actions of the Japanese soldiers, but as the story went on and both perspectives, U.S. and Japanese, were elucidated my frustration eased. I abhor what happened to the U.S. soldiers, but thank you for taking the time to explain how many of the Japanese soldier felt. I am referring particularly to the river gorge massacre and how frightened many of the Japanese were during that event.
Thank you again for bringing the past to life. Truly there is much to be gained by hearing the struggles of prior generations.
God bless.
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The only things connected with the history I learned in school where no mention in the history book. I liked the stories, things we hear from our parents and grandparents, things we read in books, things that do not have years in them, but the people, stories of courage and great sadness. Car Finance Company
Thanks for the great book!
Hi - just finished reading your fantastic book! Cannot possibly express all of the thoughts I have at this time. Am very proud to be associated with all of the heroes' whose stories you told. It is hard not to be very appreciative with what we have after seeing what these heroes had to endure to ensure our freedoms.
Will be reading "Ghost Soldiers" next; also plan to read Falk's book on Bataan; if you recommended it as a seminal work on Bataan, it has to be required reading.
This is a great website - it is nice to be able to follow-up after reading a book with such great additional information.
Was very impressed you made the 66 mile trek. Is there any account and/or pictures of this trip? It must have been truly amazing.
Thanks again to both of you for this truly remarkable book - it should be required reading for any history class - high school and up.
Ed
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Thank you for the book. Can your book download site http://www.queentorrent.com. Your book is very well written and reflects the tremendous amount of research. I read the book and everything remains in my memory. Your books should be read, I suggest you read all of my friends.
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I want to thank you both for this important book and for providing me and my family with a little insight into the last moments of my grandfather's life. My grandfather, Colonel John O. Hoskins, was reported as missing in action until the end of the war. Now I know that perhaps it was because the japanese soldier chose to bury him at the roadside out of respect, and his grave remianed unknown. Now I even know something about the soldier that shot him. I also know a little more about my grandfather's character - "how bravely he'd fought, how well he had died." I only wish I could have shared this story with my father and grandmother. Thank you again.
Andrea Hoskins
Bainbridge Island , WA
Thank you for shedding light to a history almost forgotten....
Thank you so much for shedding light on the Bataan Death march. I have studied Philippine History in High School and the thought of those soldiers being starved to death was just horrifying for a teenager to think about. I tried to read books and watch as many documentaries about that part of history that I was most interested about. I really think that there are not enough books that see the many sides of its history.
If young Filipinos can read this book they can feel a different kind of pride in the contributions our ancestors did to save as many soldiers as they can in that march. I feel like we Filipinos defended our democracy when they gave food to those soldiers. I hope you do know that the Bataan Death March is one of the things that we are most proud of in our history because we stood by the Americans as our allies and equals. I really appreciate that you put ten years into this. Please tell Mr. Steele that I appreciate him to telling his story. I hope the Death March will never be forgotten along with the many wars that were fought during World War II.
Sincerly,
Jade
just now heard about the book
am looking forward to reading this book. my father wrote his book, "We Remember Bataan and Corregidor" as a compilation of personal interviews he made of the survivors in the 1980s. as a Death March survivor himself and Filipino, he was one of the dozens of Asian POWs taken to Japan to be Japanized. his smuggled diary helped convict Iva Toguri as one of several of the "Tokyo Rose" announcers (which turned out to be another unfortunate story of that terrible war). after his passing, I found photos of him taken in Japan at various schools. he never bought Japanese products nor ate the food, but he was a gentleman: he graciously went to a reunion of his Japanese school with other former students, many of whom were by then leading businessmen all over the Philippines.
The only things related to
The only things related to History that I learned in school where the ones not mentioned in the history book. I liked the stories, things we heard from our fathers and grandfathers, stuff we read in books, things that don't have years in them but people, courage stories and a lot of sadness.
___________
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Thank you for writing this book - it is time the story was told. I hope the movie in development is finished
http://www.cinematical.com/2007/11/05/hayden-christensen-defends-the-bea...
and it makes more people aware of this chapter in history.
The book is great, Mr. Steele is incredible. Thank you for your time spent researching the topic.
Well Done!
K
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As the grandson of a survivor
As the grandson of a survivor of the Death March, O'Donnell and the hell ships which you so eloquently describe, I have read much that has been written about this horrific experience. Yours, though, brought it home better than any I've read so far. My grandfather, who was a WWI veteran and in his 50s at the time, never discussed his experience, especially with the grandchildren. I was fortunate to inherit the diary he secretly kept. Only there did he describe surviving on water from a caribou wallow. He was nearly at the end of his rope when he received what he described as butter brickle, but you more accurately describe in your book as some sort of brown sugar candy that was slipped to him by a Filipino civilian. The conditions on the train to Camp O'Donnell were beyond belief, and of course this was after having been on greatly reduced rations for some time while fighting the Japanese. Yet, I never heard him say anything bad about the Japanese. He was active in his community, church and was a Scout Master. I don't know if he would've driven a Honda, but he set a wonderful example for me and many others. Thank you for such an accurate depiction.
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Your book was well written and reflected an enormous amount of research. I would have liked a few more maps of the Philippines scattered throughout the book.
Did anyone in the camps try to organize classes to learn Japanese language or culture (or Philippine language or culture)? Do you know if the Japanese guards tried to teach anything but obedience to the prisoners?
Did anyone else think that the self-portrait of Ben Steele at 90 looked a lot like the picture of General Homma visiting wounded Japanese in 1942?
Much of what you wrote will stay in my memory. Two of my uncles fought on Corregidor. One died in a POW camp in Japan. My grandfather and grandmother and an Aunt were interned at Santo Thomas and my grandfather died there.
I was in the US Navy and was able to attend the 25th anniversary and memorial to the men that fought on Bataan in April of 1967.
Thank you for your book.
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Tears in the Darkness
This book is an amazing account of the Philappine invasion during World War II that is not highly publicized. Most history books highlight Hitler and the dropping of the bomb in Japan. However, without the strength, dedication and sacrifice of these men, the war could have had a very different outcome. We owe our freedom and quality of life to individuals like Ben Steele who suffered and sacrificed so much. He is what a true hero is. I truly feel that this book should be required reading in every school. It is an amazing testament to sacrifices made to preserve this great country. After reading this book, I have seen life from a whole different perspective. It is an incredible account of survival and a true testament to the human spirit.
To Ben and his comrades, thank you for all we have today. Without people like you, we would not have our freedoms and rights. Your story is incredible and sacrifices are extreme. May all your days be wonderful.
This is a very interesting
This is a very interesting story, it seems to me that I need to read your book, if it is as interesting as this story.
Overwhelmed
I am at the poing of reading about the Pantingan River killings and became overwhelmed at the brutality of war. What brings us a human beings to such a place? Your ability to present both sides of the situation is cause for repose...my heart and mind cannot fathom the horror of it all. Thank you for being a voice for our veterans.
Father John Duffy
I was raised in a little town in Ohio. Its hero was Father John Duffy,who became a parrish Priest there. He also rose to be the National Chaplain of the American Legion in 1957. Mr. Steele should know him well. He and all the men of Bataan are my heroes. Randy Rarden
Just started reading the book....
...on my lunch hour, and I can't wait to get back to it later today. "Ghosts" is so beautifully written, and has drawn me in already.
As the buyer for History in our public library, I purchased Tears In the Darkness because I am trying to develop the best collection on World War II possible. I only wish I could encourage all of our patrons to look closely at our history to realize the impact this war and other wars continue to have today.
My main purpose in writing is to let other readers here know about the Library of Congress' Veterans History Project, an ongoing project of the American Folklife Center. Individuals are encouraged to submit interviews with relatives and other veterans recounting their personal experiences. A Field Kit that explains how to prepare for and conduct interviews may be downloaded from the LOC's website. My father is nearly 86, and went to the Philippines as a 21 year old farm boy from Wisconsin in 1944. It's long past time to record his story, which is something I plan to work on while I still have the chance.
Thank you. Glad you enjoyed
Thank you. Glad you enjoyed "Ghosts." We've placed Ben Steele's videotapes at the Library of Congress in the Veterans History Project. Hopefully other people will read your suggestion and record the WWII experiences of their relatives and friends.
I bought the book today. I
I bought the book today. I would love to meet Mr. Steele. My dad, Fred M. Plymale, who died in 1982 was also on the march and was a P.O.W. for 3 1/2 years. Understandably, he never shared anything about his experiences, and I feel I missed out on what would have been a great history lesson. My brother, my sister, and I feel that Daddy had many problems during his life that could have been results of those experiences. Anyway, I started the book and it is going to be good for us to read it. I know Mr. Steele is one of the last of the Bataan heros, seems like such a nice man, and if I had heard about him sooner, I may have figured out a way to meet him. I am in Valdosta, Georgia.
Steve Plymale
Bataan
Steve,
I have another book for you that is amazing. I met this man also Tony Bilek. He survived the Bataan March and wrote a book called, NO UNCLE Sam. He came and spoke to our History classes with tears in his eyes told our high school students about the hell he lived. What a story. It took him 28 years to write his book and is wonderful tribute to all that were there. You should be so proud of your dad for just surviving.
~Gayle
Thanks so mcuh
Thanks so mcuh
Steve, We've heard from
Steve,
We've heard from several children of men who were on Bataan and whose experiences with their fathers mirror yours--very pleased the book is giving you information. Yes, Ben Steele is a wonderful man.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth and Michael
Thanks for the reply
Thanks for the reply
This book and it's story.
The article on CNN caught my eye as I have an interest in history but I get most of it from watching documentaries on the tube. I went that night and found a copy of the book, I can honestly say I only read maybe 1 book every five years, so this was really out of character for me. Once I started the book I was hooked and by chapter two I was also hunting down information on the web about this story of a man by the name of Ben Steele. Via the web and with the help of one of Billings locals I found out about the book signing at the Barnes and Noble book store in Billings. Ben's story and with your skill of telling it led me to get on a plane that saturday and fly from Phoenix to Billings to get my book signed. Meeting Ben was such a thrill after hearing the story of how he and so many other young men of that generation had sacrificed for our freedom. I wish to tell you how nice it was to meet the Normans and what an honor to get to shake Ben's hand. Thank you for all your hard work - I truely enjoyed this book, and have been recomending it to anyone that will listen. Randy Klinckhardt
Randy, Thank you. It was a
Randy,
Thank you. It was a pleasure for the three of us to meet you. And we have a great story about a man who flew from Arizona to Montana for the signing! We appreciate your kind words and support
Sincerely,
Elizabeth and Michael
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