The Good Life – May-June 2017

D. Hagen, whom the new West Fargo American Legion is
named after, a member of a special unit of Special Forces
called the MACV-SOG. These soldiers engaged in extremely
dangerous missions without any identification – no dog
tags. Loren died serving his country on one such mission.
Wallevand explained: “I’m sure I have PTSD. I don’t know
if you could go through and see all the things I have, that
anyone could, and not have it.”
A common problem for veterans of wars is “survivor guilt”
- a term Wallevand described as “the feeling of not doing
your part, of not giving, as Lincoln said in ‘The Gettysburg
Address,’ the ‘last full measure of devotion’” – that gnawing
question of “why did you make it while others did not?”
Wallevand continues: “If people want to call me a hero, I
guess that’s fine. I did put myself in harm’s way for a greater
good. But when you think of those guys on the Vietnam
Memorial Wall, for the rest of us – the survivors – it is
almost embarrassing to be called a hero.” •
To reflect on survivor guilt, Wallevand wrote a poem based
upon Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1818 “Ozymandias.” He wrote
it after returning from a visit to the Vietnam Memorial Wall.
He read it as part of his 2016 Memorial Day speech at our
local Veteran’s Memorial Bridge:
“Survivor Guilt”
by: Joe Wallevand 2016
Along a watery pathway,
Meeting in the middle:
Two bold, black blocks of granite
Stretch long upon the green, grassy earth.
And upon them written names —
Seemingly endless list of names —
Many the names I know —
Chiseled in solemn relief.
I look for my name;
I search the span of when I served.
I am not on the Wall —
Where is my name?
Surely my name is in the mix;
I was there, as were they,
But surely as we all were there,
My name surely should be here.
Had there been a million names
Without mine on it;
Had there been a wall with no names at all;
Mine could have been on it.
What did they do to deserve to be listed?
What did I do to deserve being left off?
But my name IS written… written deep within me…
Just not on the Wall.
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