My Uncle and Other Young Soldiers Who Died in War: from World War I to Iraq.

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
August 22, 2010

I usually watch the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer. At the end of the the program the News Hour sometimes shows recently killed troops from Iraq and Afghanistan They are shown in silence with a photo of each and identifying information, some as young as 19. Since 2003 there have been about 4412 dead from the Iraq war.

Shortly after the News Hour I return to my reading, currently 'To Conquer Hell' by Edward Lengel, published in 2008, 92 years after the historic battle known as the Meuse-Argonne Offensive of World War I. The book chronicles the daily horrors of that period from September 26, 1918 to the armistice on November 11, 1918.

It may seem an odd choice for casual reading but the book, for me, is not just a narrative about a far off and distant war event. My great uncle John (photo below left) was killed in that offensive on October 16, less than month before the final defeat of Germany.

I've known about John for many years. I even co-wrote a short biography about his short life: he was 30 years, 4 months and 5 days old. He had sent home, to his brother my grandfather, letters and post cards from his boot camp in Georgia and from France where he was assigned as a Private to the 327th Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Division in the U.S. 1st Army. (The same Division as the famous Sergeant Alvin York.)

I had only a generalized idea about the war conditions and life of the combatants. That is, until I found 'To Conquer Hell' along with another book titled 'America's Deadliest Battle: Meuse-Argonne' by Robert Ferrell (2007). Together these books trace the day-to-day, hour-to-hour events in the American 1st Army as it headed into the jaws of death against the mighty and final forces of Germany.

The conditions of the troops under fire were horrifying to say the least. From the book:
"The First Army was in sorry shape. On paper it totaled over a million soldiers in 17 divisions at the front and in reserve. Nearly 100,000 of these soldiers were, however, stragglers. Walking along roads, loitering at field kitchens, and hiding out in woods, the stragglers reflected the army's abysmal morale…

"After three weeks of terrible weather and some of the worst fighting that any American had ever seen, the Doughboys had taken almost all they could bear. Some divisions had been reduced to about a quarter of their authorized combat strength…

"Thrown into battle with the same thoughtlessness that the French had shown, the Yankees attacked at dawn. Sixteen French tanks supported the infantry assault, but within minutes all of them had broken down or been destroyed. Slaughtered by Maxims (machine guns), the Yankee Doughboys could make no headway…

"One Yankee Private tried to rest in an old, deep German dugout during one frosty night in October, but the lice that swarmed over him made sleep impossible. In the dugout, he encountered a wayward straggler who said, 'I have been through the whole thing and have never been a coward before, but I am now. I want to go home and I know that if I go over the top again, I will be killed'…

"The weary Doughboys of the 115th Regiment, weak from lack of food and with swollen and bleeding feet, stumbled up the wooded ridge…

"The Germans bombarded them endlessly, and the smell of poison gas made one want to vomit, as well as the stench of corpses in various stages of ripeness. When food arrived it was often contaminated with gas causing dysentery. Desertion and shell shock were rife, and morale poor. Yet the order to attack came again… the Germans massacred the infantry as they tried to advance… the inept artillery barrage sometimes fell on the Doughboys instead of the enemy…

Sergeant York also wrote later, "The Germans got us, and they got us right smart. They just stopped us dead in our tracks. Their machine guns were up there on the heights overlooking us and well hidden, and we couldn’t tell for certain where the terrible heavy fire was coming from… And I'm telling you they were shooting straight. Our boys just went down like the long grass before the mowing machine at home. Our attack just faded out… And there we were, lying down, about halfway across [the valley] and those German machine guns and big shells getting us hard."

With all this devastation, one incompetent Major General wrote in his diary, "The men now are undoubtedly beginning to feel their own power…" While another officer more accurately noted "Smeared with mud from tin hats to shoes; bushy bristling beards on every face, full of mud too with red-rimmed, burnt-out eyes…"

But despite such appalling and deadly conditions the greater numbers of the AEF (American Expeditionary Forces) eventually out-flanked and out-gunned the Germans and drove them back, among them a "terrified 15-year-old boy soldier" that one Doughboy could not bring himself to shoot at close range.

"One American Division had lost 7,712 men as dead or as casualties from September 30 to October 27--not counting stragglers. Said one soldier in utter exhaustion, "I sat down for a few minutes and when we were ready to go I couldn't get up. My legs just wouldn't work."

General Douglas MacArthur was there with his 84th Brigade. He led a reconnaissance to examine the German barb wire lines. While up front the men were hit with a German artillery barrage. When he looked up to give the signal to withdraw no one replied: the other men were all dead.

As for the commander in chief of the American Forces, General John Pershing, the author writes, "As a battlefield general, Pershing was mediocre. His management of the Meuse-Argonne offensive had been uncreative. His obsession with the cult of the offensive had shattered several American divisions and sacrificed thousands of men for victories that a little creative forethought might have won more cheaply…" He gave over his command on October 16 to a better tactician, General Hunter Liggett, the same day uncle John was mowed down by German weaponry on the front.

From September 26 to November 11, 1918 - 45 days - there were 117,000 American casualties at Meuse-Argonne of which there were over 23,000 killed. Try showing that list on the News Hour. They deserve no less.

(Photo: within the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial in France, which covers 130.5 acres, rest the largest number of our military dead in Europe, a total of 14,246. Most of those buried here lost their lives during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive of World War I. A couple of years after the war, families of the deceased were given the choice of leaving their relative buried in France or bringing the remains home for re-burial in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Uncle John was brought back and now lies in Arlington.)

When I now think about John's last harrowing days I am disturbed, mortified . He was a very moral and decent man. A naive patriot who followed the crowds in 1917 to enlist and "give the krauts a good lickin' ". He and a million others had no idea what they were doing until he was thrown into Meuse-Argonne. In one of his last letters, he frightfully realized that "war is hell."

Reading a summary of Sergeant York's long life (he died in 1964, aged 77) gives a good idea of what Private Ammon was deprived of when he fell in 1918, aged 30.)

This year, 2010, I visited the Meuse-Argonne battleground and cemetery in France. I heard only the wind whispering and the cows mooing. No guns, no tanks, no shouts of anguish, no bullets flying--and no John.

My Family - A Hundred Years Later

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
June 25, 2010

A hundred years ago today my grandparents, Francis and Cora, were married and our immediate family began. I have no family memory beyond that--photos and stories yes but no memories. My paternal great-grandfather died in 1915. My maternal great-grandmother lived to 1938, before my birth. But starting a hundred years ago with the wedding I have living memory because I knew these two people for almost 30 years before they died. I knew them and I know four generations that came from them: Francis and Cora, my father, my siblings and my nephew and nieces.

A century of a family is a sizable chunk of heritage, with countless events and vivid memories of long ago and last week. As I reflect on this time and the people who brought me here I feel connected to 1910, moving back through through real personalities, specific historical events including my parents' wedding in 1937, their subsequent four child births and countless daily images--collected, as if leafing backward through a photo album to that particular nuptial occasion during Teddy Roosevelt's administration.

I have a couple of photos of Francis and Cora (photo right) on their wedding day, standing under a tree in rural Pennsylvania looking very posed in their Sunday best with Cora holding a modest bouquet of flowers, no doubt hand picked from her parents garden. (There's another photo of the newlyweds standing with her parents who appear even more posed and rather disheveled.) I look at the young faces and I fast-forward them into their eighties having weathered the storms of personality differences, six children, two world wars (Francis' only brother was killed at the end of WWI.), the 1918 flu epidemic, frugal living, chickens, vegetable gardens and painful secrets that no one talked about (until I inquired many years later).

When my generations passes in mid-twenty-first century, my particular line of ancestry name will end--no dynasty, no Ammon descendants. Two of the four of us are gay, one sister had one child and my brother has two girls neither of whom intend to have children. (There are Ammon cousins in Switzerland who are having Ammon babies.) But I expect, in my hoped-for healthy nineties, in 2030 to remember back across twelve decades to long passed people whose lives I think were mostly prescribed to conform to social standards in order to survive. Some of them, I know, longed to break out of those prescripted tracks and live closer to their hearts' desires, but were caught in looking 'normal'.

My grandfather wanted to sing opera, my father wanted to play the violin and make art. Both, I believe, wanted to love other men or at least other women and men. Such truths will never be known, and don't need to be known now. (By the time I grew up, loving other men was acknowledged and in the public.) Cora liked kids, the ones she was schooled for and could teach, but she was fertile and her classroom became confined to home. My own mother achieved more adventure; she felt she was more than a maker of things beyond diapers and dinners. To cure her depression a wise doctor told her to get a job. She did, and did well. After my father died by his own hand, she traveled to Europe, married twice again, opened a real estate office and drove a Winnabago around the country and a volunteer ambulance at home.

My own life is exponentially different than any of theirs, partly because the social world has become more permissive, more open, more technical and more prosperous. My predecessors (some) would love to be with me flying in huge jets to different continents with money to spare for computers, real estate properties and books. Both Francis and Roger (my father) would have loved to help me build or renovate the houses Michael (my life partner of 21 years) l and I have lived in. And the jobs would have been done well since we were all perfectionists.

I reminisce across the span of my family's years, a century, and I find much quiet satisfaction, some inner mystery, a love of Beethoven and Brahms, tool skills, a diligent work ethic, a desire to learn more than we know, kindness to others, a certain joy of sex, a mild curiosity about the Divine, and a loyalty to this odd vine called the family tree that began, for me a hundred years ago. It seems a good tree to hug.

Death for Gays in Iran Creates Underground Railway

By Arsham Parsi
Executive Director
Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees (IRQR)
www.irq.net

Iranian queers have well-founded fears of persecution based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. The Penal Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran, permits the punishment of queer people by lashing, hanging, stoning, cutting in half by a sword, or dropping from a tall building or cliff.

My own and IRQR's experiences in researching human rights violations in Iran suggests that in "morals" cases, substantial evidence is likely to be flouted by the judiciary in the name of protecting cultural and religious standards. In Iran, four male witnesses who attest that a defendant is homosexual, even on the basis of rumor or slander, will have their testimony accepted instead of being more rigorously cross-examined.

Iranian legal and judicial procedures ensure that a judge's prejudice against a defendant, even based solely on a defendant's appearance or demeanor, is allowed near-limitless scope to determine a verdict based purely on subjective opinion. It is worth noting that even under the reform government of Mohammed Khatami, the Islamic judiciary remained one of the bulwarks of religious conservatism in Iran. This has now strengthened even more under the hardline rule of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The death penalty for homosexuality does not merely exist on paper. It is practiced and enforced widely in the Islamic Republic. According to Amnesty International, at least 734 people have been executed in Iran in since 2008. It is certain Iranian queers were among them. Trials on moral charges in Iran are held on camera, but international outrage over the frequency of executions has led the government to exercise tighter control over press reports of executions. For these reasons, confirming the frequency of executions for homosexuality is effectively impossible. Yet those repressive measures have not been able to hide the ugly truth from the eyes of the world. I will report the following case for legal and historical records.

On May 27, 2010, Iranian security forces raided Reza and Alireza's apartment and arrested both men, along with some guests who were visiting. Their computer and personal belongings were confiscated as evidence. Reza, 23, and Alireza, 28, are partners and live together in a small rented apartment in Sari. Alireza works at his father's real estate office. Reza stays at home, as his more outwardly 'feminine' behavior attracts homophobic comments from neighbors. Neither of the men's families accepts their sexuality or their decision to live together as a loving couple.

The guests were released by the security forces a few days later, after being forced to testify that Reza and Alireza lived together as lovers. They say that during their arrest they heard that the police were responding to a complaint by the two men's families about their sons. Reza and Alireza were sent to the Revolutionary Court of Sari. We do not know what sentence they have received, but there are rumors that it is the death penalty.

As a result of all the pressure and well-founded fear of persecution, many Iranian queers have had to leave Iran and seek asylum. A refugee myself, I went through lots of difficulties and now because of my work with the IRQR I am in contact with hundreds of queer Iranian asylum seekers. Being in limbo is not only unjust and difficult, but also intolerable and frightening.

There is international support for Iranian queers today and I thank all elected officials, organizations and individuals who are working with us in order to help more Iranian queers. But we need more support since the number of refugees is increasing due to Iranian government's daily pressures.

Some governments sign conventions or issue statements that Iran must stop the violation of human rights of its citizens. But when it comes to refugee issues, they reject asylum seekers and advise them to go back to Iran, hiding their sexual orientation to stay safe. This paradox is very significant.

It seems that in the last few years, most organizations like the United Nations and international governments see Iran's nuclear program as the only issue of concern. As you know, the United Nation Security Council has passed another sanction on Iran for nuclear enrichment. So why didn't the first, second or third sanctions work, and what is the point of a forth and further possible sanctions?

In the meantime, queers, women, religious minorities, ethnic minorities, students and just about every single Iranian has no basic human rights or freedom - how long will we continue to talk about nuclear bombs? Why is human rights violation not the first priority of international organizations and governments? Is writing a few official letters and statement on Iran's human rights situation enough?

Especially regarding the Iranian queer community, we have the responsibility of documenting their unjust situation. Our most difficult issue is not dealing with the Iranian government, but lobbying the European governments to acknowledge the very real fear of persecution Iranian queers have, and their need for international protection. If they have concerns about refugee numbers, then it would be great if they could focus more on human rights issue in Iran and try to find a diplomatic resolution.

Finally, I would like to say that the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees is ready to work with all local and international organizations, officials elected, and individuals in order to improve the global queer community.

Let's dream of a day where no one will be discriminated against for their sexual orientation and gender identity, and everyone will have their peace and freedom.

Life is Hard

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
July 4, 2010

Look at this daunting and harsh video. See the images and read the text. It was filmed in 2010 in the huge Methare district just outside Nairobi in Kenya.

With its neighbor, the Kibera district, the two are the largest slum cities in Africa. (photo)

I visited this 'city' in 2008 during a lull in the post-election riots that resulted in more than 1500 deaths from political and tribal 'warfare'. See my photo gallery of the visit.

What makes these images--the film and the photos--so disturbing is not just the dreadful living conditions for so many people but that the situation has been allowed to continue for so many years--generations. Nothing changes regardless of who is governing in central Nairobi, just ten miles away. Methare can be seen from atop the parliament building tower. (photo left below)

To add insult to injury, members of parliament are paid an astonishing $126,000 yearly salary and recently, in June 2010, had the effrontery to propose an increase to $175,000. The proposal was met with howls of protest.

The monthly minimum wage for farm workers is $40. In Kenya's capital, the monthly minimum wage for laborers is $82. Add to this the Corruption Perceptions Index 2005 that ranked Kenya 144th out of 159 countries for corruption.

This corruption is not just in money matters but corruption of the soul that is indifferent to the sufferings of fellow citizens. Corruption in the social conscience allows such misery to continue for generations.

Look at photo number 35 in my gallery and tell me that parliament members deserve such an egregious payroll amount. How can anyone with a human heart look at this scene--and the other photos and the video--and not be moved to action? One salary could build ten new houses in Methare.

Long-winded analyses have spread across countless pages of study after study determining why these conditions are so bad but no significant change has resulted from the paperwork. Small palliative gestures are made such as a health clinic in Methare but injured and sick people still go to local healers because the clinic lines are too long.

A friend of mine volunteers to teach French at a grammar school in Methare. His heart is in the right place but will the kids ever get out of that place? Look at photo number 8 and at photo number 33. What chance do these kids have for prosperity. education and quality of life?

Human indifference to human agonia (struggle) perpetuates bad behavior and attitudes among societies; among the worst is political indifference. Those in power want to secure and protect their own comfort and privilege first and if there is anything left over then it can go to the needy. How much of the $126,000 goes beyond the immediate family or tribe? Probably precious little.

For the man in the video (above), a mere annual subsidy of $2500 would allow him sufficient care to maintain his health and offer some dignity, but it will never happen because the social services network cannot afford much beyond his $50 wheelchair. How does that compare to parliament members' subsidies that are nearly 1100% more than the cost of his chair?

This is not just a Kenyan issue. Every major society is infused with 'me first' thinking. Even Communism which was idealized as an egalitarian system quickly became corrupt and murderous under Stalin who slaughtered millions of his fellow citizens to satiate his insane paranoia and protect his political and economic status. Africa since independence, two generation ago, has suffered similar carnage--not country against country but domestic citizen/soldier against citizen/soldier in the name of political power with its access to the treasury.

Kenya now does the same but with a democratic facade and far fewer bullets--looting the treasury by voting for their own huge salaries and stealing from the poor who remain in degrading conditions, in wheelchairs and in the mud.

What God and Dogs Have to Teach Us

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
July 3, 2010

People disappoint each other a lot, whether intimate partners or friends, whether for a moment or a lifetime. People aggravate one another for petty things (picture on a wall) or expansive beliefs (religion).

The human condition, in addition to all its virtues and social values (companionship) which shape us as babies and influence us as adults, brings with it inevitable disagreement and agitation.

It seems built into the human psyche to not get along with certain others to greater or lesser degrees in the course of ‘civilized’ life. Some people are on the victim end of other people’s hostility and get blamed for problems; the blamers are angry at others who seem to disrupt or interfere with their plans or ideas. We call this disagreeableness, ‘bad chemistry’ between two individuals--or groups, which then divide off into segments, tribes, clubs or ethnic groups.

But consider this: even the most bothered, irritable angered individual or group often have pets, mostly dogs, they adore, toward whom they are tender and caring.

I had a dog (a sensitive and intelligent Australian shepherd, named Heather, photo right) for 13 years, now deceased. I am an easily irritated person, impatient, assertive, opinionated and usually wanting to ‘move on’ with projects, ideas, travel destinations... you get the idea.

However, regardless of my mood or situation over the years I was always gentle, playful, kind, cuddly and sweet-talking with Heather. There was a different energy between us and she was always happy to see me, tail wagging, tongue ready to lick my face, wining with delight at my return if I were away for a few hours. I baby-talked to her and she responded with her own playful growling and half-barks and doggie moans. Caressing her soft hair and absorbing her unconditional love was soothing for me, an uncomplicated affection with none of the subtle and overt personality interferences that often collide in human affairs. A sort of pure love and without the ‘stickiness’ of people.

(Be assured she was not a misanthropic substitute for human affection, which I’ve experienced much in my life; I’m not really that irritable.)

I see other many other people relating to their dogs with similar ease and delight in a special way that does not happen consistently between adults, whether same sex or opposite sex. There is a sort of child-like quality to the human-pet interaction that is pure and clean and a relief from humanoid ego.

I was reminded this kind of pure, clean, ego-free harmony during a recent trip to Central America which is very Catholic and very poor. In numerous ornate churches and simple chapels I saw humble peasants and laborers sitting or kneeling in silence alone or during a church service. (photo left, Panama City) Here in the mysterious grand, overarching and inspiring volume of the church (could be a mosque/synagogue/temple) with its other-worldly saintly statues, icons, paintings, venerated altars and stained glass, which gave it an ethos of divine, I felt a similar kind of innocent, pure, clean affection for God that I felt in the warm unconditional affection for and from my furry pet.

An other-worldly vibe that transcended the world of human affairs. Kneeling like a child before a master, sensing an unconditional benevolence and praying in soft supplicant and simple terms was akin to the loving baby-talk expressions I lavished on my pet.

The point is that it doesn’t have so much to do with the object of our affection here, an abstract God or an innocent animal. The point is the experience we have of ourselves in the interaction with such beings who are devoid of human ego, who listen to our voices, who hear us without interrupting, who receive whatever flawed offering of pain or kindness we bring. It is a moment or a while away from the trials of the worldly life, not unlike meditation or being absorbed in great music beyond the layers of ego and personality; restful serenity devoid of human noise or conflict.

If only we could approach people (loves and strangers) the way we approach our God or our Dog. Imagine a world of harmonious energy and the gardens of safe delight we could create.

The Days of My Life--What's Worth Doing

By Richard Ammon
GlobalGayz.com
July 1, 2010

This week I cut down a thirty-foot tree, scraped layers of old paint from window frames, pressure-sprayed a brick wall, ordered 3 tons of gravel for the yard, saw the film encore of the Metropolitan Operas' 'Romeo et Juliette' (Gounod), shopped twice for groceries and once for gasoline, bought a plane ticket to Bangkok in November, started to translate my 7 GlobalGayz.com Central American stories into Spanish, continued to read a biography of Tolstoy (photo right) after having visited his home in Russia earlier this year, went to the upstate New York home/museum of Edna St. Vincent Millay in Austerlitz, (photo left) bought house repair supplies at Home Depot, spent numerous hours answering e-mail for my website, had sex a couple of times with my partner (it's late spring), had lunch with a cousin to plan a visit to France to the place where my great uncle John (photo lower left) was killed in World War I, arranged repair work on my air conditioner in my NYC high-rise condo... and many other small assorted activities of daily living such as going to the gym or doing a swim workout (preparing for Gay Games VIII)…

They're called that, activities of daily living (ADL in health care terms). One after another in an endless stream of goings and doings that fill my days, my years.

I used to not mind the ADLs since I felt I was accomplishing something--as a squirrel gathering acorns or building a nest. But now almost 70 years on I mind more and more the busywork of my life, looking for more important things to do such as writing this blog, or composing another story for my gay travel-and-culture website or reading a substantive book or magazine article.

The question is, what is significant and worth doing in the last phase of my life? Having been a teacher, carpenter, nurse, psychologist and now a journalist and website owner who has traveled across most of the continents, what is significant, sufficient and worth doing?

The question is a tease since the meaning of 'significant' can't really be defined.

The biography of Tolstoy is a tease with its 700 pages that includes an analysis of 'War and Peace', which spreads across two thousand pages (took him 6 years to finish). The symphonies of Mahler (photo right) and operas of Gounod also tease me as obvious grand magna opi (plural of opus).

I regret very little in these past 70 years except for not having written a 'great' book. That to me is a meaningful effort, not a pulp novel but a thoughtful volume that probes into the dilemma of being human and being mortal--a worthy reflection at how to puzzle out the complexities of the social world and the mysteries of the physical universe.

Not that I haven't written. My website contains dozens of stories about gay people around the world. They are small gestures at explaining human complexity, human gay complexities; for that I am content. But a large tome would be impressive in it's scope and depth.

Impressive to whom? I think that's more the issue here: impressing other people, being known, being acknowledged--famous. It's the best superficial gain of reputation in one's life, short lived as it may be. (hello Tammy Faye Baker)

Is 'reputation' meaning? For the shallow mind it is. But fame is as hollow as life is short; it exists only as a social act among mortal humans. Everything has or will pass into forgetting. I look at the countless books already on library shelves packed with obscure and trivial writings positioned by catalog number next to well-known 'classics' that still circulate often. The pages inside the covers were composed by individuals with a need to say something to other people, mortals writing to other mortals who read the print then put down the book and forgot it after a while--like most literature, music, dance and art.
(photo, my great uncle John Ammon; see bio)

It's a sort of sweet but deceptive immortality because it is ultimately temporary--as are all human endeavors in the end; it's the best we can do.

I personally like writing. It's a creative doing vs the passive receiving of TV shows, eating, reading. Writing is verbal sculpture, creating something out of nothing, shaping sentences with felt words to express something not said before, or more accurately, saying old things in a new way.

That's meaning for me: creating something out of nothing using imagination and inspiration. It's the best I can 'do and I don't have to be famous to enjoy the feeling of generation.