Memoire of Richard Myers

I think what we all got out of is was a very personal experience. I am sure we all grew quite a bit. But I am not sure that it is appropriate to create a revisionist view; a suggestion that we were put there to alleviate Jewish suffering; that our being in a certain

Conjunction of events was so profound or important that our experience should be given a span of perpetuity beyond our lifetimes and memory (“our being” both personal) in the form of obligation by future generations to keep the memory alive.

A further---not too gracious and possibly cynical---concern is the extent to which groups like ours on the periphery are being used as unwitting pawns in the greater Holocaust aggrandizement.

Buruma continues, “The sharing of pain has found its way into the way we look at history, too. Historiography is less and less a matter of finding out how things really were, or trying to explain how things happened. For not only is historical truth irrelevant, but it has become a common assumption that there is no such thing. Everything is subjective, or a socio-political construct… So we study memory, that is to say, history as it is felt, especially by its victims. By sharing the pain of others, we learn to understand their feelings, and get in touch with our own.”

He further sees the Holocaust becoming almost a secular religion among Israeli observers,

I think--

A. Our Buchenwald experience at the time was innocent of any intent to do other than our happenstance mission assignment.

B. The profound experience we all shared was individual and remains so in our memories

C. That we “rose to the challenge” and did the best we could with what we had to work with is neither surprising nor unusual

D. That we actually did something positive for the victims we were assigned is probably correct

E. (That in a time-warp and we were today working in Albanian/Kosovo we would do equally well)

Now, in view of these personal thoughts, I believe I should support the group consensus, and particularly your efforts. You have analyzed the situation and have come up with a recommendation/ plan to accommodate the group’s thinking and wishes. Reality is that to achieve what we really want to do we must follow the current laws/guidelines. I am not ‘too worried about the longer term as I think after we return to the “scene”, our interest-obligation-memory will be satisfied/satiated, and it is doubtful that there will be a compulsion to relive it all over again, ad infinitum. Then time itself will relieve by attrition, anther 20 years.

Do you recall reading Stendhal’s “Rouge et Noir”? where the young hero, Fabrice del Dorgo had the great experience in his young life by being present at Napoleon’s “Battle of Austerlitz”? In a way, we are all latter day “Fabrice del Dorgos”---

Warren, as I read this over this a.m., it is all but illegible. I wouldn’t be surprised

If you simply threw it all out, noting and recording my requested vote/response. But the thoughts are still pertinent to me, but I certainly make no claim to priority of these views over anyone else’s.

We have to face the fact that even the mighty G.A.R. itself is no more after the Civil War Vets went to their reward. I remember as a child veterans’ parades when even in the 1930’s, a few feeble GAR Veterans were duly displayed, dim and shadowy historical relics, a curiosity. Neither then nor now do I look to this as a role model, at least for me!

But there are fascinating accounts of the great national encampments of the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) and how the soldier/veterans sought to relive together this greatest event of their lives which increasingly had a spiritual or transcendental focus.

We may have a glimpse……