patrickw

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Does It Really Pay to Help Someone?        (Transcript) 

It seems that today, compared to days past, we are afraid to help someone in time of need.  This was exactly how I felt a couple of winters ago, as I was heading down an icy road to a weeknight Bible study.

For some unknown reason, I stopped on my way to get $20.00 out of my ATM Machine even though I did not need any cash for the evening.

As I drove down McKinley Avenue, towards Elkhart, a car from behind my vehicle passed my driver’s side and the two automobiles in front of me.I muttered to myself: “Is that guy crazy?”

“These roads are so slick that only a real nut or drunk would take such a risk!”

“Can’t he see that everyone is traveling at a snail’s pace to avoid losing control of their cars?”

What was even more shocking was the sight of a child’s car seat visible through the rear window.

I thought to myself: “I hope that someone would not be that reckless with children in the car!”

I traveled on down the glassy road for approximately one mile and noticed that there was a car in the ditch on the right side of the highway with lights blinking and someone trying to dislodge the car.

The vehicle looked strangely familiar.

Then it struck me.

It was the same car that sped passed me just a few minutes ago. 

 In that brief moment, there were two thoughts that ran through my mind: I knew that this was going to happen, and what about the children?

I was already late to my Bible study, and I wanted to drive on.

I reassured myself that someone else would most likely stop and help.

But, my thoughts regarding my own needs quickly turned to guilt and hypocrisy.

How could I place the study of Christian principles above the act of Christian charity?

I was behaving just like the religious men in the story of the Good Samaritan, who passed the injured man on the road with little or no compassion.

I turned my car around and entered the driveway of an industrial complex and rolled down my window. 

I cried out to the stranded motorist: “I am going to see if anyone in the building over there can help.” 

He waved his hand, and I walked over to the manufacturing office.

A middle-aged woman was still working in the office, and she offered the use of a snow shovel. 

I returned to the young man and tried to help him dislodge his car. 

No matter how much we dug and pushed, the car would not budge. 

I was grateful, however, that there were no other occupants in the vehicle and that he was not injured. 

As we made our last futile attempt to push against the vehicle, a truck stopped, and the truck driver yelled out: “Do you need some help?”

The young man and I replied in unison: “Yes!”

The truck driver hitched up a chain to the rear bumper of the immobile vehicle and moved his truck forward. 

The car was pulled free from the ditch in a matter of moments. 

The truck driver jump out of his vehicle, and instead of saying: “I am glad I could help.”

He said to the young man: “That will be twenty dollars.”

The young man replied: “I don’t have any money on me.”

At that moment, I remembered that I had twenty dollars from the ATM machine.

Without a word being spoken, I dug into my pocket, and I handed the money to the young man. 

He paid the truck driver and turned to me and said: “Please write-down your name and address so, that I can send the money to you.”

I began to write-down the information that he requested, all the while thinking that I would never see the money again. 

I put the paper into the young man’s hand, and he began to stare at it for a while. 

He looked up, and smiled, and said:  “I think I know you.”

“Do you have a twin brother named Mike?”

I was surprise that this complete stranger would know my brother’s name and even know that he was my twin. 

I replied: “Yes, my brother’s name is Mike, and how do you know him?” 

The young man smile again and said: “I’m your brother’s boss.”

The old maxim which states that it is better to be safe than sorry does not always apply.

Sometimes, we have to take a chance and listen to that inner voice and help someone in need.

Sometimes, we need to open our hearts, open our wallets and give of ourselves.

 Post-event Wrap 2

REQUIEM:   By The Photographers Who Died In Vietnam and Indochina

Landmines, Pearl Earrings and Helicopters  

REQUIEM: By The Photographers Who Died In Vietnam and Indochina completed its tour of the Michiana area at the Snite Museum on the Notre Dame Campus last night. The exhibit is moving only a few hours away to the South East of Indiana at the Fort Wayne Museum of  Art.  It will be open to the public on April 28 and concludes on July 22, 2007.The collection of war photography taken during the Vietnam conflict pays special homage to the photographers, who died from the early 1950s until the end of the war in 1975.  

I was fortunate to visit the exhibit before it left the area to continue on its world-wide tour.  What seemed to catch my eye the most were the varied emotions of humanity in the midst of a battled scared country. Many of them mirrored the bleak and gloomy backdrop from photos taken during World War One.   

U.S. and Vietnamese soldiers and civilians (both local and foreign) seem trapped in a horror from which they could not escape. In the midst of all this turmoil, photo-journalist placed their lives at risk to record the current events.  Their chances of survival were no greater than the soldiers or citizens in Vietnam. 

Of the numerous photographers honored for their sacrifice, three life stories touched me the most from the wall of remembrance in the gallery.

The first memorable tale is the Robert Capa story.  His photographs of the Spanish Civil War, World War Two and the Vietnam War were highly sought after by major U.S. magazines and newspapers, during his lifetime.  He loved the thrill of danger and lived life to the fullest.  He was close friends with Picasso, Hemmingway and was Ingrid Bergman’s lover. He often said to his photojournalistic peers: “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”  In May of 1954, at the age of 40, he stepped a little too close to the action. His foot came down upon a land mine, and he died with his camera still tightly clinched in his hand.

Twelve years after Capa’s death, a young photojournalist by the name of Henri Huet (who was half Vietnamese and half French) won the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal for best published photographic reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage and enterprise.  Huet’s contemporaries remember him as the photographer that always had a smile on his face.  But one day, he could not smile, when he witnessed the death of a fellow photojournalist named Dickey Chapelle.

At the age of 16, Dickey Chapelle graduated from M.I.T.with a degree in Aeronautical design.  A few years after graduation, she took a class in photography and could never do anything else.  Wherever there was a war or upheaval in the world, she was there.  No matter how dreadful the circumstances or filthy the conditions, she always maintained her dignity by wearing her pearl earrings.  On November 4, 1965,  she stepped on a land mine in Vietnam.  She was 44.  Henri Huet clicked his camera and captured the gentle sleeping corpse of Dickey on a soft bed of earth.  It looked as if a young man had just died. The only feminine vestige was a lustrous pearl earring on the lobe of the left ear.

Six years later in 1971, Henri Huet was in a helicopter that was shot-down by the North Vietnamese. He was 43. Years later, after the war, searchers looked for his body at the crash site.  All they found were helicopter fragments and strips of film weaving their way around the wreckage.

 I was amazed how these three lives intertwined each other like the film strips and the helicopter fragments.  The three photographers died in their 40s. They were doing the thing they loved most of all. They were capturing snippets of life and death, during a time, when humanity seemed to be at its worst.

This collection is not just about death, war and destruction.  It is about living life, taking risks, and choosing the type of work that leaves a legacy to be honored in years to come.

REQUIEM:                                             (Post-event wrap #1)               

By The Photographers Who Died In Vietnam and Indochina

REQUIEM: Don’t Miss the Experience

The exhibit “REQUIEM: By the Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina” concluded yesterday at the Snite Museum on the Notre Dame Campus.  This is a graphic collection of war photography shot by photojournalist, who did not return from the battlefields in Indochina, during the 1950s through the 1970s.  Many of the photographers honored in the gallery died within a few days, a few hours or even a few seconds after clicking the shutter buttons of their cameras. Their photographs are not only vivid reminders of the horror of war, but also the great cost in human lives. As quick as the camera lens opened and closed, an image of the war was captured for posterity, and a photographer was dead on the field from a bullet, a bomb or a land mine. 

Robert Capa’s last photograph is of soldiers crossing a tranquil field, with a tank as their escort.  The next moment a land mine exploded.  Capa’s left leg was unrecognizable, and his chest was blown open.  He died on his way to the hospital.  When his lifeless body was carried into the medical unit, he was still clutching his camera.

From an artistic and historical perspective, the photographs seemed to leap in front of my face and place me into the center stage of the conflict.  Horst Fast and Tim Page (photographers who survived the Vietnam war) impressed me with a collection of pictures that honor those who fought in the war, those who were civilians caught in-between the war and those behind the scenes recording the events of the war.

The tour has ended in the Michiana area, but it is still nearby for those of you who may have missed it.  The collection of 130 photographs of the Vietnam War captured by the photographers, who lost their lives during the hostilities, will be at the Fort Wayne Museum of  Art (just two hours southeast of South Bend). The musuem will host the collection from April 28 until July 22, 2007.  The collection will continue its world tour until 2010. For a schedule of the exhibit’s future destinations log on to www.eastmanhouse.org, or call the George Eastman House of Rochester, New York at 585-571-3361.

If you are unable to see the exhibit in person, there are other options available.

 First of all, the book “REQUIEM By The Photographers Who Died In Vietnam and Indochina” (by Horst Fasst and Tim Page, New York: Random House, 1997) can be ordered through any of the local bookstores or from an internet site such as Amazon.com.  The cost of the hardback is $85.00 for a new edition and as low as $40.00 for a used volume.  Another alternative is securing the video that plays throughout the exhibit. The video ( “Dear America, Letters Home From Vietnam” ) can  be purchased through Amazon.com, or the book by the same name is available for loan at the Mishawaka-Penn-Harris Public Library (Main Branch). 

If you are unable to secure the book or the video, there is an excellent website to visit, which displays some of the finest examples of the collection and  the biographies of the photographers.  To access this website go to “The Digital Journalist.org”.  

Whether you have the opportunity to visit the actual exhibit, read the book, view the video or scrutinize the website, it is well worth your time.

REQUIEM:                                                          (Wrap Event-Review)

By The Photographers Who Died In Vietnam and Indochina

Snite Museum of Art
University of Notre Dame                                                                     January 14-March 4, 2007

While walking on the mall in Washington D.C. a few years ago, my eyes were drawn to a polished, dark, granite wall which bore such a contrast to the white edifices of democracy that surrounded it.  It seemed to absorb all the brightness of these structures and transform the reflected light into characters upon its surface.  These characters of white covered the wall like ivy or moss. Unlike the temporal living vine, the man-made growth that spread across and took shape was not of the leafy kind ,but of letters lining-up and shaping a pattern of immortality.  They formed the names of the soldiers, who gave their lives in a very unpopular war, and all 58, 249 of them are honored on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall. The experiences and emotions that I felt were ones of reflection, remorse and remembrance.

These same feelings engulfed me, when I visited the REQUIEM exhibit at the Snite Museum located on the University of Notre Dame campus.  Unlike the Wall in D.C., the Requiem is a multi-media exhibit that is touring around the world.  The photographic images of humanity involved in the Indochina conflict, during the 1950s through the 1970s, is one of the most moving and thought provoking displays that I have ever encountered.  As I walked though the doorways of the galleries, I was overwhelmed by an atmosphere of solemnity, sadness and tragedy.  

In one of the photographs taken by Henri Huet in 1966, an American soldier stands with his back to the camera holding a rifle with his legs spread apart in an inverted “v” shape.  Between the kaki arch of the soldier’s legs is a Vietnamese woman in a haunch position clinging to her child in fear,while a young boy squats down in front of them.  Two questions immediately popped into my mind: Was the soldier coming to the rescue of the mother and infant, or was he preparing to end their lives? 

The illustrations of men, women and children trying to survive in the jungles of nature and the madness of human hostilities are vividly portrayed.  In each room, large letters proclaim the themes of the photo groupings, which include: A Distant War, The Quagmire, Escalation, Final Days and Last Flight.

The last wall of the exhibit displays a partial roll of names and pictures of the total 135 courageous people who placed their lives on the line to record the events of the Vietnam War through photography. As bullets shot through the air and bombs blasted at buildings and inhabitants both civilians and soldiers alike, a faint soft clicking sound was heard amongst the din. The shutter lens that was staring at death and destruction in the face and preserving the moments for history could not protect the life of the person behind the camera. Two photographers (Tom Page and Horst Faas), who lived through the conflict of Vietnam and avoided death, have assembled the collection that not only honors their contemporary photojournalists, who died capturing the realism of this era, but also graphically reminds anyone of the great cost of war then and throughout human history.

In the corner of the gallery near the exit, a videotape entitled “Dear America, Letters Home From Vietnam” is playing.  I sat and watched the documentary and listen to the voices flow in and around the entire exhibit. The pictures seemed to spring to life on the walls, and I had a sense of actually being in the center of the
Vietnam conflict. After viewing the video, my eyes glanced upon a book on a nearby table.  Here openly displayed was one of the most moving parts of the exhibition.  Visitor’s reactions to the photographs and their own experiences, during the war, are recorded in the register.  I felt it was well worth taking the extra time to read the entries, before leaving the exhibit. They were extremely personal, moving and heartfelt. Hopefully, these memories will be preserved with the rest of the collection.

When I exited the museum, there were a myriad of emotions and images coursing through my mind, body and soul.  Two overwhelming feelings followed me as I slowly walked back to the parking lot. They were despair and hope.  Despair lingered with me as I thought about the great loss that the war inVietnam brought to humanity, not only in this country but also around the world. 

However, a sense of hope helped to dispel the clouds of gloom around me. When I pulled out of my parking space, I felt the sunny rays of optimism fill my being, and I heard a gentle whisper in my ear.  The voice told me that maybe someday, military battles would only exist in the archives of history and on the walls of a gallery.  Someday, conflicts between countries would be resolved by words and not war.

REQUIEM:                                                                                          (Pre-event wrap # 2 )

By The Photographers Who Died In Vietnam and
Indochina

Photographs Taken by Death’s Hand
 Twenty years after the Vietnam War concluded, two photographers Horst Faas and Tim Page collected the war pictures of their fellow photojournalists, who had not survived the conflict. Like archeologists uncovering lost antiquity, Faas and Page took the time and care to assemble a collection of prints that meshed art and history into one extraordinary time capsule. 

In 1997, with funding from the state of Kentucky and the expertise of the Eastman House in New York, a book and exhibit was created entitled: “REQUIEM: By The Photographers Who Died In Vietnam and Indochina.” The original photographs were donated to the Vietnamese government, when the exhibit opened in Hanoi on March of 2000. 

The exhibit has now reached the Midwest and will be on display at The Snite Museum  on the Notre Dame University campus from January 14 until March 4, 2007. It will continue to tour the world until 2010.This is one gallery visit you will not want to miss.  Instead of hieroglyphics depicting battles and victories from the tomb of a great pharaoh or king, you enter a dim lit cenotaph whose inner walls are lined with photo images depicting the revolting aspects of war.

One photo taken in May 1954 depicts a Vietnamese mother clinging to her child and crying over the grave of a departed love one in a military cemetery, while another woman plants flowers near the headstone. “Shortly after taking this photograph, Capa (the photographer), who captured the famous pictures of D-Day in World War II, stepped on a land mine and was killed.”  Instead of viewing works of flat painted art created by forced labor, which spun myths and fantasies of dynastic greatness, there is death on the battlefield captured through the lens of a camera. You look up, and see “U.S. Marine Corps chaplain John Monamara of Boston administering the last right to war correspondent  Dickey Chapelle.”  It is not until you closely examine the photo that you notice an earring on the left lobe and realize that a woman lies in a muddy field with her hat tossed off and body curled up as if taking a nap.

Instead of immortalizing one human being, this pictorial tomb honors everyone involved in the conflict, with emphasis placed upon those individuals, who captured images not soldiers, who shot with a camera and not a gun, and who risked their lives not for any country or belief, but just to record an event in time.  It is not a tour for the faint of heart. It is a courageous journey into the world of reality during a time of war.

 To glimpse through the lens of war taken by death’s hand, contact the Snite Museum at 574-631-5466, or check their website at www.nd.edu/~sniteart/ for a schedule of days and times.  Admission to the museum is free, but only you can place a value on the experience.

REQUIEM:                                                                                          (Pre-event wrap #1)

By The Photographers Who Died In Vietnam and Indochina

Snite Museum of Art
University of Notre Dame

January 14-March 4, 2007  

A unique and thought-provoking exhibit will be displayed at the Snite Museum on the Notre Dame Campus starting January 14 and concluding on March 4, 2007.“Requiem: By The Photographers Who Died In Vietnam and Indochina” is a multi-media exhibition honoring photojournalist who lost their lives, while recording the horrors of the Vietnam conflict during 1950-1975.  

The collection was brought together by the efforts of Horst Faas (two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his photography of Indochina) and Tim Page (a photojournalist wounded in Vietnam and portrayed by Dennis Hopper in “Apocalypse Now”). The exhibition is a memorial to honor their contemporaries and remind us all of the cost of war.

It is sponsored by the state of Kentucky and on loan from the George Eastman House in New York, who has produced prints of high quality and clarity that display not only photographs of historical significance, but of artistic importance also.

Special speakers, concerts and panel discussions will be held throughout the exhibit at the Snite Museum.  For a detailed listing of the events and parking locations, contact the museum

by phone:  574-631-5466,

or

                                                         website:   www.nd.edu/~sniteart/. 

Admission to the museum:   Free.

Hours of operation:                Tuesday   -Wednesday       10am-4pm

                                             Thursday – Saturday            10am-5pm    

                                                               Sunday                1pm-5pm

                                                               Mondays                  Closed

Moved to the top of the page.

Three Choices                                                      (Narrative) 

There is an old fairytale about granting three wishes and how getting what you want and wanting what you get can change your whole attitude about making choices.

Well, this is a true story about three choices: Three choices that I made and three choices that a stranger made.   

The choices would change both our outlooks on life, and give us something we had not expected.

Patrick’s First Choice: My Best Friend 

I was born into a lower-middle class family that had a 

small house, lots of children and two working parents.

One day, when I was a small boy, an elderly couple from my neighborhood knocked on my parent’s door and asked, if they could take my brothers, sisters and myself to church each Sunday. 

My parents agreed readily for two reasons: There would be peace, and there would be quiet every Sunday. 

So, at 5 years of age, I was deposited at the doors of the Baptist Church to begin my religious education, just as Samuel was left at the temple by his mother Hannah in the Old Testament.  

By the time I was nine, I accepted the “gift of salvation” and gave my life to God and made Him my best and eternal friend. 

My life began to spiral upward with good grades in school, good church fellowship, good Christian friends and a good job. 

With my eyes towards heaven and God, how could I go wrong? 

I was happy and on the road to heaven!

Craig’s First Choice: His Best Friends 

Meanwhile, across town in an upper middle class family, there was a young boy named Craig.

He came from a prominent family whose wealth and social standing would guarantee that he was slotted into all the right schools, sporting events, social circles and career opportunities. 

From early youth to early adulthood, he shined academically, socially, musically and athletically.  

However, one day, in his late teens, he made his first life-altering choice. He chose drugs as his best friends. 

This one choice started a chain of events that would alienate him from the world of privilege that he once knew. 

He dropped out of college, drifted from job to job, lost his closet friends and severed all family ties.

No one could tell him anything about life. 

He was happy to enjoy and experience each day with his favorite narcotic friends.

Patrick’s Second Choice: A Place To Live 

17 years later, after graduating from college, I decided to make the largest purchase of my lifetime.

 I bought a house.

When I moved in, I said a prayer of thanksgiving and offered my house up to God to use as He wished. 

In the back of my mind, I was thinking: “I have given God thanks, as I should, and I hope God does not take me up on the offer too soon or ever for that matter.”

“This house will be great to have my Christians friends over for Bible studies, and parties.”

I had another safe haven from the rest of the world!

Craig’s Second Choice: A Place To Live 

At the start of 1991, Craig was thirty-six, he was out of money, out of work and soon to be evicted from his apartment.

On Sunday, January 27, he was invited to a former friend’s house to watch the Super bowl. 

There would be free food and football, with only a couple of strings attached.

The other guests were “church people” and there would be no alcohol or drugs.

But, he decided to go anyway.

While at the party, Craig became bored with the game on T.V. and wandered into the kitchen to fill-up his plate with some more snacks.

When he entered the kitchen, I was standing over the sink washing dishes.

Craig introduced himself to me, and we started a general conversation. 

Soon, Craig was sharing all of his life experiences that dealt with his drug abuse, rehab, ostracism from family and friends and his future living arrangements on the street.

I mentioned to Craig that I had just purchased a three bedroom house.

Craig asked: “Could you use a roommate, Patrick?”

Patrick’s Third Choice: Becoming Less Holy and more Human 

I was startled by the question and gave Craig a tried and true Christian response: “Let me pray about it.” 

And so, I really did pray about it.

And God spoke to my heart.

I knew that I should invite Craig into my home.

I remembered the words of an old preacher who said:  “Sometimes we Christians become so heavenly minded, that we are no earthly good.”

I knew that I could no longer just play the role of a Christian, but I needed to practice my faith in a tangible way. 

God was not asking me to save the world, only open the door of my house to one person.

Craig’s Third Choice: Becoming More Holy and Less Human 

When Craig heard that I wanted him to stay at my house, he was extremely relieved. 

He watched me closely for eight months and was surprised at what he observed.

He thought that I was the happiest person he had ever met and like no other person he had met before. 

In the Old Testament, it states that we are “strangely and wonderfully made.”  I think Craig saw more of the “strangely” in me.

Craig could not believe that someone would not judge him for his past, criticize him for his present unemployment and even, go so far as to pay all his expenses, expecting nothing in return.

It was the first time in his life that he felt that someone loved him for who he was and not for what he had become.

Craig decided that he wanted to have what I had.  So, he chose God over drugs, and started a new life.

In 1996, Craig graduated with an honors degree that included a major in the social sciences.

He then went on to do graduate studies.  

After finishing school, he landed a job in social work and has been employed for many years by the state of California as a councilor for individuals struggling with drug abuse, and A.I.D.S.

He is reconciled with his family, and they are proud of the work that he is doing.

The Consequences of The Three Choices:

Craig will say that he owes his physical and spiritual life to both God and to Patrick.  I would say that I owe my spiritual growth and better understanding of humanity to both God and Craig. Both Craig and I changed that year of 1991.   

He was touched by the love of God and the helping hand of another human being. I was given a reality check, of what Christianity should be, which is treating others in a way in which we would like to be treated, whatever the circumstances.  In the middle of Craig’s and my search to find ourselves, we found each other. From the moment we committed ourselves to each other, we not only became good friends, but true brothers: “A mirror reflects a man’s face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses.”
- Proverbs 27:19  

Friendship was not one of our three choices, but it was the consequence of what we chose.

Social Security: Past Pledge and Present Peril

 (Op-Ed & Research Piece) 

In the summer of 1935, the United States was in the midst of the Depression. It was one of the darkest hours in American history. People stood in line for food, farmers lost crops to dust storms, and one fourth of the adult population was unable to find work. Those employed saw their incomes reduced by 40% and feared losing their positions at any moment.  My father was nineteen at the time and fortunate to have a job. He was an iceman and received $1 a day for delivering ice to homeowners. He was young and healthy and able to work. However, the elderly and sick were in a perilous predicament.  Over 50% of the aged were at the poverty level, and hope was running out for them and the rest of the American population. 

Fortunately, a man with an optimistic outlook was President of the United States. The first stage of his New Deal plan was already in operation. Its purpose was to help the jobless with programs such as relief for the unemployed, the Civilian Conservation Corps, mortgage assistance and aid to farmers. In1935, the second phase of the New Deal plan was initiated.  President Franklin Roosevelt signed a document that he called “America’s promise to its people” on August 14. The promise was given the name of “Social Security.”  The program provided federal income to the elderly and would be funded by deductions from worker’s paychecks and employer’s mandatory contributions. 

My dad never forgot the day, when the first deduction was taken out of his weekly pay in 1936. Though it was only a few cents, it was another sacrifice at a time when money and jobs were scarce.  However, the cloudy loss of revenue that my father originally felt was eclipse by the rays of hope that filled his heart.  His grandparents, who lived across the street from him, began to receive a monthly check.  He was happy for them, and he knew the time would come when he too would reach reitrement and collect his Social Security benefits.

In 1948,  Harry Truman, who had been Franklin Roosevelt’s vice-president, tried to improve upon his predecessor’s legacy and expand Social Security with his “Fair Deal” initiative, but he was blocked by congress.  My father was 32 in 1948 and a factory worker at Studebaker. He continued to pay into the social security system and still  believed in the promise and the pledge.

Dwight D. Eisenhower stated in a letter to his brother in 1956 that: “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again….”  My father was 40 in 1956 and a correctional officer at the Indiana State Prision in Michigan City. The government continued to take his F.I.C.A. deductions, and his hopes in the system did not falter.   

When Lyndon Johnson began his Great Society and continued to fight for the war on poverty in the nineteen sixties, the Medicare health system was added to the Social Security program. On July 30, 1965, he signed the bill in the presence of Harry Truman and gave the first Medicare card to the former president for his attemps to  pass this legislation in years past.  My father was in his 49^th year and edging closer to retirement.

Richard M. Nixon made a bold move to index Social Security in the nineteen seventies.  Due to inflation, Nixon increased monthly payment amounts for retirees with the Supplemental Security Income provision in 1974.  My father was three years away from retirement and was ecstatic that the promise was not only being kept but made even stronger than before. 

When my dad reached 65, President Reagan declared that he would reinforce the Social Security System. On July 18, 1981, in a letter to Congress, Ronald Regan stated:   The highest priority of my Administration is restoring the integrity of the Social Security System. Those 35 million Americans who depend on Social Security expect and are entitled to prompt bipartisan action to resolve the current financial problem. In order to tell the American people the facts, and to let them know that I shall fight to preserve the Social Security system and protect their benefits, I will ask for time on television to address the Nation as soon as possible. During this address, I will call on the Congress to lay aside partisan politics, and join me in a constructive effort to put Social Security on a permanently sound financial basis as soon as the 97th Congress returns in September. However, President Reagan chose his words carefully.  He said “I shall preserve the Social Security system and protect their (the American people’s) benefits”. 

To accomplish this, he “appointed a Social Security reform commission, headed by Alan Greenspan.   ” Depending on the “the rise in life expectancy,” the retirement age would gradually be increased to slow the flow of funds leaving the system. “So, the system would be solvent for the next 50-75 years. The plan also increased government revenues by accelerating a previously enacted increase in the rates of social security payroll taxes.”  The solution was simple: Increase the retirement age in increments, and raise the amount to be contributed.  The results were “more money in, less money out.”  These changes did not affect my father’s benefits, during his 24 years of retirement, from 1977 to 2001. Social Security had kept the promise to my dad, and he passed away at age 85 ½ reaping all the money that was due him, but he did not know that its future solvency was questionable.  

When Social Security celebrated its 70^th birthday in 2005, President George Bush declared that by 2042 the Social Security trust fund would be depleted, and that the tax burden would be too great for the U.S. workers to support.  Mr. Bush’s plan was to privatize the program and allow for “personal retirement accounts,” “thrift savings accounts” and develop “an ownership society.”  In other words, the government had miscalculated, and the American people needed to step up to the plate and invest whatever money was left with the help of private institutions (banks, stockbrokers, investment councilors, etc). What Mr. Bush did not anticipate was the negative reaction from the public. He failed to heed Dwight Eisenhower’s political warning of 1956 concerning Social Security or to check the calculations that were made by Alan Greenspan under Ronald Reagan’s administration.  So, the inevitable happened.  Outcries were heard from political circles, the news media and the American people.  George Bush tried to rally support by conducting cross-country meetings to pitch his new Social Security program. However, the town-hall assemblies were not impressed.  President Bush returned to Washington D.C. to deal with a larger and more pressing political issue, which was the war in Iraq.

The distraction of the war did not shelve the plan of  reorganizing Social Security. It was a simple retreat to renegotiate, revamp and recycle the whole program.  President Bush now proposes to drop the personal accounts scheme and solve the problem of insolvency by raising taxes and cutting benefits. At this time, it is highly unlikely that the Democratic Congress will endorse the new plan.

I am certain that my father would not be pleased to know that his children may not collect the same type of retirement benefits that he received from the federal government.  As I reach 55 this year (the official age of a senior citizen) and my older siblings edge nearer to 65, we are unsure what monies will be available to us from Social Security. My nieces and nephews, who are in their early to mid-twenties, may see little or nothing from the program.  Their contributions most likely will be diverted to private financial institutions with little or no protection.  Far worse off are the illegal immigrants, who now pay large sums into the system and are prohibited from ever collecting any retirement funds.  As a result of all these uncertainties facing the future of Social Security, my family, many other working Americans and immigrants both legal and illegal alike are waiting upon our elected leaders to make a decision.

 Can the new Congress or the future president of 2008 step up to the challenge and fulfill the “American promise to its people”, or will they step on the hopes of its citizens, and discard the pledge that was made so many years ago?  Our future seems in peril, but a promise kept could change all of that.

REQUIEM: By The Photographers Who Died In Vietnam and Indochina completed it’s tour of the Michiana area at the

Snite
Museum on the Notre Dame Campus last night. The exhibit is moving only a few hours away to the North East at the Fort Wayne Museum of  Art.  It will be open to the public from April 28 until July 22, 2007.

The collection of war photography taken during the
Vietnam conflict pays special homage to the photographers who died from the early 1950s until the wars end in 1975.

I had the opportunity to visit the exhibit before it continued its world-wide tour.  The photographs capture so many varied emotions of humanity in the midst of battled scared country. 
U.S. and Vietnamese soldiers and civilians both local and foreign seem trapped in a horror they could not escape.  In the midst of all this turmoil, photo-journalist placed their lives at risk to record the current events.  They too, had little or no chance of survival.

Of the numerous photographers honored for their sacrifice, three life stories touched me the most from the wall of remembrance.

The first story I recall is about Robert Capa.  His photographs of the Spanish Civil War, World War Two, and the Vietnam War were highly sought after by major
U.S. magazines and newspapers.  He loved the thrill of danger, and lived life to the fullest.

He was close friends with Picasso and Hemmingway, and was Ingrid Bergman’s lover.

He loved to say: “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”  At age 40, in May of 1954 he stepped on a land mine, but never let go of his camera. 

Twelve years after Capa’s death, a young photo-journalist by the name of Henri Huett (who was half Vietnamese and Half French) won the prestigious the Robert Capa Gold Medal for best published photographic reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage and enterprise.  Huett’ contemporaries remember him as the photographer who always smiled.  But one day he could not smile, when he witnessed the death of one of his fellow photo-journalist Dickey Chapelle

Dickey Chapelle graduated from M.I.T. at the age of 16 with a degree in Aeronautical design.  Years later after graduation she took a class in photography and could never do anything else.  Wherever there was a war, she was there.  Know matter how dreadful the circumstances, or filthy the conditions, she always wore her pearl earrings.  On November 4, 1965 she stepped on a land mine in
Vietnam.  She was 44.  Henri Huet click his camera and captured the sleeping corpse of Dickey in the dirt with her peal earrings shining.

Six years later in 1971, Henri Huet was in a helicopter that was shot-down by the North Vietnamese . He was 43. Years later when they looked for his body, searchers only found helicopter fragments, and strips of film weaving their way around the wreckage.

I was amazed at how these three lives intertwined each other.  How three photographers all in their 40s died doing the thing they loved most of all. This collection is not just about death, war, and destruction.  It is about living life, taking risks, and choosing the type of work that leaves a legacy, and without regrets.