Hard to believe it has been one full week since we ended the "Marchin' to New Orleans" action at Congo Square in Louis Armstrong Park, on the edge of the mostly untouched French Quarter.
We left Chalmette National Cemetery mid-morning and marched into the nearby 9th Ward. The devastation from this most infamous of destroyed places in New Orleans as a result of the broken levees was awful to behold.
The streets were filled with debris, garbage and most of the houses were boarded up.
The shot above reminded me of a similar shot I took in Mutur after the Tsunami.
Though historically one of the poorer neighborhoods of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina nevertheless transformed this 1st-World environment into a 3rd-World dump.
We passed by Fats Domino's house whose "Walkin' to New Orleans" was our theme song.
We had a rousing impromptu rally at the Martin Luther King School.
Here a couple of community organizers, one black woman and one white woman, told us that when the local New Orleans government told them this 9th Ward school and community center was not scheduled to be opened until 2008, they announced to the school board that the community would reopen it in several months. Volunteers have been scrounging for their own materials and doing their own work to clean up the school and do the necessary repairs, to supply their own power with generators, to bring in portapotties and potable water, etc. -- anything necessary on their own initiative rather than wait for the slow, red-tape-creating, ineffective and inefficient government efforts. This is local community-minded spirit, actively working together, the people doing for themselves, that will most likely rebuild New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast, much better than any government effort.
Here is the now repaired levee that was breaced during the Hurricane flooding the 9th Ward.
Here is the St. Roch Market, closed for now.
Finally, we made it to Louis Armstrong Park.
In Congo Square, we danced and cavorted before we were graced by rousing speeches from IVAW, Goldstar Families Against the War, VFP, Military Families Speak Out, local Survivor organizers, etc.
I was most impressed by this painting by a young local New Orleans artist of an Ur-soldier, a haunting image combining elements from the soldiers of my uneccessary war in Vietnam and today's unnecessary war in Iraq.
The last shot I took as people faded away, making their way seperately in twos and threes to start their journey back home, was of this New Orleans' IVAW member, Michael Cuzzort, who wore the tilted shit-house shoulder patch of the !st Log Command that I was part of in Vietnam.
I told him I envied him that he had been able to go airborne as a member of the 1st Log Command. Way back in my day the only way I would have been able to do that would have been if I were willing to do the Vietnam War's version of stop-loss, go "Voluntary--Indefinite". This was a one-way contract between you and Uncle Sam, in which you had to do a minimum of three-years active duty. At the end of your initial three-year commitment, IF Uncle Sam wanted to honor your contract he would let you out. If not, Uncle Sam could keep you on active duty indefinitely. Nope, though I was stupid and gung-ho and really wanted to jump out of perfectly good airplanes, in no way was I willing to stay on active duty with the Army any longer than absolutely necessary. A solid two-year USAR citizen soldier only was I.
I met up with my high-school buddy, Joe, who recently moved back to New Orleans, at Louis Armstrong Park, and we took Jim Driscoll, Tuscon friend and founder of Vets4Vets, back out to St. Mary's of Vietnam Church in East New Orleans where he had left his car. I was exhausted, but it was most refreshing to take a long full shower in Joe's apartment, and after a wonderful filet mignon at New Orleans' famed Snug Harbor Jazz Club, I crashed and slept soundly on Joe's floor.
The next morning, Monday, after cafe au lait and the wonderful powder-sugared beignets at Cafe Du Monde, about a ten-minute walk from Joe's apartment, we drove around New Orleans, and Joe showed me the other areas of the City, the middle-class areas out in Metarie and the upper-class neighborhoods along St. Charles that likewise had been devasted by the flooding of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. Many areas of the city are coming back, but many areas, such as the 9th Ward, and many of the suburbs in St. Bernard's parish will require decades of steady work and commitment to come back.
We drove across the Lake Ponchatrain Causeway and up I-55 in a blinding rainstorm to our hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. That evening I had dinner with my 84-year-old Momma and Sister Meg. The next morning I flew back to Islip MacArther Airport on Long Island.
My journey to the Gulf Coast is over. It indubitably was one of the most enlightening, exciting, energizing and worthwhile week's I have ever experienced. I am most gracefully blessed and most grateful to have had the privilege and honor of marching with fellow veterans, our families, and the survivors of Hurricane Katrina. We shall somehow, someday overcome.
Power to the Peaceful !~!~!
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