By Julie Titone

I remember it as a bedtime story, my dad recounting how he flew over Europe and looked down on a mountain lake. The reflection of the night sky was so perfect that he became disoriented. He was flying over the moon.

John Titone served in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a co-pilot on a B-17. When his nine kids were young, he told us precious little about his experiences in World War II. The memories he did share were simple, like the fact that the English grew Brussels sprouts between runways. And where were those giant tin-can American bombers going when they lifted off between the vegetables, laden with deadly cargo? Before I studied history, my only clue was a map of Europe painted on Dad's leather bomber jacket. Every mission was marked on it.

As co-author of a war memoir, I've thought a lot about the power of story and how it can help combat veterans. Grady Myers regaled his friends with the stories that went into our book, "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam War." There's not a doubt in my mind that with his humor -- sometimes dark and ironic, sometimes wise-crackling -- Grady was coping with his memories of being a machine gunner. Tell the good stuff often enough, and the kill-or-be-killed stuff loses some of its power.

Yes, Grady nearly died in battle. But he survived to participate in hospital hijinks and to buy that classic Thunderbird he was lusting after. An artist, he drew engaging pictures of his time as a reluctant but able warrior. Among his works that have been displayed at the National Veterans Art Museum, a whimsical one featuring a monkey was a crowd-pleaser. We all need comic relief. 

Almost every vet's experience includes good stuff: adventure, friendships, confidence-building, pride.

"In many ways, that year was very exciting," says a friend who suffers from war-related stress 50 years after he was in Vietnam. "We were young, in great physical condition and full of piss and vinegar. We were in a very beautiful and exotic land with a culture none of us could have imagined. And we did things we would never tell our mothers, and survived. Even the real bad times had a positive edge because you never feel more alive than when you are close to death."

Another friend told me his Vietnam service was the best year of his life. He might have exaggerated, but I don't think by much. His eyes glowed when he talked about the problem-solving involved with being a Marine mechanic in a combat zone. "It was something new every day. Every day." He came back in one piece but had a close brush with death-by-military-vehicle. It's a story he tells with relish, probably because no one else died, either.

I'm writing this on Veterans Day. I can't think of a better gift for people who has served in the military, in combat or not, than to let them know you'd like to hear their stories. Just open a space in the conversation. Did anything funny happen to you? Any buddies you'd like to see again? Whatever happened to those pictures you brought back?

My father has outlived his bomber jacket, which was loved a bit too much by one of his sons. When asked, Dad will recall his time in the service. He told me how he fell off an airplane wing during training and broke his thumb, which delayed his deployment (I may well owe my existence to that accident). And how sick he got on the heaving troop ship that brought him back to the States. With the war in Europe over, he expected to be sent to the Pacific. The Japanese surrendered before that happened (I may owe my existence to that, too).

Grady was telling stories up until his death in 2011. Even the serious war episodes, as he told them, didn't feel like a burden to listeners. I think the smiles of his audience brought some measure of peace to his good heart.

The Grady Myers drawing "Still Life with CIB" is on display in Surrealism and War, which opens this Memorial Day at the National Veterans Art Museum. The work is among others from the NVAM's permanent collection that are included in the six-month exhibit and series of special events.

War is almost by definition a surreal enterprise. That's certainly the impression I got when listening to Grady tell the stories that we captured in his memoir "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam War."

It's interesting that Grady chose the Combat Infantry Badge as the subject of this, the most abstract of his war-related works. Among his military decorations, he was most proud of the CIB. It meant he hadn't just served in the Army. He'd seen battle -- and, as this piece suggests, paid a price for that experience. This disheveled soldier does not fit his clothes and seems disjointed, harried. He has seen a lot. Are his eyes closed against  memories of violence and fear?

Surrealism, write the exhibit curators, is "an attempt to revolt against the inherent contradictions of a society ruled by rational thought while dominated by war and oppression. Surrealism seeks expression of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason and free of aesthetic and moral preoccupation. It is this same absence of control exercised by reason that many combat veterans seek to explore and express after their experiences in war."

"Still Life with CIB" is one of four pieces that Grady created in the 1990s for a traveling exhibit of work by Vietnam veterans. That project evolved into the Chicago museum, which is the repository of Grady's original Vietnam-related artwork.

That art is reproduced in "Boocoo Dinky Dow." But the small-format book doesn't do justice to the original poster-sized works. It's wonderful to know they are occasionally brought out for public viewing.

The military loves rank and insignia. Why not designate worthy veterans as Top Brass Volunteers? I'd nominate Bill Crist.

Bill is a fixture at the National Veterans Art Museum, where Grady's work is part of the permanent collection. When I gave a reading from "Boocoo Dinky Dow" at the Chicago museum last spring, Bill was my guest veteran reader. (Because Grady died in 2011, I like to have a fellow join me to bring a male voice to the telling of his story.)

Bill did more than read passages from the memoir. He talked about his own experiences with the Army's 25th Infantry in Vietnam. He told his stories with flair, conviction and a charming lack of political correctness. Afterwards, he gave the audience a tour of "The Things They Carried," an exhibit of military gear that he organized and helped finance.

It struck me that Bill's greatest contribution is his willingness to talk about his own difficult journey since Vietnam. He told me some of his story after the museum reading. We met up at a neighborhood bar. He insisted on buying me a cocktail, but ordered a soft drink for himself.

"I was an alcoholic for 15 years," Bill told me. "I was just trying to kill the bad memories in my head. Now I've been sober for 15 years."

Post-traumatic stress was affecting him as soon as he came back, in 1971, from a world of sniper fire and body count competitions. Before being drafted, he'd started college. "I couldn't go back to school after 'Nam. I wanted to be a history teacher, but gave that up."

He found work in a warehouse, as a truck driver, as a salesman. Over the years, his stress piled up like so many sandbags on his soul. "I've been to Vietnam in my mind more than 300 times," he said. Eventually, he ended up at Hines VA Hospital, where he spent 50 days in the psychiatric ward. Art therapy was part of his treatment. One day, "a therapist asked us to draw something in our minds that was bothering us."

Bill responded with "colors that kind of like to jump off the page and go after you." His illustrations of soldiers and veterans show troubled faces, bloody limbs, American flags. They ended up in the museum collection (see them here), even though "I never intended for anyone to see those drawings."

Bill has lectured at Loyola University about his post-war trauma. When he takes student groups through the museum, he shares what happened during the war. The kids love trying on the rucksack that he donated to the exhibit. They like his candid recollections, such as the fact he didn't stand up when he had to pee in Vietnam because that was a sure way for a soldier to become a target.
 
It's a tough sell to get veterans to volunteer and share their stories with the public, Bill said. He'd be glad to mentor anyone who'd like to soldier up and give it a try.  

As I prepare for this Saturday's reading at the National Veterans Art Museum, I have been having a flashback to the 1980s. I am in the rotunda of the nation's Capitol where I'm viewing, with a combination of sadness and fascination, a traveling exhibit organized by the Vietnam Veterans Art Group. Sadness because so many of the works depict violence and loss. Fascination because the exhibit,  "Reflexes and Reflections," has many excellent and compelling images -- including three drawings and a collage created by Grady Myers.

Grady and I were married then. I don't recall how he connected with the Chicago-based art group; we lived in Boise and Spokane during the '80s. He was excited to create work for the show. It was the first time he had tackled Vietnam War art since illustrating "Boocoo Dinky Dow," the memoir that we wrote together in the late 1970s. While the book manuscript was packed away and not published until after Grady died in 2011, the Vietnam Veterans Art Group kept evolving.

The traveling art exhibit found a permanent home in Chicago's Loop and became the Vietnam Veterans Art Museum in 1996. Its mission expanded to included artists from other wars and in 2010 it was renamed the National Veterans Art Museum. Last fall, the museum moved to a new Chicago location. You can read more about it here. Take time to nose around nvam.org. The museum's entire collection of art is available online. Of course, there's nothing like seeing art in person. Tours are free.

Grady's drawing titled "The Mascot," shown here, is a favorite with young museum visitors. At the April 20 reading of "Boocoo Dinky Dow," the museum collection will expand with the contribution of  his original art from the book.

Bridging the gap between composition explosives and literary composition, Victor Villanueva Jr. survived combat in Vietnam and went on to become a distinguished professor of English. Not bad for a high school dropout. 

When one of his colleagues at Washington State University told me Victor served in the Army in Vietnam, I contacted him out of the blue and asked if he would be the guest reader at "Boocoo Dinky Dow" book event  at the Neill Public Library in Pullman. I explained that I always invite a man, usually a veteran, to join me at readings to give voice to Grady, who died in 2011.

Victor graciously agreed. When he read Grady's memoir, he was astounded to realize he may actually have seen Grady in Vietnam. "I was in country August 1968 to September 1969. Grady and I were in the same place during much of the same time! This is eerie!"

Victor's 13 months in country -- six months as a grunt, the rest as a clerk -- overlapped with Grady's three months. He'd been to Fire Support Base 30, where Grady's squad leader gave him the nickname Hoss and made him an M-60 machine gunner.

He was also at Blackhawk, a camp where he heard the explosions that Grady describes in "Boocoo Dinky Dow," one of the many exploits that cemented Charlie Company’s reputation as Combustion Charlie. It was, officially, C Company, 1st of the 8th, 4th Infantry Division. Victor's best friend was its clerk.

"His name was Charles Shinedling, so we called him Shingaling like the song and the dance," said Victor, whose own buddies called him Vanilla Wafer, a riff on his Puerto Rican last name.

Victor was also a clerk in the first 1st of the 8th, working for Delta Company. Before that, in combat mode, he carried a radio with an antennae that extended above his head. It was heavy. Victor, who is not a big guy, laughed as he recalled falling backwards onto the ground every time he hopped off a helicopter.

Grady's story brought back intense memories for Victor. Such as seeing a buddy die, intestines spilled onto the ground. He described how his squad once fired madly at night-time movement in the jungle, discovering in daylight that they had decimated a record-sized Bengal tiger.

Victor's stories, along with his thoughts on the draft system and racism’s role in war, enriched the Pullman reading.  At the upcoming "Boocoo Dinky Dow" event at the National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago, the guest reader will be a veteran who was too changed by Vietnam to finish college and live out his dream of being a teacher. Now, he uses art to teach younger generations about the impact of war.