Dan Ellsberg (i)
from poet W.D. Ehrhart and LAPRogressive
The poet just alerted me and other devoted readers to this homage presented on the deathbed of a man we both admire. I have felt gratitude since 1972 to my namesake for the fact that me and all my brothers and cousins did not spend a year wandering the Republic of Viet Nam killing babies
- many many babies - and stepping on landmines. Well, maybe one each. Anyways, that totally could have happened and the drug-addled, goofy, marble-mouthed, not very bright Harvard man is one of the handful and I mean five or so,
officers of the United States of America who placed himself in jeopardy to forestall that eventuality. I think the world of him, as I think the world of the crazy stupid high school poet who really believed all the tub-thumping bullshit and went to war
as I, a Jew raised by rural proletarians and educated to run the country, find it hard to believe that anyone did but there are true believers and Bill was one of them until he lived and thought his way out of it and has built an edifice of belles-lettres and scholarship
that explain as I never could to some dumb kid what an evil mess he made of his young life after Daniel did. You may have gathered by now that often the last person I need to communicate my admiration to is a hero of mine, as both these men are.
What could I expect them to say back? It was a problem. Shut me down emotionally and relationally as also did my determination to somehow promote the understanding of their work publicly, regaling any more than one other at a time
who also admires Emily Dickinson and Wallace Stevens, nobody, at the end of the mind, with ice cream from the snow man. Maybe you don’t read Emily or Wallace and don’t yet know what those phrases evoke. Easy to learn right here on your phone.
Three of the famous poems are about changing things by accepting them as they are rather than seeing them as they are not. One is about not being important. They come to mind as I start writing about Bill, about Daniel, about their jihad after our war.
Viet Nam letters respects the property of others under paragraph 107 of United States Code Title 17. If we asked for permission it wouldn’t be criticism. We explain our fair use at length in the letter of September 12, 2022.
The colophon of these Viet Nam letters, directly above, shows the janitor speaking with poet David A. Willson on a Veterans Day.