TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown. 

My grandfather, my dad’s dad, Raymond Edward Smith, was the first person reported "killed in action" from Columbus, Ohio, as a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was a Fire Controlman First Class on the USS West Virginia. He was reported killed in action, but his parents received word on Christmas Eve, over two weeks after the attack, that a mistake had been made, and he was alive. My grandfather died when I was in college, from complications of ALS. To my knowledge he never spoke about his experiences on the day of the Pearl Harbor raid, even many years later—not with his children or his grandchildren.

I can only imagine what his first-hand experience was of that event: what he saw, and heard, and felt. I can only imagine how those sights and sounds and sensations may have haunted him, even though he never talked about it. I don’t think you can experience something so traumatic without carrying it with you, in some shape or form.  

Certainly many people have veterans in their families who didn’t talk about what they experienced. Some have veterans in their families who have suffered with PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder, a mental health condition that develops when a person has experienced or witnessed a scary, shocking, terrifying, or dangerous event. 

It's also worth noting that while PTSD was first diagnosed in combat veterans, it can be a result of other kinds of trauma. People can experience PTSD after living through or seeing a traumatic event, such as war, a natural disaster, a sexual assault, physical abuse, or a bad accident. Symptoms of PTSD can include intrusive memories of flashbacks of the traumatic event, nightmares or difficulty sleeping, or physiological reactions—like sweating or a racing heart—when reminded of the event. Some people with PTSD may have angry outbursts, or they may startle easily. They may be hypervigilant, or they may avoid conversations about the event entirely, trying to “put it behind them.” I think my grandfather, as stoic as he was, fell into that latter category.

Today’s poem explores PTSD as experienced by a POW, or prisoner of war. I admire this poem for the way it speaks to the resilience of the human spirit. I sometimes find myself in awe of what humans can survive, and what trauma survivors can keep intact inside themselves, and what they can still find joy in.

Sal, 1950
by Paula Colangelo

He once escaped—
survived two weeks on pears
before recaptured.

Before there was a name for it—
tendency to startle, flashbacks
that caused him to leave
a restaurant without explanation—
again, he suffered alone.

His wife calls the topic
untouchable. Sal didn’t explain
his captors’ methods
except that they stole
his ability to have children.
This is all she knows
of his time in Korea.

You may think 
he would never eat pears again
but did.

"Sal, 1950" by Paula Colangelo. Used by permission of the poet.