Commentary

*Annie May and Rosa were daughters of Tempie Williams Jackson, Mama’s aunt, sister of Laura, her mother. **During this period, I was living in Washington, D.C. while taking a French course at the University of Maryland, College Park. I needed the course to obtain my B.A. in English. My mentor Dr. Max Wilson arranged for me to live with the Meijers, a Jewish family that lived on the Gold Coast along upper 16^th Street, not too far from Silver Spring. Madame Meijer, born in Holland and a refugee of Hitlerite Germany, was a professor in the language department at College Park. Her parents were killed in the holocaust. Her husband, a physics professor, taught at Catholic University. They had two sons and two daughters. They treated me as a member of the family. It was the first household I lived in that had a maid. I do not know how I would have managed to get my degree and begin graduate school that fall without their gracious assistance and thoughtfulness.

***Cleveland "Chicken" Taylor, Edith’s youngest son, did not want to go into the military. This may have occurred on second thought. For, I believe, the draft had been abolished by 1978. Unlike my resistance, his change of heart had little or nothing to do with political reasons. He merely realized that the military was no place for him. He probably was correct in his final conclusions and did what he felt necessary to stay out.

There were men from Jarratt who did go to Vietnam, like my cousin Von, my childhood best friend Alvester Maryland, and my high school buddy Richard Harris. All were deeply affected by the Vietnam war, having gone over as teenagers or young men. They returned to become alcoholics or drug addicts or worst. John Alvin Maryland came back home in a body bag and is buried in Jerusalem cemetery. Many still do not realize the harm done to these young boys who were shipped 10,000 miles to fight in a war that was permeated by moral and political corruption. These young boys’ moral universe was turned upside down by alcohol, drugs, prostitution, and murder. They returned to the countryside without counseling or assistance. There was none there who could understand or appreciate the hell these boy had undergone. They were forced into a war that had no glory and very little meaning.