[For Veterans Day, I’ll be AmericanStudying five examples of texts that can help us remember and engage with veterans’ experiences from five of our defining wars. Leading up to a weekend post on 21st century veterans’ stories!]
On two
ways to AmericanStudy the significance of a Native American veteran’s
experiences.
I’ve
written about William Apess, one of my very
favorite American writers and voices, many times in this
space and beyond. Most of
those posts have focused on individual
texts of his, but in this post I wrote
more broadly about the arc of his life (as well as how he traced it in his autobiographical
writing). I’d ask you to check out that post if you could, and then come
on back for thoughts on Apess’s military service during the War of
1812.
As I note
in that post, just about every detail of Apess’s life seems hyperbolic; but
perhaps the most extreme is captured in this clause: “enlisting in a New York
militia at the age of 16 and fighting in the War of 1812.” The U.S. did not yet
have a standing army at this time, so it relied
on state militias to do the bulk of the fighting (alongside assembled
armies like the amazingly diverse one Andrew Jackson commanded at
the Battle of New Orleans), and I have to imagine that they weren’t great at
checking the ages of their soldiers. But at the same time, I don’t think we can
separate Apess’s extreme experience of military service from the fraught and
complicated multi-century story of Native Americans service in U.S. wars and
conflicts. From Crispus
Attucks to Ira
Hayes, the U.S.
Army Indian Scouts to the Najavo
code talkers, and so many other individuals and communities, Native
Americans have played
a role in every American conflict, one far exceeding their percentage of
the overall population. And as we see most potently in Leslie Marmon Silko’s novel
Ceremony (1977), that service has always affected them profoundly
and too often painfully, something I have to imagine was part of Apess’s story
as well, especially given just how young he was when that service began.
Alongside
such negative effects, of course, veterans can also take away meaningful positives
from their wartime service, and one positive aftermath in which I’m especially
interested is the critical
patriotic perspective that many veterans express and then act upon. William
Apess undoubtedly drew his own critical patriotism from a variety of sources,
including his faith and his profound understanding
of Scripture, his connection to and love for his fellow
Native Americans, and more. But I don’t think we can discount the role that
this teenage military service played in shaping both Apess’s awareness of the
worst of America and his desire to continue fighting to push the nation closer
to its best—and when he expressed all those perspectives in his best work, “Eulogy
on King Philip” (1836), he did so in the heart of Revolutionary-celebrating
1830s Boston, an act of aggressive activism that seems likewise to continue
with that youthful fighting spirit.
Next
veteran’s story tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Veterans’ stories and/or texts you’d share?
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