I thank you all for the privilege of speaking at today’s event.  I am humbled that you would ask me to do this and I only hope that I do you, and the men and the families that we honor, justice.

When Chester McConnell asked me for a title for my talk, I realized that I could do no better than the words inscribed at our nation’s World War II Memorial in Washington, DC.  Those words are:  “Here we mark the price of freedom.”  

That is exactly what we do today.  By remembering our veterans, we pause to mark the price – in years from home, in sweat and toil, and sometimes in their own blood – they paid in the past for our freedom today.  Thanks to your group’s research, we know many of those veterans from Pine Hill by name.

They were men like Chester’s older brother Aviation Machinist’s Mate First Class George Raymond McConnell, one of the 644 sailors lost with a Japanese submarine sank the escort carrier USS Liscome Bay in the Gilbert Islands on November 24, 1943.

They were men like Gunner’s Mate Third Class Willie Autery, Jr., a nineteen year-old sailor on board the cruiser USS Juneau.  Juneau was sunk by the Japanese in the Solomon Islands on November 13, 1942.  623 American sailors, to include all five of the Sullivan brothers of Waterloo, Iowa, perished in her sinking.  Only 10 men survived.  Willie was not one of them.

They were men like Platoon Sergeant Enoch “Hugie” Shoultz, United States Marines, killed in action on Iwo Jima on the tenth day of battle as he led a patrol trying to clear the island’s volcanic terrain of snipers.

They were men like Private First Class Allen G. “Van” Johnson, who served with the U.S. Army’s 9^th Infantry Division and who was killed in action in Tunisia on April 3, 1943.

They were men like Captain Marshall D. Godbold, who lost his life serving with the U.S. Army in Burma, half a world away, and who is buried in this very cemetery.

And there are many others that we remember today – if not by naming them, then at least by our presence.

But we Americans are not the only ones who remember our American veterans.  If I may, let me tell you about a town in the Czech Republic.  The town is called Slavicin.  It is about the size of Camden, and sits nestled in the foothills of the White Carpathian Mountains.  Like so many of you, its residents made a living farming and in the timber trade.

Sixty-seven years ago, on August 29, 1944, the United States unleashed an air raid against the Czech city of Moravska Ostrava, which lies to the north of Slavicin.  Moravska Ostrava’s oil refinery provided fuel for the Third Reich; its railway marshalling yard helped funnel German troops to the Eastern Front.

The American B-17 Flying Fortress crews that flew against Moravska Ostrava that day had hoped for what the men called a “milk run.”  But the mission against Moravska Ostrava was anything but a milk run.  Between 70 and 80 German fighters ambushed the seven bombers of the 20th Squadron.  That squadron, by the way, was led by a young pilot from Carbon Hill, Alabama, named Bill Tune.

In twenty minutes of brutal fighting, all seven Flying Fortresses fell victim to the enemy fighters.  Their flaming wrecks exploded in the air or crashed into the thick evergreen forests, farmers’ fields, and meadows around Slavicin and other Czech towns and villages.  By the end of the battle, 40 men of the 20^th Squadron were dead, 26 – mostly wounded – were captured, and only 4 managed to make it back to Allied lines.

After the air battle, the Germans gathered the remains of those airmen from the crash sites around Slavicin.  In total, there were 28 bodies. 

Two days after the air battle, on August 31, 1944, the Germans dug a large rectangular pit in the cemetery at Slavicin’s St. Adalbert Catholic Church and, in that mass grave, buried the American fliers.  The Germans refused to allow the local Czechs – whose country, you might recall, had been ruled by Hitler as a Nazi “protectorate” since 1939 – to be present, although the local priest managed to convince the German garrison commander to allow him to perform a funeral service.  When the grave was filled, the Germans marked the site with a wooden plaque that simply read “28 American Fliers – Died August 29, 1944 – Buried August 31, 1944.” 

In the days after the service was concluded, local Czechs began bringing flowers to the mass grave.  The Germans quickly moved to stop the practice, sending a town crier around Slavicin who beat his drum and read the German order prohibiting any more flowers from being placed on the grave site.

So what does any of this have to do with Pine Hill, you may be asking yourselves.

I will tell you.  It has nothing to do with Pine Hill.  And it has everything to do with Pine Hill.

Let me continue.

A year later, after the war in Europe ended and the German occupation of Slavicin had ended, the townspeople gathered to have a proper funeral service for the American fliers.  Then, in 1946, the American military came to Slavicin and, in a dignified, ceremonious effort, exhumed the 28 bodies.  Some were reburied at the American military cemetery in St. Avold, France; others were returned home to be buried in cemeteries much like this one.

But even then, the people of Slavicin did not forget the young Americans who gave their life for a free Europe – and a free world – on August 29, 1944. 

On August 29, 1994, Slavicin hosted several of the surviving airmen and family members of the fallen in a ceremony commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the battle.  A formal stone monument, inscribed with the names of the deceased airmen, was dedicated and, that Sunday, a special mass was held.  The tradition of an annual special mass continues to their very day, I am told, and a similar memorial celebration was held in 2004.

When I researched and wrote the story of the 20^th Bombardment Squadron, I learned of the Czech people’s long memories of this battle and the men who lost their lives in it.  I also learned of their tradition of honoring, not their war dead, but our war dead from that battle.  And I was humbled by that knowledge – and a little saddened, to be honest with you.  I am not sure that we Americans even go to those lengths to honor our own veterans.  For us, even Veterans Day itself is too often simply an excuse for a day off from school, to close the bank, or to have a sale at the mall.

But not here in Pine Hill.  Here, you have heartened me.  You have not ceded the memory of our fallen veterans to distant nations.  You have not forgotten them. 

Instead, you have kept the faith.  Here, you have taken the time to pause, to remember our veterans, and, in doing so, to say “thank you.”  And for that, I thank you.  God bless you all, and God bless the United States of America.

This is the time to celebrate your favorite author, filmmaker, artist or historian. This is the time to pass on to a friend your favorite book, or recommend a beloved song. This is the month to pull close your children or grandchildren and tell them about your family’s history. Take this month to explore your hometown, or a new town you’ve never visited in Alabama. Learn about the structures there, the culture, the people…learn more about your history as an Alabamian.

Take the time to learn more about the humanities…and more about yourself.

Last year, the Alabama Humanities Foundation honored The Rev. Shuttlesworth with a resolution, applauding “his lifetime of dedication and service to humankind and his unwavering belief and courage in upholding the dignity of all human beings…” Below is the full resolution, presented to The Rev. Shuttlesworth on September 13, 2010.

We invite you to share your comments about this courageous civil rights leader. Or submit a blog post sharing your thoughts to: jdome@ahf.net.

A Resolution Honoring the Reverend Fred Lee Shuttlesworth

WHEREAS, Fred Shuttlesworth has helped shape Alabama and American history through his tireless advocacy for civil liberties and struggle against racial discrimination.  He marched for justice and equality with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., organized boycotts and Freedom Rides, founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, and co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and

WHEREAS, a loving servant of God, Fred Shuttlesworth began his 58-year ministerial career in the rural Alabama church, prior to accepting the call for leadership at Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, where the Movement for change began, and

WHEREAS, his historical legacy has been memorialized in two scholarly biographies, Step by Step and A Fire You Can’t Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham’s Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, and

WHEREAS, he has received numerous awards and citations including the Presidential Citizen’s Award in 2001, induction into the International Civil Rights Hall of Fame in 2005, and the renaming of the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport in 2008, and

WHEREAS, Fred Shuttlesworth has generously given of his time, energy, abilities, and resources to better the world around him.  We note that it is through the efforts of public-spirited individuals such as he, who are dedicated to preserving the inalienable rights and freedoms of all citizens, that our nation continues to grow and prosper.  We applaud him on his lifetime of dedication and service to humankind and his unwavering belief and courage in upholding the dignity of all human beings; therefore be it

RESOLVED That we, the members of the Alabama Humanities Foundation, in adopting this Resolution, honor Fred Shuttlesworth for his exemplary record of public advocacy that embodies the values and perspectives of the humanities.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that this Resolution be formally presented to Reverend Fred Lee Shuttlesworth on this day, September 13, 2010.

The first evening we attend a family reunion in Colbert County, Alabama—a gathering of descendents of Colonel George Colbert (aka, Tootemastabbe, Chickasaw Chief) my wife’s third great-grandfather. We share a covered dish supper and fascinating conversation with these Chickasaw-Scots and with Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks and Choctaws visiting from Oklahoma, North Carolina, South Alabama and Texas, to name a few, whose ancestors survived or perished on the Trail of Tears.

The next day we drive into the woodlands adjoining the Natchez Trace and here, just above the “Devil’s Backbone,” my wife introduces Wesley and me to Tom Hendrix, descendent of the ancient Native American Yuchi tribe. The three of us sit under the canopy of hardwoods near a meandering stone wall, listening. For a couple of hours we remain entranced by his words—the stories that have traveled across generations are now shared with us and we see why his Yuchi people call him “Stonetalker.” Three decades past, Tom felt an urgent need to find some way to tell the journey story of Te-lah-nay, his Yuchi great-great-grandmother, born in the Shoals. We learn that in the 1830s, 13-year-old Te-lah-nay, having just witnessed the murder of all her family, is forced to walk with thousands of Creek, Chickasaws, Choctaws and Cherokees, the many miles of hardships, sickness and deaths, to the West. Even before reaching Oklahoma Territory she yearns for her home on the “Singing River” in Colbert County so much that she determines to return. Shortly after the group reaches their destination, she manages to escape the Indian Territory West, and travels alone for three years, finally reaching home to hear the music of her beloved “Singing River.”  This lone remnant of the Yuchis marries and produces a daughter who passes this story on to her descendents, eventually reaching the ears of her great-great-grandson, Tom Hendrix.

After much reflection, Tom formulates a plan—a way to keep alive the story of his great-great-grandmother’s long and difficult journey west far from her birthplace, and her valiant trek out of exile, back to Alabama’s Tennessee River. He would build a wall of stone gathered from the nearby shoals, the shoals that sang the songs beckoning Te-lah-nay back home.

He drives down to the river bank, loads his truck with river rocks and begins laying the wall in his woodland front yard. A half-ton of rocks does not make much of a wall, so Tom continues his frequent treks to the river bed. Three decades later, after wearing out three trucks and dozens of pairs of gloves, Tom has laid 9,300,000 pounds of rocks to build the wall honoring Te-lah-nay. But it is not finished. He explains that he personally has laid almost every single stone that forms the wall using no mortar. Only on a few rare occasions has Tom allowed anyone else to place a rock. “Every stone,” he says, “represents a footstep taken by one of the people forced from their home on the westward march.” When Tom learns that our grandson’s blood flows with Chickasaw and Cherokee blood, he invites Wesley to select a rock from his truck and place it on an unfinished section of the wall, a defining moment for us all. The construction continues.

Visitors have come from all over the U. S. and from across the world to leave memorabilia on the Wichapi Wall (meaning “like the stars”). Guided by the wall, they wind through the woods, frequently moved to spontaneously pause for meditation.

It is appropriate that Te-lah-nay’s memorial is near Tuscumbia for two reasons. First, the Shoals area is her birthplace and, second, during that horrendous “Trail of Tears” in the 1830s, the citizens of Tuscumbia noted the conditions of the Indians as they waited to be transported across the Tennessee River and came to their aid. The compassionate Tuscumbians are still remembered for their acts of kindness providing food, clothing and blankets to the starving and ill-clothed native tribes.

One can view this magnificent memorial wall by going to www.ifthelegendsfade.com or better still, arrange a visit by emailing Tom Hendrix at stonetalker@comcast.net. It is a compelling journey into the depths of Alabama history.

For more information on AHF’s “Journey Stories” exhibit, now in Marion through Nov. 10, please visit www.ahf.net/journeystories.

“My own contribution to outreach probably received more recognition than it deserved because others were due most of the credit for our success. Nevertheless, in 1989, I received a University Extension Certificate of Merit. That same year, the Alabama Humanities Foundation (AHF) asked me to write a piece to celebrate its fifteenth anniversary, centering on the work of AHF in strengthening community life through public programming. Despite a variety of deadlines, I agreed. “Habits of the Heart in the Heart of Dixie” was my attempt to place AHF’s outreach effort into broad social context.

Rural and small town migration patterns, urban complexity, and the atomization of American life threatened venerable traditions of community life. Books as divergent as The Different Drum:  Community Making and Peace by psychiatrist M. Scott Peck and Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Community in American Life by Robert N. Bellah and others had placed the issue front and center on the nation’s agenda.

The age of air conditioners, the disappearance of front porches, the decline of church revivals, and the vanishing court and market days were locking us into progressively smaller cubicles, rooms, offices, and other stifling spaces, largely away from one another. Folks no longer learned so easily about the needs of others. Modern society might produce less small town gossip and petty intrigue. But it most certainly contained less neighborliness and willingness to be bothered by someone else’s troubles. This pulling away from community, this decreasing ability to connect meaningfully, to share important common symbols, had fractured and weakened social relationships and communal identity.

Rebuilding a sense of community is no easy matter. It first requires explaining what it means to be human. Such definitions emerge from religion, philosophy, literature, music, art, drama, speech, and history. This public redefinition requires that practitioners of the humanities occasionally take leave of their classrooms, where many of their seeds fall on the hard, sterile ground of career-building and degree-chasing anyway (or sometimes on adolescents not even that serious). We have to engage the community of adults who do not take our importance for granted. The larger community is not so much hostile to us as it is preoccupied with more urgent concerns: earning a living; nurturing families; preserving neighborhoods; coping with divorce, sickness, and death. Ordinary people do not perceive that humanists (a term they generally don’t understand anyway) have much to contribute to their prosaic comings and goings, their quality of life, or the stability of the places where they live. Nor do we make much effort to persuade them of our relevance. Our efforts in AHF, Auburn’s History and Heritage Festivals, Reading Alabama, and other Humanities Center programs had been but halting first steps at opening that dialogue.”

How has humanities programming touched your life?

It is here, in this storied town’s center, where the Smithsonian’s traveling exhibit “Journey Stories” is housed in the United Way building at 19 Main Street. Walking in the door this Wednesday, I was happy to see a group of students from William L. Radney Elementary School, a sixth-grade class, listening intently to Terry Jones, a volunteer with the Main Street organization, tell the story of our country, how our ancestors traveled here and how they journeyed west across the continent, looking for a better life.

“Journey Stories” is a Museum on Main Street exhibition, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and the Alabama Humanities Foundation. The exhibit examines the intersection between modes of travel and Americans’ desire to feel free to move. The stories are diverse and focus on immigration, migration, innovation and freedom. “Journey Stories” uses engaging images with audio and artifacts to tell the individual stories that illustrate the critical roles travel and movement have played in building our diverse American society.

Right now, “Journey Stories” can be seen in Alexander City through Sept. 23. It will then move on to:

Marion — Sept. 28-Nov. 10
Mobile — Nov. 16-Dec. 27
Eufaula — Jan. 6, 2012-Feb. 15
Arab — Feb. 24-April 5

Watching the children view the exhibit panels, and seeing them explore Alexander City’s own complementary exhibit across the street in the lobby of City Hall, you can see their minds whirling. They are making connections between the settlers and their own ancestors. They are understanding why people come to America to seek out a better life. Perhaps they are contemplating their own “Journey Stories”—trips taken with parents and grandparents to Mt. Rushmore, Civil War battlegrounds, or Yellowstone National Park.

We all have a journey story to tell. Come see America’s “Journey Stories” in Alexander City or an Alabama town near you! And, if you would like to tell your own journey story here on AHF’s blog, please email it to: jdome@ahf.net.

We look forward to taking the journey with you!

General Krulak served 35 years in the U.S. Marine Corps. His last position was as Commandant of the Marine Corps and as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He commanded a platoon and two rifle companies during two tours of duty in Vietnam and then held a variety of command and staff positions. These included deputy director of the White House Military Office, Commanding General, 6th Marine Expeditionary Brigade during Desert Storm, Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command, and Commanding General, Marine Forces Pacific. During his military service, General Krulak was awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Silver Star Medal, the Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V” and two gold stars, the Purple Heart with gold star, the Meritorious Service Medal, the French Legion d’Honneur Commandeur rank, and many other decorations and medals.

Upon his retirement from the Marine Corps, General Krulak joined MBNA America Bank as Vice Chairman and Chief Administrative Officer and subsequently as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MBNA Europe Bank, Ltd. After four years in this position, he returned to the United States and served as Vice Chairman, MBNA America Bank as Head of Corporate Development, Mergers and Acquisitions. General Krulak retired from MBNA in June 2005.

Today, General Krulak is the President for Birmingham-Southern College, a liberal arts college located in Birmingham. In addition, General Krulak currently sits on the Board of Directors of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Corporation where he is a member of the Public Policy and Personnel Committees and the Board of Directors of Union Pacific Railroad Corporation where he is a member of the Finance and Audit Committees. He sits on the Board of Regents forthe Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He sits on the Board of the CEO Forum and serves as Director with Aston Villa Football Club in the United Kingdom. He is an advisor to the Center for Naval Analysis and Human Rights First. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

General Krulak is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and has a master’s degree in labor relations from George Washington University.

Join us on Sept. 26 to hear this accomplished man speak, and to congratulate this year’s award winners:

• Elaine Hughes, recipient of the 2011 Alabama Humanities Award
• Wells Fargo, recipient of the 2011 Charitable Organization in the Humanities

To order tickets and for more details, please click here.

By AHF Board member Bob Whetstone

On this cool September morning, we’re sipping coffee in Cousin Ron’s yard high on a west Duluth hill, watching the fog rise off majestic Lake Superior below. A collector of classic antique cars, Ron is deep into the subject when he pauses. “Ya’ know,” he says in that characteristic Minnesota twang, “I watch the weekend races on TV, but one thing I’d like to do before I kick the bucket is to see a live race at Talladega.”

Before I can react to his bucket list confession, Ron’s wife pipes up, “You betcha’, we’re gonna do just that, Ron. I want you to see that race. It’ll be your birthday present.” I play along with the dream and offer that we’ll have a room ready for them at our house—and we’ll start working on finding finish-line tickets. “You guys will love the races,” Ron adds. I shake my head to make sure I heard the words correctly. Yes, I heard right. It’s just that I have never pictured myself sitting in the stands at the SuperSpeedway.

The Sunday of the big race we rise at dawn and travel our carefully plotted, less-travelled route from Winterboro to the race track. Merging into six-lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic, we snail along the last leg and frantically pull in to the first weeded field we see. My wife calls out the checklist: “hat, sunscreen, sunglasses, seat cushions, tissues, earplugs, camera, tickets, coolers. OK, let’s go.” We open the doors of our cool air-conditioned car to be slapped in the face by a wall of 100-degree heat. But we stand steadfast, don our sun hats, clutch our heavy, well-stocked coolers and are caught up in the swell of sweaty bodies that is flowing, we hope, towards the infield tramway tunnel. A long walk later the crowd thins out and we can see the tunnel. Wishing to gain the full flavor of this experience we take a short tram ride and disembark at the infield. Intent on sneaking a closer look at the 38 fire-breathing dragons before they are rolled out of their garages onto the two-and-a-half mile oval track, we determinedly lug our coolers through an aluminum village of motor homes and trailers, flash our infield passes before the security guards at the gate only to be halted and told we need special, i.e., more expensive, tickets to enter the garage area. The heavy coolers stretch our arms as we return to the tram and exit the infield. We’re stopped at the entrance because our coolers do not meet size and material requirements for carriage into the grandstand, so we hide our supply of bottled water, Cokes and ice under a truck, not caring at this point if they’re there when the race is over.

As we enter the ramp to the stadium, Ron points out the long row of colorfully decorated 18-wheelers outside the fence, similar to a carnival midway. He explains the barkers are hawking each driver’s souvenirs and memorabilia. Settling in our finish-line seats, I covertly study these race fanatics. Well, I think we may have the only arms and thighs in this virtual sea of sparsely-clad multi-toned skin not bearing tattoos. No, wait, there is one clear canvas—a small fan sleeping soundly in an infant seat amidst the clamor.

Heads bow in reverence as the pre-race ceremony begins. The invocation, laden with auto racing metaphors, closes  and a slow, drawn-out rendition of the National Anthem rises but is drowned out when a dual-wheel monster truck with a huge American flag waving from its rear barrels down the track competing with the ear-splitting roar of a flyover by two jet bombers. A row of convertibles parades around the track to deliver the drivers to their predetermined starting positions. A well-known football coach takes the mike and announces, “Drivers, start your engines,” and a deafening roar erupts. We hurriedly insert our earplugs before the Aaron 499 race begins. After circling the two-and-a-half mile oval once, the 38 racecars begin to pair off like love bugs at Gulf Shores.

As we mop sweat from our faces and cover our professionally plugged ears with our hands, our race-savvy cousins explain that it is usual for spectators to wander among the army of food and souvenir vendors during the middle third of the race, so we do just that. However, as we stand eating hot dogs and surrounded by the smell of cotton candy, popcorn, and cigarette smoke, we glance toward the track into the grandstand and see the true, die-hard fans in their favorite driver’s caps and T-shirts, eyes glued to the track. They periodically rise to dance and cheer for the lead car or to gape at a crash and then rush to the wire fence to snap a photo. I finally gain courage to return to my seat.

After several hours and 278 laps the final 10 draw everyone to their feet—yes, even these two Alabama race rookies and their Minnesota cousins, to witness the jockeying for position among the lead couplets. The roaring engines, the fumes, the vibrations of the grandstand as dozens of dynamos whiz down the final stretch make me feel as though I am a passenger travelling with them on their journey. The final car crosses the finish line and we are swept up in the rolling tide of race fans as we exit and locate our abandoned coolers. We retrieve icy cold bottles and pause to slake our thirst in preparation for the walk to our car and the final departure from my first and my last race.

My ears still ringing, I think about the drivers, some now celebrating, some mourning. I wonder about that handful of cars, the crushed dreams of the drivers unable to complete the race. For all 38 drivers, today’s long 499-mile journey has ended at the checkered flag where it began.

AHF would like to cordially invite you to our annual awards luncheon, held this year at the Wynfrey Hotel in Birmingham on September 26, 2011 at noon.

Our keynote speaker will be Gen. Charles C. Krulak, the new president of Birmingham-Southern College. We will award the Alabama Humanities Award to Elaine Hughes and the Charitable Organization in the Humanities Award to Wells Fargo.

For more information about the luncheon, and to purchase tickets, please see our luncheon website.

Prior to the luncheon, five teachers will receive Jenice Riley Memorial Scholarships to help fund projects they submitted in the areas of history and civics. The award winners are:

• Rebecca J. Davis of Cahawba Christian Academy, Centreville, Ala.
• Debbie Redden and Tammy Quillin of Montgomery Catholic Prepatory, St. Bede Campus, Montgomery, Ala.
• Mallory Richardson of Edgewood Elementary School, Homewood, Ala.
• Stephane Nicole Singleton of Harlan Elementary School, Florence, Ala.

For more information about the Jenice Riley Memorial Scholarship, please visit our website.

We hope to see you on September 26 for this festive occasion!

Essay by Jeremy Buckner on the resiliency of Bayou La Batre, written at the University of South Alabama, Mobile, institute.

A Resilient Chameleon in a Big Forest
The past of Bayou La Batre is filled with much devastation, but the small community remains resilient. The community is overcoming the aftermath of two of the most notable disasters in the illustrious history of the United States. However, much like the adaptation of a lone chameleon in a rabidly threatening forest, the people of this community are beginning to acclimate to their circumstances in order to remove their obstacles and to advance in life. With Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill in mind, the Bayou La Batre community shows a wondrous willingness toward and open desire to change.

Bayou La Batre communities, particularly those of Vietnamese culture, aspire toward leadership and the freshness of the youthful generations. For example, Vinh Tran, a man who works with Vietnamese communities in Bayou La Batre through the efforts of Boat People SOS (BPSOS), has recently been voted as president for the Vietnamese communities (Hicks 40)—essentially, as the voice for these people. Vinh Tran himself, though a grown man, is younger than most typical Asian leaders. Generally, the leader of an Asian community is an elder who is knowledgeable about archaic traditions and ideals. David Pham (another man who works with BPSOS) reported that the youth are inexperienced but full of brand new ideas (Buckner 17). This is for what the Vietnamese communities are searching—brand-new ideas.

It seems apparent that these Vietnamese communities are not progressing as efficiently as they can and should. It is time for new ideas—it is time for those with little experience to come enter the role of leader and to take the reigns. The idealism and sheer energy of the youth are quite momentous in the desire to incorporate the youth into roles of leadership. These people are not necessarily exposed to the corruption and misdeeds of the world (at least not on the typical level of the older generations). In a manner of speaking, the youth are innocent and clumsy in their ways. It is a learning experience for everyone, but it is one that shall provide new insight, hopefully in a manner befitting that of exponentially positive changes.

Moving beyond the Vietnamese communities, Bayou La Batre in general has seen a boost of passion toward the idea of the youth taking a grasp on the world (or at least on the local area). Following Hurricane Katrina, high school students dropped out of school in order to help provide for their families and to assist in building ships. Therefore, the drop-out rate had exceeded 50% because of this overwhelming desire. However, with the rapidly severing recession, ships became undesirable. As ships became undesirable, work began to dwindle and to cease. Teenagers, now out of work and without a real high school education, desired to re-enroll in high school. The rate of enrollment has risen quite dramatically through the past decade, and though the recession was positively devastating in its own many ways, this rise in education owes itself to the recession.

Folktales are simple tales from which a reader may find connections and easily deduce a solid and clear meaning. In the folktale “The Farmer and the Donkey,” a donkey falls into a well without any hope of escaping. The farmer decides to fill the well, thereby ending its pitiful, helpless cries; the farmer dumps shovel after shovel full of sand into the well, but the donkey merely shakes off the sand and climbs up. Much like the message of the donkey’s perseverance, the Bayou La Batre community used the catastrophes as an opportunity to shake off their problems and move on. Hurricane Katrina in particular had been a terrible disaster, but when the BP oil spill occurred, it was as though metaphorical dirt merely continued to pile on the community without any sign of arrest. However, neither Hurricane Katrina nor the BP oil spill halted its advances. The people do not sit around waiting for some sort of assistance that may or may not ever come.

Even people from outside the community (or at least those not directly affected by either disaster, whether they are from the community or not) participated in the recovery process through donations, labor, and emotional support. Take Amy Beach, for example: as a resident of Mobile, Alabama, she experienced some effects from Hurricane Katrina and then immersed herself into the community of Bayou La Batre, a neighboring community, in order to provide emotional support and to aid in the rebuilding process. Brian Grady, who wrote “10 Learnable Traits for Building Resilience,” said, “After a disaster we don’t need psychiatrists running around talking with people. What helps is having family members and close friends share the experience with victims, because very few people can go it alone” (Grady). The Bayou La Batre residents have begun to work together, to the best of their abilities, to rebuild their community or to support one another. The people of the Bayou La Batre community don’t need to express their woes: they need a connection—they need to know that people are there, and they actually need for them to be there.

After the BP oil spill (from which many are still recovering more than a year later), work in Bayou La Batre became quite difficult to acquire. It became necessary to find different types of jobs, such as those involving new technical skills, in order to become more occupationally competitive and to support their economy. BPSOS began to provide classes and training for these new technical skills, as David Pham discusses (Buckner 15). Though quite strange when compared to ordinary jobs found in Bayou La Batre, these new opportunities are welcomed and appreciated.

As Mary Engelbreit once said, “If you don’t like something, change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” Evidently, the residents of the Bayou La Batre community display a great willingness toward accepting current changes and an awesome and enthusiastic desire for potential changes. New jobs, particularly ones that require technical skills, assume the empty holes in the community: because the seafood and shipbuilding industries fell rapidly, the residents find other work. The Vietnamese and South Asian communities incorporate the youth into leadership roles, and the rate of enrolled high school students rises. Following Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill, Bayou La Batre residents continue to climb admirably and resiliently toward the direction of recovery.