美国国家公共电台 NPR Human Ashes Left At The Vietnam Memorial Find A Not-Final Resting Place

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

This Memorial Day, my co-host Ari Shapiro brings us a story of one of the lives that was shaped by the Vietnam War. We begin at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial here in Washington as evening falls.

ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE¹: By this time of night, the masses of school field trips have slowed to a trickle². And a National Park Service ranger³ makes the rounds, picking up items that have been left behind at the base of the wall. On this night, that ranger is Bob Herendeen.

BOB HERENDEEN: I'm just going to start right at the beginning here, guys, and just go straight down, OK?

SHAPIRO: With a flashlight in one hand and a clear plastic bag in the other, he surveys the things people have laid at the wall during the day - American flags, wreaths, flowers.

HERENDEEN: This is a note from a young person.

SHAPIRO: Sometimes school groups write letters to fallen soldiers. More personal items like canteens and dog tags will be catalogued and archived. About once a week, the ranger comes upon something deeply personal that cannot be added to the permanent collection.

HERENDEEN: So I will point this out to you guys right here. These are human remains⁴.

SHAPIRO: Oh. It just looks like ash to me, but you can tell that these are cremated⁵ remains of someone.

HERENDEEN: This has become a more common occurrence at the wall. We can't - you know, it's a difficult thing because you realize, on the one hand, that this was somebody's last wish to be - have their remains placed here on the wall. We have to follow protocol⁶ and clean up the ash and remove it. It has to go into a hazardous⁷ waste disposal.

SHAPIRO: Last fall, the Park Service put up a sign telling people not to leave human remains here, but that hasn't stopped them. Sometimes it's more than just a scattering⁸ of ash. People have left urns⁹. Those go to the National Park Service's Museum Resource Center in Landover, Md.

JANET FOLKERTS: This is the cabinet that we keep all of our cremains in.

SHAPIRO: Janet Folkerts is the curator for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial museum collection. The Park Service is working to find a respectful final resting place for the human remains that have been left at the wall over the years, someplace like a veterans' cemetery¹⁰.

FOLKERTS: We are not a mausoleum. We are not a crematorium or a grave site. So we don't have the capacity to take care of them in the way that they should be taken care of.

SHAPIRO: One of the containers caught my eye because of a letter taped to the front of it. I began to read the cursive handwriting on the flowered stationery¹¹. The letter starts, to Jimmy.

(Reading) Jim carried the weight of your death every day of his life. He blamed himself for your child never having known you. He blamed himself for being in the hospital with malaria¹²...

BARBARA OTTERSON: (Reading) Instead of having your back when the attack came that took all of your lives. The belief that he could somehow have saved you never left him, misguided as it was. Jim never really left Nam. It took him, too, in the end. So I'm leaving him with you. It's what he wanted. I hope you're both smiling and at peace now.

And then I signed it, Jim's wife Barbara.

SHAPIRO: Barbara Otterson wrote that letter four years ago. Her husband's name was James Gooderum. She left his remains at the wall in 2014, two years after he died.

OTTERSON: It's a place he always wanted to visit. But due to the severity of his PTSD, he could never bring himself to go there. So I took him later. And then I knew that the name of his best friend from Vietnam was on the wall there, James B. Elder. And - I don't know. It just seemed appropriate to leave him with his friend. And I wrote a letter to Jimmy because - I don't know. My husband always wanted to reach out to his family, to the son that didn't know his dad, but he could never bring himself to do it. Again, it was the PTSD. It just - it controlled his life.

SHAPIRO: By that point, it had been more than a year since he died.

OTTERSON: Yes.

SHAPIRO: Was it still a very emotional experience for you?

OTTERSON: It was harder than I thought it would be. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I thought I was ready for it. I thought I'd been through all the grief and all the emotion. But after I left it, I cried for an hour.

SHAPIRO: Was it over the loss of your husband, or - I guess I should - it sounds like an obvious question, but what were you crying about for that hour?

OTTERSON: The waste of a life. He never recovered from the three years he spent in Vietnam. He never was whole again.

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

OTTERSON: He missed so much that he wanted to do that he couldn't do. And a lot of dreams that we had just - we couldn't get there because of the emotional trauma¹³.

SHAPIRO: Your letter sort of explains the story, but clearly there was one firefight where James Elder, Jimmy, was killed while your husband was in the hospital with malaria. That was kind of a pivotal moment in Jim's life. Do you know when and where that took place?

OTTERSON: Not exactly. I know that my husband's biggest problem was that the medics would not really take your temperature or examine you or anything just for having malaria unless you started vomiting¹⁴. And he had become so weak that he lied about having thrown up so that they would take a look at him. And as it turned out, he had a fever of over 104, and they medevaced him out. And because he lied to the medic, he somehow decided¹⁵ that that was why Jimmy was dead. That if he hadn't lied to the medic, if he had somehow toughed it out with a fever of 104 and went on with his fireteam, that he would have made the difference. And that they were all dead because of him.

SHAPIRO: How did your husband's PTSD express itself?

OTTERSON: When I first met him, he couldn't go out of the house for a week before and a week after 4th of July because of the firecrackers. If there was a loud noise, I'd usually find him on the ground and in the gutter¹⁶ or behind something. And this was 20 years after coming back from Vietnam. If it rained and it rained hard and long, he couldn't go out of the house. He would become so severely¹⁷ depressed¹⁸ that he was non-functional because it reminded him too much of the monsoons¹⁹. It expressed itself just about every way you can imagine.

SHAPIRO: You've talked about the things that made your husband's life so challenging. I don't want to end without giving you an opportunity to tell us about the wonderful things about him, the things that you loved about him, the things that you'll always remember about him.

OTTERSON: He loved to sing. We used to sing together all the time. He loved animals. He was a good Christian²⁰ man. He cared. He cared very deeply.

(SOUNDBITE OF NICK DRAKE'S "HORN")

SHAPIRO: Barbara Otterson left her husband's ashes at the wall long before there was any sign telling people not to. She says it's the closest she could get to the place he felt most at home with his brothers in arms from Vietnam.

(SOUNDBITE OF NICK DRAKE'S "HORN")

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 trickle   

vi.淌，滴，流出，慢慢移动，逐渐消散

参考例句：

• The stream has thinned down to a mere trickle.这条小河变成细流了。
• The flood of cars has now slowed to a trickle.汹涌的车流现在已经变得稀稀拉拉。

3 ranger   

n.国家公园管理员，护林员；骑兵巡逻队员

参考例句：

• He was the head ranger of the national park.他曾是国家公园的首席看守员。
• He loved working as a ranger.他喜欢做护林人。

4 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

5 cremated   

v.火葬，火化（尸体）( cremate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He wants to is cremated, not buried. 他要火葬，不要土葬。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The bodies were cremated on the shore. 他们的尸体在海边火化了。 来自辞典例句

6 protocol   

n.议定书，草约，会谈记录，外交礼节

参考例句：

• We must observe the correct protocol.我们必须遵守应有的礼仪。
• The statesmen signed a protocol.那些政治家签了议定书。

7 hazardous   

adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的

参考例句：

• These conditions are very hazardous for shipping.这些情况对航海非常不利。
• Everybody said that it was a hazardous investment.大家都说那是一次危险的投资。

8 scattering   

n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散

参考例句：

• The child felle into a rage and began scattering its toys about. 这孩子突发狂怒，把玩具扔得满地都是。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The farmers are scattering seed. 农夫们在播种。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 urns   

n.壶( urn的名词复数 )；瓮；缸；骨灰瓮

参考例句：

• Wine utensils unearthed include jars, urns, pots, bowls and cups. 发掘出的酒器皿有瓶、瓮、罐、壶、碗和杯子。 来自互联网
• Ernie yearned to learn to turn urns. 呕尼渴望学会转咖啡壶。 来自互联网

10 cemetery   

n.坟墓，墓地，坟场

参考例句：

• He was buried in the cemetery.他被葬在公墓。
• His remains were interred in the cemetery.他的遗体葬在墓地。

11 stationery   

n.文具；(配套的)信笺信封

参考例句：

• She works in the stationery department of a big store.她在一家大商店的文具部工作。
• There was something very comfortable in having plenty of stationery.文具一多，心里自会觉得踏实。

12 malaria   

n.疟疾

参考例句：

• He had frequent attacks of malaria.他常患疟疾。
• Malaria is a kind of serious malady.疟疾是一种严重的疾病。

13 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

14 vomiting   

吐

参考例句：

• Symptoms include diarrhoea and vomiting. 症状有腹泻和呕吐。
• Especially when I feel seasick, I can't stand watching someone else vomiting." 尤其晕船的时候，看不得人家呕。”

15 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

16 gutter   

n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟

参考例句：

• There's a cigarette packet thrown into the gutter.阴沟里有个香烟盒。
• He picked her out of the gutter and made her a great lady.他使她脱离贫苦生活，并成为贵妇。

17 severely   

adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地

参考例句：

• He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
• He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。

18 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

19 monsoons   

n.（南亚、尤指印度洋的）季风( monsoon的名词复数 )；（与季风相伴的）雨季；（南亚地区的）雨季

参考例句：

• In Ban-gladesh, the monsoons have started. 在孟加拉，雨季已经开始了。 来自辞典例句
• The coastline significantly influences the monsoons in two other respects. 海岸线在另外两个方面大大地影响季风。 来自辞典例句

20 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。