The Michigan Daily-Weekend etc.-January 16,1992- Page 3
Music and activities abound on 4th Tyler
by Lars Barager
If her springy black curls could
talk they'd announce her exuberance.
Sitting cross-legged on her vi-
brantly-colored comforter, Joan
Zaretti radiates warmth. The resi-
dents of East Quad's 4th Tyler are
more than happy to extol her
virtues proclaiming that Zaretti is
definitely not your ordinary Resi-
dent Fellow.
"She's not just an RF, she's a
friend too. Everybody likes her,"
said sophomore Amy Gallagher.
"She's very organized and she tries
to get the hall involved. She's more
approachable to me than my last
R A."
WAR
Continued from page 1
level it was good because the war
was going to end quickly and they
weren't going to throw us in... Our
only real enemy (was) the clock,"
he says.
Coping Hand to Hand
Although many people were
tormented by individual concerns,
families directly affected by the
war still silently communicate a
sense of pride and fierce resistance
to indictments of their involvement
in the conflict.
The war sublimated, patriotic
tendencies, legitimizing pride
through pain.
Peggie Haney, whose husband -
Lt. Cmdr. Randall Haney - partic-
ipated in the Kurdish Relief Effort,
comments that the war propelled
people to cooperate and spurred pa-
triotism. She cites the sudden flour-
ish of fluttering flags on neighbor-
hood porch steps, remarking,
"People would fly the flag every
day. That was a really positive
thing."
Nonetheless patriotism flow-
ered from deeper roots of emotional
turmoil and the constant fear of in-
jury to a loved one.
Despite Randall's deployment
on the U.S.S. El Paso after the offi-
cial conclusion of the war, Peggie
{ e
se
8'a "
x r
A year ago, Braden Murphy,
belongings to prepare for a
was still inundated by apprehen-
sions.
The same sense of alarm plagued
Randall. "You have all those boats
out there, (and you're) wondering if
they're going to torpedo you... It
was somewhat unnerving to be in an
area where five SCUD missiles had
fallen."
Worry emerged as a universal,
inescapable parasite. From Jan.12 to
March 3, Capt. William Butler
served in Al Jubail - the same
After spending her first year at
Western Michigan University,
Zaretti decided that she would
rather live in Ann Arbor because of
its greater cultural atmosphere. Be-
sides, she added, "I wanted to study
Italian, and it's not offered at
Western."
For Zaretti, besides hanging out
with her residents and volunteering,
music is the interest that permeates
her life. A 'junior at the Music
School, Zaretti changed her focus
from musical theater to music edu-
cation. She will be a student teacher
at a junior high or high school next
year.
"That's the reason I switched ...
because I enjoy working with the
students," Zaretti said.
"She taught us this dance called
The Madison," added RC sopho-
more Braden Murphy. "At one of
our first hall meetings she had all
of us out in the hall dancing. She
thinks music is fun and this was a
way for her to make music fun for
us too."
"I'm a tape-a-holic," Zaretti
said. "We did a hall tape mix. Ev-
eryone gave me a song. We used hall
funds to make everyone a dub. I put
everyone's name by the song they
gave so they'll all remember."
"It was a great hall-bonding ex-
perience," Gallagher said.
Zaretti says her favorite parts of
the job are the programs and her res-
idents. She has facilitated several ac-
tivities for her hall's members, in-
cluding getting them involved with
volunteer organizations through the
Community Outreach program.
One serious conflict Zaretti
chose to combat was the fear her res-
idents felt following the two sex-
ual assaults that occurred on campus
in November.
"A friend and I went to Joan and
asked her to set up a self-defense
workshop for,;the hall," Gallagher
said. "She decided to contact the
other RFs and planned one for the
entire dorm. At least 40 people
were there and it was very useful. I
was really glad she did it."
Zaretti says she hasn't had any
major problems on her hall but ad-
mits that quiet hours are the most
common grounds for dispute among
residents.
"I think I've been lucky with
this hall. They're always willing to
participate. I leave my door open and
they come in to talk a lot."
Her residents are quick to return
the accolades.
"Sometimes RAs will keel) to
themselves but she tries to befriend
everyone on the hall," Gallagher
said.
Za retti
1 U
place as my father. Although he
returned before he anticipated due tos
a family emergency, his job had beenI
to prevent the spread of diseases inc
the infested Saudi Arabia-Iraqi area.I
He remembers landing at a SaudiI
Arabian air field and being hit withI
"the realization that this was realI
war - it wasn't fanasy or make-i
believe - and laughing at someoneI
on the plane saying, 'This isn'tI
Kansas anymore, Toto."'
He also remembers the frequent
clanging of air-raid sirens and the
few nights when an uninterrupted
sleep was possible. Eventually, the
sirens were ignored as sleep became
more tangible than the possibility
of death.
My Dad once told me that it was
commonplace to hear air-raid sirens
blaring one to three times a night.
Mary Ann Novak, an LSA sopho-
more, was optimistic about the
safety of her father, Col. Carl No-
vak, who was in charge of one of the
four POW camps from January to
May 1991.
Mary Ann was unaware of her
father's desert location. The letters
she received from him composed
only a patchwork-quilt story, so she
simply assumed that he was dis-
tanced from enemy lines. The truth
indicated a more immediate threat
of danger.
"Later I found out that he was
quite near where missiles were and
"3
they could see them," she says. "Our
assumptions were probably safer
because we couldn't do anything
anyway. It's better to assume'
everything's all right."
Cayce Butler, 17, remembers that
her family was able to talk to her
father at least once, if not twice a
week. For her, this frequent
communication eased the separation.
"If we didn't get to talk to him as
much as we did, it would have been
worse," Cayce says.
While a voice on the phone is
more immediate than letters, the
latter were the predominant mode
of communication for Randall and
Peggie. Peggie sent 127 letters and
Randall wrote an estimated 80 let-
ters to her, and more than 100 more
to other family members and
friends.
Communication through letters,
though precious, was as erratic as
mail delivery. Often a ship would be
without mail for weeks, and then
"suddenly you get a deluge of
mail," Randall says.
Randall appreciated every letter
he received as did the other crew
members isolated on the ship. "It's
kind of hard to describe how you
feel out there. You're going off
sitting out there feeling like you're
in an abyss," he says.
Along the same lines, Peggie
notes, "You live for those letters
because you know they're thinking
about you while you're thinking
about them." She feels that without
letters one's "mind can run wild."
Nonetheless, communication
breakdowns were not uncommon
during the war. Randall's ship was
at sea from June 20 to Dec. 20. He
knows of at least three pending di-
vorces in the less than two weeks
that people stationed on the ship
have been home.
Time Out: I want my CNN
While most people who had
loved ones involved in the war
treated CNN as if it were an addic-
tive drug, others suffered a sense of
information overload.
Watching the news prompted a
sinking feeling. "With the war it
was just overboard," Peggie com-
ments. "If Randall had been there
over that time,tit might have been
overwhelming to take it all in."
Grace Butler, William's wife,
slept about three hours a night after
her husband departed. "You never
relaxed because you were always fo-
cused on it," she comments. She adds
that she usually awoke staring at
the TV.
On the other hand, Cayce regards
the extensive media coverage as a
conduit to reducing the war' s po-
tency. "It was so televised. It didn't
seem real because you were watch-
ing it," she remarks. "There wasn't
much detachment.''
Doctors work in one of the 14 medical wards in Al Jubail. Patients were often treated for diarrhea, asthma, and
accidental injuries. An additional ward handled Intensive Care Unit patients.
"She would go to the hospital and
see the skeleton crew," says her
daughter, Sheetal, a 20 year-old
Boston University junior Sheetal
comments. ,
Sheetal's situation mirrored my
own. Not only did her father depart
and return the same time as mine,
she was engulfed by campus
tensions concerning the war.
She recalls a day when two op-
posing campus rallies were held, one
sponsored by a pro-troops group, the
other by an anti-war organization.
One burned the Iraqi flag, the other
an American flag.
Yet she asserts that she was, for
the most part, untroubled by the
battles between pro-troops and anti-
war advocates. She simply ignored
the whole controversy, explaining,
"I sympathized with the pro-troops
because it's different when you have
someone over there."
Like Sheetal, Mary Ann also
tended to ignore the campus tur-
moils concerning the war, but she
did not regard the positions of sup-
porting troops and decrying the war
as mutually exclusive.
"Most of the people I find that
were anti-war were not really blam-
ing - they weren't against the peo-
ple going over," she comments.
"Most of my friends at least under-
stood - were understanding of each
other's opinions. There wasn't much
clash."
Mary Ann has her own doubts
and argues that the media presented
a biased, cosmetic view of war.
"I don't know if victory and war
is something that should be cele-
brated. War is always a loss," she
maintains. "You don't see the real-
ity of it. You don't see the blood.
You see the missiles in the air. You
don't see the places. You don't see
the people screaming. Maybe it just
became easier to make war a game
than what it is - killing."
But she adds, "You focus on the
people you know over there - the
lives you know - the faces you've
seen. My first thought is 'Is my Dad
OK?"'
Sheetal drew support from
friends she knew that also had loved
ones in the Gulf. So did Mary Ann.
So did I.
I remember the relief that del-
uged Hampton Roads last year with
the official announcement of the end
of the war. For thousands of fami-
lies it simply meant biding time for
loved ones to return with a little
less anxiety and fear.
"It was really bizarre when he
came back," Sheetal says, describing
how her father appeared thinner,
looked different. She observes that
the little things please her father
now that he is home - the TV
remote control and the variety of
food.
'You focus on the
people you know over
there - the lives you
know - the faces
you've seen. My first
thought is "Is my Dad
OK?"'
- Mary Ann Novak
LSA sophomore
My own father returned home
haggard, thinner, and wiser on
March 10, seven days after the end
of our winter break. -
Gypped by-Father Time again.
But now, instead of being dis-
tressed, I was ecstatic. After the-
seemingly eternal months of agony,
all that mattered in this twinkling
of time was the irrefutable fact that
my Dad was alive, healthy, and fi-
nally home.
I have been touched personally
by this seemingly ephemeral storm:
Mary Ann's final thoughts revolve
in my mind, too.
She claims passionately, "There
were people who were harmed.
There were lives that were lost.
Their lives will never be the same=.
We really need to examine what
we've created... I keep thinking
we've learned - matured past war.
I guess we haven't.".
Randall Haney's ship was at sea from June
20 to Dec. 20. He and his wife communicated
regularly, mailing approximately 200 letters.
Other couples were not as lucky as the
Haneys. Randall knows of at least three
pending divorces in the less than two weeks
that crew members have been home.
/'
3t
Full Circle
For Usha Patel, a pediatrician at
Portsmouth Naval Hospital, whose
husband was sent to Al Jubail with
my father, the same lack of detach-
ment prevailed for different rea-
sons. Along with Bethesda Naval
Hospital, Portsmouth was seri-
ously depleted by the doctors taken
to Saudi Arabia.
The dearth of medics at the hos-
pital continually served as a re-
minder of a more immediate loss.
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Coming to America
Saturday, January 18, 1992
8:00 p.m. * Michigan Theater
Richard Hoenich, Guest Conductor
L~ William Bolcom and Joan Morris
;:, I T LA/f C~ncs if'lrnI,,