"Did I ever thank you soldier…"

This simple question begins a song written by my friend and mentor, Sean Slattery. Known as "Papasean" by those of us in Veterans For Peace chapter 72, he was our balladeer and link to the glory days of the Vietnam War protests. "Papasean" died Wednesday, March 7th, his 68th birthday.

Did I ever thank you soldier, for goin' off to war?
And leavin' home and family, for some far distant shore?
Did I ever tell you soldier, how I feel so damn ashamed
of the way that you were treated when you came back home again?

I first met Sean in 1965 when I was a junior in high school and started hanging out at the Café Orpheus, a little coffee house right next to Portland State. This was when the folk music scene was at its peak. Bob, Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs and all the rest were doing their thing and inspiring a young man who had just picked up a guitar. Three chords and a few relative minors and I too could do this. The Café Orpheus was small. So small there wasn't even a sound system. The stage and the first row of tables were two feet apart. I spent many an evening in the company of friends and fellow travelers, soaking up the music and listening to words of wisdom from the many singers and songwriters who came through Portland and played at the Orpheus.
Many were the nights when midnight rolled around and Sean would close the door after sending some one to the little store down the street to buy a jug or two of wine and the party would continue.

Sean was born in Chicago March 7, 1939. I don't know about his childhood, but when he turned eighteen he went into the Army and then to jump school. Airborne! Now the Army in its infinite wisdom didn't spend all that money training Sean to be a Paratrooper and use him as one. No. He was with the 82nd for a while but when they realized Sean was an entertainer they sent him to the South Pacific, to some tiny island where he became a disc jockey! Gooood morning Guadalcanal!

Did you know you're not a loner, with your grief and rage?
And the names of those who cried for you would fill an endless page.
Though the war was ill begotten, you responded just the same.
And we'll thank our star forever, 'cause you're home with us again.

Being young, naive and with the draft hanging over my head, in 1967 I too joined the Army. Like many of my generation, I ended up in Vietnam. When I returned home in 1970, the protests were hot and heavy. On May 4th Kent State happened. A week later at the South Park block by Portland State there was a demonstration against this outrage and the continuing Cambodian invasion. Like so many other protests, this one was broken up by billy clubs and gas wielded by the Portland Police lead by the Police Commissioner at the time Frank Ivancie. I was there but split before my head was. Sean was there too, although I didn't know it at the time. The next Portlanders took to the streets to protest this attack on a peaceful encampment. I wasn't there and was more than likely off fishing or trying to score, but Sean was there. In fact the morning edition of the local fish warp, The Oregonian, had a front page article with a picture about the march up Broadway. A friend of Sean's gave me a copy of that front page just the other day and lo and behold, the picture showed the front line of the march and there was Sean with his guitar leading the way.

Sean and I went our separate ways. I did the usual thing of getting my life restarted and readjusting to civilian life. Sean however didn't stop working for peace. He hit the road.
He worked with John Kerry, touring college campuses and singing songs while Kerry spoke about the war. He played guitar with folk legend Pete Seeger, his personal hero and the signature lyricist for the anti-war movement. He met and performed for Ted Kennedy and Sen. George McGovern. In 1971, Slattery was on the mall in Washington D.C. during the anti-war demonstration made famous when veterans threw their medals over the wall. It was during this event, as Slattery was on stage singing "Johnny I hardly Knew Ya," that he realized he no longer recognized the young men in the audience. They were missing legs and arms, some couldn't stand, some were concealed by wounds and bandages. He hardly knew them anymore. This is how Sean remembers it from an Interview in Street Roots, November 2005.

"It just traumatized me, at the time, it galvanized me. And I kept saying, 'You guys are great.' And they kept saying, 'say we!' I was honored to be one of them because I didn't go to Vietnam. So I've been like a big brother and I've been with them ever since."

His recollection of that night from the VFP Chapter 72 newsletter.

"They told me that I had the night off. Now they were asking me to go back on stage because the crowd was restless and they wanted me to calm them down. I was sitting on the ground, my back to a tree by my gear, a fifth of whiskey in my hand two thirds full. Cases of free whiskey had been passed around on the mall in front of the White House (plus blankets, food, marijuana, you name it). "I can't," I protested. "I'm drunk." Mike McCusker (two tours marine in Vietnam, once as a soldier, the other as a medic and one of the three co-founders of the Vietnam Veterans Against The War) stepped into view. "You can do it, Slats," a half grin on his face, an amused glint in his eye. "I've seen you do it before."
I looked down on the crowd of five thousand blurred faces milling around, restless reminding myself to sing slowly so they could sing along. Ya right! I sang it too damn slowly, swaying like a drunk: "Where-have-all-the-flowers- gone-long-time-passing?"
A Vet in a wheelchair rolled up to the stage looking up with a hard look on his face. Hey,do you know "Johnny I hardly knew ya?" I replied, "Yah, I do." He yelled again, "Well sing it...and sing it with feeling!" I gave him and irritated look and yelled back, "I'll sing it with feeling." And so I did. I sang it, and as I sang it and looked out at the crowd of faces, I was singing about the men I was looking at and in the realization, I began to cry, and cry, and cry all the way through the song, "Ya haven't an arm, ya haven't a leg, yer a spineless, boneless chicken less egg. And you'll have to be put with a bowl to be to beg...
After I finished I slunk off the stage, completely embarrassed, miserable and feeling I had not only, betrayed my fellow veterans, but my country and God as well. I stepped off the last step only to be met by the vet in the wheelchair (with no legs) and he rolled up to me, threw his arms around me and wouldn't let go and we cried, and we cried, and we cried."

Now the setting is the sky
When you see the War hawk flying, you know some one's goin' to die.
And the olive branch has withered, and the Dove will fly no more,
And I wonder who will soldier on some far distant shore.

The choice for good and evil, is there for us to choose,
If some one's goin' to win, then some one's goin' lose.
And the specter of the grim one, with his scythe in hand,
Is smiling and knowing, who will fall and who will stand.

I lost contact with Sean for many years. He would pass through Portland for a while singing at the local pubs. The war was over and his career as a Folksinger was taking off. He traveled all over the country and the world, the quintessential Irish rover. He wrote and recorded his own songs, played from Alaska to Ireland and never forgot his brothers in arms.

Four years ago I ran into Sean again. He had moved into the neighborhood. What a joy to find him again and renew a bond of music and peace. As we talked and reminisced we got around to discovering that we both were vets. I didn't know he was one and immediately recruited him to my VFP chapter. What was the first thing he wanted to do? Why hold a concert for peace of course. It took a little while what with the elections and anti-war events taking up our time but the first of the VFP Peace Jams was held at Kelly Plaza in the Hollywood district of Portland, in September of 2004. It was a success and planning for the next year started. That next year the Peace Jam was right after Hurricane Kartina. We dedicated the concert to the victims and raised funds to aid them. Another success.

Throughout Sean's involvement with Veterans For Peace, he was a tireless advocate for bringing justice to the victims of war, military and civilian alike. His history of advocating for justice is a long and powerful one. He always wanted to be involved with the events we planned and brought dignity, truth and righteous anger to the forefront with his music. He sang songs of war and peace, worker's rights, the oppression of the poor and celebrations of the spirit. He sang for us on the 35th anniversary of Dewey Canyon III and the dedication of the Peace Memorial Park. He sang for us. He sang for those without a voice. He sang truth to power.

Sean Lewis remembers Papasean.

My first memory of Sean was being introduced to him at a VFP meeting more than three years ago. Mike said that I "need to meet Sean Slattery". After that moment of "Hi, Sean," "Hi, Sean," passed, he said, "I guess I'd better stick with calling myself Papa-Sean now." Although he was recently out of the hospital, I saw spark in Papa Sean's eyes, and a spring in his step that seemed to come from the spirit of a man who lived life. I liked him immediately.

In 2004, when VVAW's history was in the news, and I had questions about VVAW and the march on Washington, Mike Mullane and Sean filled me in with the big story, and also their own experiences. With minimal prodding from Mike, Sean told me about when he was called upon to serenade a meeting between John Kerry and Senator Ted Kennedy on the Capitol Lawn with "Wild Colonial Boy".

What I learned of Sean's history impressed me, but it is what I observed myself that made me admire him. His broad Irish grin glowed with energy. He had the confidence to make his art, and make friends. He had the audacity to plan his own wake.

At the first VFP-sponsored event where I saw Sean, he noticed my Airborne wings on my shirt, and pointed to a pair just like them on his jacket lapel. "How you doing, Airborne?" At every chapter meeting when his health would allow, I was always happy to see Papa Sean.

When he was organizing his annual Peace Jam gig at Kelly Plaza, I met with him to see how I could help. Then he started talking about other projects, other music festivals he wanted to hold that would reach a younger audience. He introduced me to a couple of young musicians who were into the dark music scene, trying to get us to work together on a Peace Jam of our own. It was then that I realized that Papa Sean's friendliness and openness were absolutely genuine and natural. His lust for life and love of people made him that guy who could greet anyone, that guy who could go from a greeting to a friendship in a matter of hours. I believe that this is what kept his spirit young, even as his body was rebelling against him. These qualities also made him someone I looked up to, a role-model, a mentor who could teach me -- or anyone -- a few things about enjoying life.

"..a mentor who could teach me -- or anyone --a few thing about enjoying life." That was Papasean. He enjoyed life and brought that spirit to the rest of us. We will be celebrating Papasean with a good old fashion Irish wake.
Rousing songs and sharing of memories will send him off in the way he would have wanted, no funeral dirges for him, we'll break out the fiddle and bow, the guitars and the whiskey. We will raise our glasses and our voices to a man. A man who inspired many and probably pissed off a few, especially those in power.

Is not the wind the brother of the Hawk and of the Dove?
And if there is no wind, who will hate and who will love?
And if we are no longer, God is all alone,
And loneliness and sorrow shall ever more be known.

Now the song of Armageddon is written in the sky,
When you see the War hawk flying, you know some one's going to die.
And the olive branch has withered, and the Dove will fly no more,
And I wonder who will soldier
Yes I wonder who will soldier
Yes I wonder who will soldier
Yes I wonder who will soldier on some far distant shore.

Here's to you Sean Slattery, we will soldier on for peace in your name and in your spirit.