Anthology pulls together poems, memoirs, essays and more inspired by NM's military

Nonagenerian Norbert Wood is a Korean War U.S. Army veteran who lives in Mora. He started writing poetry in his 80s.

Two of his handwritten poems, “Memories” and “Lament for Jimminie,” were transcribed into digital format for him and included in “Holes in our Hearts: An Anthology of New Mexican Military-Related Stories and Poetry.”

There’s a wealth of writing worth reading in the anthology — 95 pieces from 54 contributors. Poems are sprinkled among prose pieces that range from family memoirs to essays, from creative fiction to recollections of battles. At a 2,000-max word limit, everything in the book is short.

Jim Tritten, a Corrales resident, was the collection’s principal editor.

Last January, Tritten’s interest in a book project was sparked by a news article in the Albuquerque Journal. New Mexico Arts was offering mini-grants to nonprofits for art projects that match New Mexico military veterans with their families or with their caregivers, and showing how the arts help with healing, Tritten said.

A long-time member of SouthWest Writers, he approached SWW president Rose Marie Kern with a proposal to apply for a mini-grant to publish an anthology of writings on the subject. Kern gave the OK. In a matter of days, Tritten submitted the application. New Mexico Arts approved it.

Tritten was on a fast track to assemble the book. He focused on recruiting statewide, previously unpublished New Mexico writers. “We sent out hundreds of notices, then waited to see if we got any responses. We got enough to get everybody in who qualified,” said Tritten, a Navy vet and a contributor.

One writer, U.S. Army vet Thomas Neiman of Corrales, contributed a story plus recipes for two smoothies and four cocktails.

Five contributors will read from their work at 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 26, at the Cherry Hills Library, 6901 Barstow St. NE. They are Léonie Rosenstiel, Sherri Burr, Judy Castleberry, Brenda Cole and Elaine Carson Montague. They shared some of their thoughts about what they wrote:

• Rosenstiel’s story, “Military Patterns,” opens with her mother enlisting in the U.S. Woman’s Army Corps during World War II. Her first assignment was leading a 1,000-female censorship unit in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea in the southwest Pacific.

“She kept on being promoted,” Rosenstiel said. “She was a fascinating person.”

The conclusion discusses her father. He registered for the draft in 1940, was reclassified as 1-A, but was never called up. Rosenstiel said he later learned that because he was white, and his draft board was in Harlem, he couldn’t be assigned to an all-Black unit because the army was segregated during the war. She called it a case of “reverse discrimination.”

Burr, a Regents Professor Emerita at the University of New Mexico School of Law, writes about her brother Ralph in the story “My Brother’s Guardian.” Ralph had enlisted in the Air Force, but a disagreement with a superior officer resulted in his application for officers’ candidate school being disallowed. Some time after Ralph left the Air Force with general discharge, he suffered a heart attack and went into a coma that lasted for seven years and 364 days before he died. Burr unsuccessfully sought to obtain medical benefits from the Veterans Administration for Ralph.

• Castleberry’s story “The Atomic Vet” remembers her father’s years in the U.S. Army. As a private first class, he was shipped to Los Alamos in May 1946 as part of the military security for the post-war atomic research. Later, he was assigned as military police for the nuclear testing at Enewetak Atoll in the South Pacific. “A lot of the atomic vets died of cancer when they were young. My dad outlived all of that. He was really a tough man,” said Montague. She lived in Farmington for most of her life and moved to Albuquerque a year ago.
• In Cole’s story “My Unknown Father,” she writes that her colorful father, Earl, served in the army in Germany during the Korean War. She said he was a great storyteller, but his stories went in directions away from where a young interested listener (the author) wanted to him to go. “I learned how to tell stories from my father. He never met a stranger or a squirrel or a dog (he didn’t like). I think my dad was happiest in the middle of the woods,” Cole said.
• Montague wrote a poem “Marionettes” and a story “The Colonel’s Daughter” for the anthology. “One of the most dramatic things I learned in writing the (story) was my mother’s role. I didn’t think hers was as important as his role (in the Air Force) was. She didn’t have the education he had. She was a stay-at-home mom and I didn’t appreciate that,” she said. Not until Montague researched the story did she learn that her mother’s “primary responsibility was to promote her husband’s career, and she certainly did that.”

The book’s title is borrowed from the name of Steve Borbas’ sculpture dedicated to the almost 400 New Mexicans who died in the Vietnam War. Borbas is expected to attend the Cherry Hills Library event.