Portland veteran receives first place award for poetry entry | va portland health care | veterans affairs

(Portland, Oregon). St. Paul, Minnesota native Charles Auch recently received word that his poetry entry in the National Veterans Creative Arts Festival won first place. The piece, entitled

Memories of Death, was a way for Auch to visualize what death means and all the emotions it entails, he said. “I wanted to visualize what grief is. The experience we have when someone close,

dear and near dies. Our terms of expression and condolences speak of the grief, grieving and loss, and how hard it must be,” Auch said. Auch moved to Salem, Oregon when he was 12, and later

moved to Portland. He attended Catholic grade schools and high schools, including two years at a Franciscan Seminary. After starting college at Portland State College, (later renamed

Portland State University), he eventually dropped out and joined Volunteers in Service to America, eventually winding up in Harlan, Kentucky, working in a halfway house with felons paroled

from the minimum security prison in La Grange, Kentucky, helping to facilitate a program to help parolees integrate back into society. Shortly after returning to Portland, he worked as a

house parent at the Parry Center, administering a program for emotionally disturbed children. He was drafted into the military, and attended basic training at Fort Lewis, Washington, before

going to Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and was soon sent to Vietnam where he was assigned to US Army 1st Calvary Division (Air Mobile). We reached out to Mr.

Auch and asked him what inspired him to author Memories of Death. WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE THIS PIECE OF POETRY? I wanted to visualize what grief is. The experience we have when someone

close, dear and near dies. Our terms of expression and condolences speak of the grief, grieving and loss, and how hard it must be. But after everyone has left or gone home one is left alone

with one's thoughts and feelings and the need to continue. My wife died of a terminal brain tumor that took three surgeries, but after about a year, she passed. I left my work to spend

the last three months of her life tending to her needs. Our children, ages 2.5, 5 and 10 years old became part of my team. We were together that morning when their mother died. It was

terrible, it was horrible… in the moment and late at night when the kids are asleep and in bed, how can you express the experience of grief and loss? DID YOU HAVE ANY RESERVATIONS OR

NERVOUSNESS AS YOU SUBMITTED IT FOR JUDGING? Yes...wondering if it would connect with anybody. HAVE YOU BEEN A LIFE-LONG POET/AUTHOR, OR IS THAT SOMETHING YOU RECENTLY BEGAN DOING? I was

always fascinated by poets as I was introduced to them in college studies. I started to write a bit when I went back to school after getting medically retired out of the Army. WHAT SORT OF

PLEASURE OR HEALING DO YOU THINK COMES OUT OF READING/RECITING/WRITING POETRY? I once wrote about coming home and returning to college amidst the protests against the war, and the iconic

media photos of the My Lai massacre; and photos of naked children running down a road with clothes burnt off from a napalm attack on their village; and protesting students of Kent State,

killed by the Ohio National Guard. Who can you talk to about what you saw, and what you did over there, your memories, dreams, your nightmares? Your pastor, priest, confessor, therapist in a

dark room? Not to your friends or your family. You tamp it down and hope it disappears. Giving words to those memories, dreams and nightmares, whether reading/reciting/writing, becomes a

way to possibly bring an end to the war, and at least let you know you are not alone. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO OTHERS WHO WANT TO SHOWCASE THEIR PARTICULAR TALENTS IN THE NATIONAL VETERANS

CREATIVE ARTS FESTIVAL? DO IT! Do it for yourself and your fellow Veterans. WHAT IS YOUR EXPERIENCES/BACKGROUND WITH THE VA PORTLAND HEALTH CARE SYSTEM? Over the many years of care from

surgeries to reception, I have been impressed by the services I have received from the men and women working in the VA Health Care System. The care and concern for my health issues, I could

not ask for more. We would like to share with you Charles Auch’s first-place entry into the National Veterans Creative Arts Festival, Memories of Death: MEMORIES OF DEATH By Charles Auch

death is like a fire passing through the soul searing a valley of memories in carbon cinders we pick over toe kicking the embers drawn to receding heat we fondle the warmth in hopes of

keeping the fire alight a cold wind blows  between our teeth a rale song of the dying a quiet numbing dirge we walk among blackened rifts and snags turning over dry and ashen rocks and

stones our memories begin to fade like sand between our fingers gray black ashes blow around the thoughtful condolences of friends like whispering bird songs in deserted mausoleums rain

falls like tears dampening the ground deepening the silence in the valley of our souls we pull a shroud around our shoulders the fabric of our lives trying to hold in the warmth of our

memories fast becoming echoes of the past tracings in the dust sharpening the edges we stumble on in the darkness of the night