Need a gift for V-Day?

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Yes, I know that is only a *slightly* ridiculous suggestion considering the day of pink is but three days away. Then again, if you're anything like me...I still haven't given my dad and brothers their Christmas presents.

(No. Seriously.)

I warn you, dear reader, I realized as I was typing up this post I get rather wordy. This one's a longer-than-normal, so I apologize in advance, but this was a pretty amazing story:

Recently we had the author/journalist Jack Hamann speak on campus about his book "On American Soil" . To be perfectly frank with you, dear reader, despite the fact that I was interested in going I

1. Had no idea who this guy was or what it was about
2. Had a sneaking suspicion that I might fall asleep during the presentation (nothing against the speaker of course, it had just been a very long day);

Hamann quickly turned that around, though, when he proved to be compelling in both speech and story. It was a story of investigative journalism--at it's best. I don't want to give too much of his book away, and there is plenty of information on his website, but here is at least a rough overview of what he told us.

When Hamann was a young budding journalist he got an assignment to cover a story about the expansion of a sewage treatment plant in Seattle. Exciting, no? But as some stories go, while he was in the area he discovered a what, at the time, seemed like the most amazing story never told.

A lynching of an italian prisoner of war by African American soldiers during WWII.

Well, according to Hamann, his reaction was much like yours and mine was. Prisoner of War? Lynching?? By African American Soldiers?? In Seattle???

Hamann went on to tell us how the story was published, but as you might imagine something about this story didn't sit well with many people. So, with some very classic and old school techniques Hamann and his wife proceeded to spend days at the national archives searching through document after document (thank goodness for Wikipedia...right? right? ...ok fine.) until they discovered what they had suspected.

It wasn't true.

I won't go to much further, I wouldn't want to give away the all of the book after all. But, just like the first part of the story it didn't end after it was published. Hamann went on to tell us that shortly after he published the book he got a call from a Seattle congressman at the time asking Hammon what congress could do.

These simple paragraphs couldn't even begin to describe the process of tracking down every man from the 28 convicted (or family members), compensating them and changing their dishonorable discharges to honorable. And in a final act, the Army held at ceremony at Discovery Park in Seattle for these men. At the ceremony, the Army didn't beat around the bush--they just came out and said exaclty what happened, and that they were wrong, Hamann said.

Again I don't want to get into more of the details. You'll just have to check it out, dear reader.

Us being the journalists that we are we were able to throw in a short Q and A in the end:

Q: Have you tracked down all the men or their families yet?
A: We're still trying to track them all down. So many of them had such common last names it's hard to find all the right people.

Q: Have you kept in close contact with many of the families?
A: Yes. It's generally not a journalistic practice. There is a comfort in our distance, but with many of these families there needed to be more. They were telling me things they haven't told anyone, sometimes even their family members. You get value from a perfect stranger from this. Sometimes telling strangers can cost them, but in this case we got the feeling that we were giving something back too.

(Hey, I told you it was short. We were busy getting our books signed.)

Hamann concluded with "The first draft of history is written by those in power. Real history is changing because it happens to everyone. Real history is richer and far more interesting. You can be sitting at a presentation about a sewer treatment plant and come across history."

That's my recommendation for the day. Buy it....borrow it from the library....e-mail me and maybe I'll let you borrow it. I guess I'm still reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas after all. But an amazing story nonetheless.

Until Next Time.

//CassiBean