thedrifter
11-11-04, 12:18 PM
A man takes solace in producing fruit as the Iraqi war brings back his own painful memories
Thursday, November 11, 2004
JILL SMITH
The Oregonian
HILLSBORO The sun shines in on a full plate of hand grenades sitting on Ben and Helen Carson's little kitchen table.
That's what the Carsons like to call their kiwi fruit, which is about the same size and color as the deadly weapon Ben Carson, now 81, used to wield during World War II.
"I jokingly say we ought to get the U.N. to adopt these as hand grenades -- throw em at each other instead of shooting," Carson said. "We'd 'have a war' and feed the world at the same time."
The kiwi farm -- the only one in Washington County -- is more than fodder for Carson's dreams of a happier, more peaceful world. It's an important distraction from his memories of a violent past -- and the anger he buried for nearly 60 years.
"I never did understand post-traumatic stress disorder," Carson said, referring to the nightmares, flashbacks and intense emotional trauma that plagued many Vietnam veterans after the war.
But Carson's own symptoms of the disorder were triggered in 2001, when he participated in a National Geographic documentary about nine Marines who were beheaded by the Japanese -- and about Carson, who almost had been one of them.
Carson was a member of the famous Carlson's Raiders -- a Marine battalion named after its commander, Maj. Evans F. Carlson, who was later glorified in the 1943 movie "Gung Ho."
But their 1942 attack on Makin Atoll, a Japanese-held island in the Pacific, was anything but glorious, Carson said. It was so disorganized that at one point, according to Carson and the Raiders' Web site (www.usmarineraiders.org), Carlson tried to surrender to an enemy who already had been driven out.
Nearly 20 Marines were killed. Nine others were left behind and captured when the Japanese returned to the island. They were taken to Kwajalein Atoll and, eventually, beheaded.
Carson was almost one of them. After the initial raid at Makin, he said, he paddled back to a submarine, where a Navy medical corpsman greeted him with a bottle of brandy to celebrate his survival. Shortly after, a sergeant came by recruiting soldiers who would go back to the island to pick up any wounded.
"He looked at me and said, 'Go lie down, you're drunk,' " Carson remembered. "That drink saved my life."
The five men who agreed to return to the island were among the nine later beheaded.
From cattle to kiwi
Carson, meanwhile, returned from the war and married Helen, a Minnesota farm child like himself. He worked as a forester until 1980, then he began working on his 25-acre farm south of Hillsboro. The Carsons tried raising cattle, then wheat, but neither made much money. In 1985, they planted two acres of kiwi vines, a fruit more tied to New Zealand and California.
The labor-intensive crop peaked for the Carsons about five years ago with a yield of 24,000 pounds. This year, they harvested about 10,500 pounds, which they sell to WinCo and Bales Thriftway stores in Washington County. The fruit is fewer in number but much bigger and better in quality than when they began.
In 2001, their idyllic farm life took a traumatic turn. Two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, their 50-year-old son, Dennis, died of a heart attack. Two months later, Carson traveled to Kwajalein with a National Geographic crew filming a search for remains of the nine beheaded Marines.
It was too much for Carson.
At one point in the filming, he retraced the route he thought the prisoners had walked to the execution area.
"It was devastating," Carson said. "I could have been on that walk."
He felt so weak afterward that he had to sit down. His blood pressure shot up; he began bleeding from one of his ears; and he had to be taken to a medical clinic.
Since then, "I've had tremendous problems sleeping," he said. And Helen Carson says her previously easygoing husband now angers quickly.
A Veterans Affairs therapist Carson turned to for help told him, "You resent anyone telling you what to do." Carson traces that feeling to a loss of faith in authority that was triggered by his walk on Kwajalein and his memories of the poorly commanded raid.
Recent beheadings in Iraq stir up those memories. And when he learned of the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison, he saw a replay of enlisted soldiers taking the fall for poor decisions made at higher levels.
Farm, fruit offer escape
The farm is a welcome distraction from Carson's thoughts of war and violence and injustice.
The Carsons no longer pick or prune the kiwi themselves. Helen, 79, is legally blind, and Ben's artificial shoulder -- constructed after an Iwo Jima shrapnel wound -- makes it hard for him to wield pruning shears and chainsaws.
But Carson still has tractor work to do on his other acres. If he weren't mowing and rototilling, Carson guesses he would spend most of the day sleeping, making up for those long, dark hours he lies awake at night.
And for all the tragedies he has seen, Carson hasn't lost his sense of humor -- particularly when it comes to new approaches for marketing their little hand grenades. They'd like New Seasons to carry their kiwis.
Otherwise, he said, "Crush up the crop, put it in the hot tub and let people dive in there for 50 bucks."
Ellie
Thursday, November 11, 2004
JILL SMITH
The Oregonian
HILLSBORO The sun shines in on a full plate of hand grenades sitting on Ben and Helen Carson's little kitchen table.
That's what the Carsons like to call their kiwi fruit, which is about the same size and color as the deadly weapon Ben Carson, now 81, used to wield during World War II.
"I jokingly say we ought to get the U.N. to adopt these as hand grenades -- throw em at each other instead of shooting," Carson said. "We'd 'have a war' and feed the world at the same time."
The kiwi farm -- the only one in Washington County -- is more than fodder for Carson's dreams of a happier, more peaceful world. It's an important distraction from his memories of a violent past -- and the anger he buried for nearly 60 years.
"I never did understand post-traumatic stress disorder," Carson said, referring to the nightmares, flashbacks and intense emotional trauma that plagued many Vietnam veterans after the war.
But Carson's own symptoms of the disorder were triggered in 2001, when he participated in a National Geographic documentary about nine Marines who were beheaded by the Japanese -- and about Carson, who almost had been one of them.
Carson was a member of the famous Carlson's Raiders -- a Marine battalion named after its commander, Maj. Evans F. Carlson, who was later glorified in the 1943 movie "Gung Ho."
But their 1942 attack on Makin Atoll, a Japanese-held island in the Pacific, was anything but glorious, Carson said. It was so disorganized that at one point, according to Carson and the Raiders' Web site (www.usmarineraiders.org), Carlson tried to surrender to an enemy who already had been driven out.
Nearly 20 Marines were killed. Nine others were left behind and captured when the Japanese returned to the island. They were taken to Kwajalein Atoll and, eventually, beheaded.
Carson was almost one of them. After the initial raid at Makin, he said, he paddled back to a submarine, where a Navy medical corpsman greeted him with a bottle of brandy to celebrate his survival. Shortly after, a sergeant came by recruiting soldiers who would go back to the island to pick up any wounded.
"He looked at me and said, 'Go lie down, you're drunk,' " Carson remembered. "That drink saved my life."
The five men who agreed to return to the island were among the nine later beheaded.
From cattle to kiwi
Carson, meanwhile, returned from the war and married Helen, a Minnesota farm child like himself. He worked as a forester until 1980, then he began working on his 25-acre farm south of Hillsboro. The Carsons tried raising cattle, then wheat, but neither made much money. In 1985, they planted two acres of kiwi vines, a fruit more tied to New Zealand and California.
The labor-intensive crop peaked for the Carsons about five years ago with a yield of 24,000 pounds. This year, they harvested about 10,500 pounds, which they sell to WinCo and Bales Thriftway stores in Washington County. The fruit is fewer in number but much bigger and better in quality than when they began.
In 2001, their idyllic farm life took a traumatic turn. Two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, their 50-year-old son, Dennis, died of a heart attack. Two months later, Carson traveled to Kwajalein with a National Geographic crew filming a search for remains of the nine beheaded Marines.
It was too much for Carson.
At one point in the filming, he retraced the route he thought the prisoners had walked to the execution area.
"It was devastating," Carson said. "I could have been on that walk."
He felt so weak afterward that he had to sit down. His blood pressure shot up; he began bleeding from one of his ears; and he had to be taken to a medical clinic.
Since then, "I've had tremendous problems sleeping," he said. And Helen Carson says her previously easygoing husband now angers quickly.
A Veterans Affairs therapist Carson turned to for help told him, "You resent anyone telling you what to do." Carson traces that feeling to a loss of faith in authority that was triggered by his walk on Kwajalein and his memories of the poorly commanded raid.
Recent beheadings in Iraq stir up those memories. And when he learned of the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison, he saw a replay of enlisted soldiers taking the fall for poor decisions made at higher levels.
Farm, fruit offer escape
The farm is a welcome distraction from Carson's thoughts of war and violence and injustice.
The Carsons no longer pick or prune the kiwi themselves. Helen, 79, is legally blind, and Ben's artificial shoulder -- constructed after an Iwo Jima shrapnel wound -- makes it hard for him to wield pruning shears and chainsaws.
But Carson still has tractor work to do on his other acres. If he weren't mowing and rototilling, Carson guesses he would spend most of the day sleeping, making up for those long, dark hours he lies awake at night.
And for all the tragedies he has seen, Carson hasn't lost his sense of humor -- particularly when it comes to new approaches for marketing their little hand grenades. They'd like New Seasons to carry their kiwis.
Otherwise, he said, "Crush up the crop, put it in the hot tub and let people dive in there for 50 bucks."
Ellie