Racing Toward Recovery. Lew Freedman

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СКАЧАТЬ guys, black guys. Some of them also took advantage of learning the Korean culture. But I also saw some things there that were negative that I had never seen before. There was some extreme segregation. There were bars specifically for black guys and specifically for white guys. There was also voluntary segregation in the army. If you went into the dining hall you would see white folks sitting over here and black folks sitting over there. They were just not mingling. It was strange to see that and it was the same way when soldiers went off the base, with white guys going here and black guys going there.

      I was able to dance between the two races. I was able to be accepted by the white side and I was accepted on the dark side, the black side. I think about that time a lot. I also had a Polish friend and we talked about it a lot. I would say he was a real Polish guy and not a white guy. We would discuss this thing about whites and blacks not socializing. I said, “You’re a Pole, not a white guy, even though your skin is white. I am an Alaska Native. I’m not a white guy or a black guy. Let’s try something.”

      Since I was accepted by the black guys we decided to go over to a group of black guys and see what happened if we tried to mix. I told my friend, “You’re a strong Polish person and let’s try to convince them that you’re not white, that you’re a Pole.” He agreed to see what would happen.

      We walked into this black bar and we saw a table and took it. All of these black folks were looking at us and staring at my Polish friend. We just sat down and nobody said anything, but they were looking. After a little while I was served a beer, but they would not serve him. After another little while a couple of black guys came over and said, “Hey, what are you doing in our place? You don’t see any white guys here. This is a black establishment.”

      At that point I said, “We talked about it before we came over here. This guy right here is not a white guy. He is a Pole and he doesn’t consider himself to be a white guy. He’s not a white guy. That’s why we came over here.” There were some back-and-forth exchanges and the black guys said, “Nah, you’re a white guy.” And my friend would say, “Nope, I’m a Pole. I’m not a white guy.” Finally, after all of those exchanges—and we kept sitting there—he got a beer. At that bar we made lasting friends and we respected each other after that. We could return to that bar any time.

      It didn’t really surprise me that it worked out that way. I was not black. I was not white. I was accepted on both sides, so I could swing both ways. Why not him? It was pretty interesting. In the army was the first time I saw racial tension between guys who were supposed to be on the same side. They were on the same side, but segregated. I had followed the civil rights movement, but then here you had a guy, a good friend of mine, who was on the other side. His skin was white, and he didn’t want to be considered a white guy, but a Pole.

      I did start drinking in the army. I drank in the bars in South Korea, but not very much. After I finished my martial arts workout each night I went to a bar and had a couple of beers. I did not abuse alcohol at that time.

      Being in South Korea for six months was a good experience all-around, but it was cut short. I suffered a detached retina in my right eye. I didn’t know how it happened, whether it occurred during tae kwon do practice, or on the job with the military, but my eye was going blind. I couldn’t see as well as I should have. I was losing vision and told the authorities I could only see a portion out of that eye. Within a week of me reporting it, since I couldn’t really do anything for the army, I was medevaced from South Korea to San Francisco.

      Then I was shipped to Fort Lewis in Tacoma, Washington. The plan was for me to have surgery in Seattle. Then they realized they didn’t have the specialist they needed there and sent me back to San Francisco. They scheduled the eye surgery at Letterman General Hospital at the Presidio. When my eye was examined they diagnosed it as a detached retina and said that I was 40 percent blind in that eye.

      They kept me around there after the operation and when I started to heal I played intramural basketball on the base. I was short, and there were all of these six-foot-seven hotshots around. But I played with them. I could jump. I was fast and I was a good shot.

      What I wasn’t doing much of was being a soldier while I was recovering. I really enjoyed my time in San Francisco. I wasn’t doing them any good and after some time they decided to grant me a disability discharge. It wasn’t as if my two years was nearly up as that they felt I could not perform at a top level. I received an honorable discharge with a disability.

      That ended my army service. I had spent time in California, in Korea, Washington, and back in California. I had had some good experiences and seen some good cities, but in the winter of 1974 I was done and released from the army. I had seen a little bit of the world and I was ready to go back to Akiak.

       CHAPTER 6

      When I got out of the service I was around twenty-two years old and I missed home. Ted arrived back in Akiak a day before I did after combat in Vietnam. He started having nightmares about his time in the war.

      Sometimes he kept his feelings inside and sometimes he talked about it. He mentioned how hard it was to adjust to Akiak after seeing all of that killing and what the army did to all of the villages and women and children there. It bothered him.

      It was good for me to be back and hunting and fishing again. But there were no jobs in Akiak and I had the disability discharge from the army. I did have the GI Bill to use for school. After a few months in Akiak I decided to look for a job in Bethel. Bethel has more than 4,000 people so the odds were better I might find something. Also, Kuskokwim Community College is in Bethel, so I could take college courses.

      I landed a job at the hospital doing kitchen duty and washing dishes. It paid pretty well and I enrolled at the college. I worked full-time and I took courses full-time. I got my own place and I was busy, busy, busy. I began studying behavioral health counseling. I wanted to be a mental health counselor.

      This fit in with my plan of wanting to help others and I began studying for that degree. After washing dishes I got a job as the recreation director for the city of Bethel. I was nearly at black belt status in tae kwon do, so I wanted to do something using sports or physical education. I also was involved in karate. I began teaching an hour-and-a-half course each evening in karate at the recreation center. Then I was asked to teach karate at the high school, too, an extended hour. I was doing everything all at once for a while. I don’t know how I fit everything into the day. I was taking sixteen hours, sixteen credits and doing all of that teaching, as well. I didn’t have time to do anything except work, teach karate, and study.

      It took me three years to complete that degree at the college. I spent a while washing dishes, but there was a psychiatrist in town named Verner Stillner and he took an interest in me. He was trying to get a mental health program started for kids through the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation.

      He knew I was teaching karate to young people and he would see me in the kitchen. Sometimes he wanted to have lunch or dinner with me. I told him that I was studying to become a counselor and he was working at the mental health program in Bethel. He told me about the idea he had for the kids project. He wanted to help the Yup'ik people with their mental health issues and that there was a job opening on the outreach mental health staff for a counselor. Dr. Stillner was involved. Bridget Kline, a Yup'ik from Mountain Village, was involved. And so was a counselor by the name of Dana Kopunuk. He was an elderly guy that Dr. Stillner had recruited. He asked me to take the position. It was explained that I would have more educational opportunities to advance myself and that Mr. Kopunuk would be my mentor. So I took it. That fit in with my goals of being a basketball coach and helping young people. It’s not the same as becoming a physical education teacher and a coach, but it СКАЧАТЬ