Monday with Max

Had the opportunity at LC today to go to a preview for an NPR/PRI "Experiencing War" segment narrated by Max Cleland, who was an awesome speaker. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to go talk to him personally, but I'm a wimp and had to get back to work anyway, plus I'd skipped lunch and was starving. Anyhow the topic of the segment was "More Than Love Stories" and it was all these soldiers' stories about their wives and girlfriends and kids and comrades and it was just really touching and amazing. I 'bout cried at some of the stuff. The program is s'posed to air Sunday or Monday; I looked but couldn't find a scheduled time.

Also felt a bit naive and shtoopid when in going through unprocessed stuff came across this medic's collection and some mildly graphic pictures of Holocaust victims and a load of bodies laid out after a plane crash and some other stuff. They were black and white and not overly gory but it still made me squirk. Apparently when you come across stuff like that you put a note on the folder to give people a head's up so they don't react that way. I'm also lucky as other people had come across VERY graphic stuff of like beheadings from Vietnam and people blown to splatters by mines and grenades and what all. For some dumb reason--hello, it's WAR history--I just wasn't expecting stuff like that. I guess I thought, I don't know what I thought, I guess just not that stuff like that was in people's *personal* papers, y'know? I mean, really, what sort of person KEEPS photos of plane crashes and whatnot, y'know? I dunno, I guess I'm just naive like I said.

Anyhoo, before I left one of the heads gave everyone some Mardi Gras beads so now I have purple, red, and green strands on my door. I feel all fancy. :D