One of the joys of editing this magazine is working with good writers, and we try to bring you as many as we can. W.D. Ehrhart '73, whose article "Military Intelligence" appears on page 24 of this issue, is certainly in this category.
I first met Bill Ehrhart in 1991, shortly after I became managing editor. He approached me about doing a profile of his friend and classmate, the actor Stephen Lang, and I went to then-editor Maralyn Orbison Gillespie '49 to ask about him. She smiled. Twenty years earlier, she remembered, the Bulletin had published Bill's poem, "To Swarthmore." Bill was a sophomore then and a rising literary star.
An antiwar activist at Swarthmore--he had been a Marine infantryman in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968, before coming to the College--Ehrhart has become known as a "Vietnam" writer. Many of his of poems, and his autobiographical trilogy, Vietnam--Perkasie, Passing Time, and Busted, chronicle a journey familiar to members of my generation, whether or not we served in the military. Although he is primarily known for this subject, it's not all he writes about. He once said he is "uncomfortable about basically making what modest reputation and living I have out of an experience that was irredeemably repugnant.... [But] if people did not identify me as a Vietnam War writer, they probably wouldn't see me as anything. So I have to be grateful for that."
I like Bill's work because of its clear voice. He has a direct, conversational but artful way of writing that reminds me of having a beer with a friend who wants to tell me something important about himself--or about me. Yet as artful as his writing can be, Bill says: "I have never approached my 'art' from the avenue of art. It's been simpler; I have these things I want to say ... that I want others to understand. It's a silly obsession, really--the notion of using my writing as a tool for education."
That 1971 poem has endured, by the way. It's been in almost continuous use by the College ever since, gracing the pages of admissions materials since the early 1970s. "To Swarthmore" is a timeless description of the College and the experience of young people that is as compelling today as it was 26 years ago. Many young alumni will remember its beginning lines: "The night I got here, / The mosquitos formed a solid black carpet / On the ceiling of the Meeting House." And its straightforward conclusion: "This place is all right." Write me, and I'll send you a copy.
--Jeffrey Lott