JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- JALALABAD, Afghanistan – In the tradition of Walt Whitman, the 19th century poet who chronicled many of his most legendary prose in the violent shadow cast by the Civil War, there comes a Marine rifleman who has also seen his fair share of carnage on the 21st century battlefield.
Sgt. Jason Zoesch, a 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment rifleman currently serving as a watch noncommissioned officer at Jalalabad Airfield in Afghanistan, where he is supporting Operation Enduring Freedom, is an Iraq veteran who fought on the bloody streets of Fallujah, Iraq, during some of the fiercest fighting of the war. He is also a poet.
Zoesch, from Portland, Ore., estimates he has written more than 4,000 poems over the course of his life.
“Poetry is my release,” said Zoesch, as he put down a book of short stories by Mark Twain he had been reading during one of the short moments of downtime he has had in Afghanistan since arriving in country last month. “Some people like to have a drink after a hard day, or watch television, or whatever it is they may do. For me, it’s always been to put a pen to paper.”
And while he is no stranger to both giving and carrying out orders on fields of fire, it was an order from his wife, Valouny, that finally led Zoesch to submit one of his poems for publication.
The poem, “Untwist Him From Our Soul,” was quickly selected for publication in the American Legion of Poets 2005 Anthology.
“The anthology is due out this month,” said Zoesch, who studied creative writing at Portland State University under noted poet and professor Henry Carlile before spending his college sophomore year abroad at Waseda University in Tokyo and joining the Marine Corps in 1999. “I’ve always been pretty private about my poetry, but when my wife gives an order, I follow it. She basically told me that I needed to put my work and myself out there.”
Zoesch credits his wife with getting him over his fears of exposing his most intimate thoughts, feelings and dreams.
“Poetry is how I deal with things,” said Zoesch. “It is how I cope with life and work things through. It’s also been a tool I’ve used to manage stress throughout my life, and it’s just something I’m very comfortable with. When I say comfortable, I mean the comfort in the writing of poetry, not in the sharing of it with other people. It was a long time before I felt I could even show my wife my work, much less the entire world.”
Zoesch’s quick success with getting his first submission published has given him a new perspective on his previously private writings.
“I feel like jumping that first hurdle of actually making the decision to submit one of my poems has given me a different outlook,” commented Zoesch. “I’ve started organizing my work, and I would like to get an entire book of my poems published when I get back from deployment. Having served in Iraq — and now Afghanistan — I’ve seen firsthand how quickly life can be taken away from us.”
“I’ve had friends die,” continued Zoesch. “I could just as easily have died many different times, and besides my wonderful wife and two beautiful kids – Khylia, 3, and Khonner, 1 – all I’d have to show for it is a dusty trunk filled with old poems. Having seen war, it makes you realize there’s nothing that you ever have to really fear again, nothing you can’t accomplish, and nothing you can’t face, because you’ve already faced the toughest challenge of your life by being in battle. Combat has a way of paradoxically taking fear away.”
With that newfound confidence, Zoesch said that in the future, he would also like to tackle the challenge of writing novels.
“Making it financially as a novelist isn’t a likely scenario for anyone, no matter how good a writer they are,” said Zoesch. “I’ve got a wife and kids to feed, so after my Marine Corps career, I would still most likely need to work to support them.”
Which is why Zoesch said he recently changed his major from creative writing to psychology.
“I’m in the process of completing my bachelor’s at Chaminade University,” said Zoesch, a 1998 graduate of Marshall High School in Portland. “I’d like to get into the counseling field, specifically so I can help veterans who might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I think I would have something positive to offer them.”
For the present, Zoesch spends his time supporting the Marine Corps mission in Afghanistan.
“The op (operations) tempo here is extremely high, and there’s not much downtime here,” commented Zoesch. “Sleep is precious, because no one gets much of it, but a few minutes before I try to get some much-needed sleep, I’ll write down a few thoughts of the day and then rack out before waking up and hitting the mission again.
“I’m very proud to be serving with 1/3 in Afghanistan,” continued Zoesch. “I was proud of the job the Lava Dogs did in Iraq, specifically in Fallujah, and they are doing good things here as well.”
According to the Marines who work with him, Zoesch is also doing good things.
“He’s a good Marine,” said Gunnery Sgt. Donald Vollmer, a 1/3 assistant operations chief and Gulf War veteran from Albany, Ore. “He’s got initiative and drive, and he knows the importance of mission accomplishment. As far as his writing, I’d just also like to say how impressed I am by him having his poetry accepted for publication. What a tremendous accomplishment.”
Staff Sgt. Ralph Scott, a 1/3 assistant operations chief and Iraq veteran from Tallahassee, Fla., spoke of Zoesch getting his poem published in a similar vein.
“Awesome!” exclaimed Scott when he heard the news. “I’m happy for him. It makes me feel good when Marines accomplish good things. He’s a very talented young man.”
Lance Cpl. Matthew Morton, a 1/3 rifleman by trade, currently holding the billet of operations clerk, said Zoesch is someone he can always turn to for advice.
“He’s the type of NCO that leads by example,” said the Iraq veteran and Wichita, Kan., native. “He never tells a Marine to do something that he wouldn’t do himself, and all his Marines respect him for that. He helps Marines with any problems they might have, whether it be mission related or personal. He is always accessible to his Marines. He’s nice and mean at the same time, but I guess you could say that about most Marines. What I mean is, with Sergeant Zoesch, he’s got a hard side and a not so hard side, and he knows which side to show in any given situation.
“If the situation is right, sometimes his Marines bug him and ask him to write poems for us so we can send them to our wives or girlfriends and pretend they are from us,” laughed Morton. “Or, other times we’ll say stuff to him like, ‘I’m a poet don’t cha know it,’ and stuff like that. He’s a pretty good sport about it, but he still hasn’t written any poems for us to send to our wives or girlfriends, yet. Just as well, my wife would probably know something was up.”
For his part, Zoesch said the good-natured ribbings are something that he can laugh along with.
“I guess it is all part of me being more comfortable in my own skin — more comfortable with me sharing the fact that I’m a writer,” said Zoesch. “It’s all been part of a long process. I feel good about where I’m at in life.”
The hardest part of his life, according to Zoesch, however, is being separated from his wife and children for long stretches at a time.
“Like I said, I’m glad I served in Iraq, and I’m happy to be here in Afghanistan, but I still miss my family,” said Zoesch. “It is a sacrifice I gladly make to serve my country and to help the people in this part of the world have a better life and also to ensure that my family can continue to live in freedom.
“I try to call or e-mail home at least once a week if I can, but before I left I gave my little girl, Khylia, a stuffed teddy bear,” continued Zoesch as he reflectively looked off to the side, seemingly conjuring up images of his daughter back home. “I told her to kiss that teddy bear any time she’s missing daddy. My wife says she’s been kissing that teddy bear a lot.”
Poem:
Untwist Him From Our Soul
A poem by Jason Zoesch
We live for words wishing to speak to those we know.
I cry at night, those I talk to have not understood.
We lead silent lives, feelings we never show.
We want to be close so why must close come so slow?
I recall things unsaid, wishing now that somehow I could.
We live for words wishing to speak to those we know.
A voice holds many fortunes we need just let them glow,
let’s forget to forget what we ought to or should,
we lead silent lives, feelings we never show.
An old man dies and with him his thoughts will go,
we grieve not for the dead but for what wasn’t said,
living for words and wishing to speak to those we know.
A miser is a lonely man shall we untwist him from our soul?
So that maybe one day love we could, love we would,
not leading silent lives feelings we ought show.
Yet we don’t forever writing ourselves as strangers. Alone
we pretend together hearing only through a thickhead,
living for words and wishing to speak to those we know,
leading silent lives feelings we never show.