Stories of Service

Episode Transcript

Brenda Bentt-Peters Veterans don't usually have a sign that says, "I'm a vet," unless it's one of the older ones that where the Vietnam veteran cap or something like that. So like me, you know. I walk around and nobody would ever know that I am one.

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Krissa Corbett Cavouras Brenda Bentt-Peters is the Community Outreach Supervisor at Brooklyn Public Library. We talked to her recently about her experience serving in the military, and we’re playing some of her story here for you, in honor of Veterans Day.

Brenda Bentt-Peters I was living in England and my mother was living here. And my mother was kind of worried about how would she afford to send me to college. Apparently she had a friend that's an Army recruiter and he told me all the things I needed to hear: That I would get money for college, I would get to travel the world, I would get to do all these different things. You'll get bonuses and everything. So all I saw was all these dollar signs, you know, like one of those cartoon characters ... so I said, 'Okay, sign me up.'

Krissa Corbett Cavouras She was assigned to medical supply during advanced individual training and joined the reserves. That meant she went to Brooklyn College during the week and spent weekends in a warehouse on Houston Street in Manhattan, working pretty much as a pharmacist for the Army. 

Brenda Bentt-Peters For the most part, we didn't really have much to do there anyway, because it's Cold War time. There's nothing going on. So once—at the time of Desert Shield—started, they were starting to deploy people. But it just so happened they hand-picked me out of the unit. In my in my situation, I was a little bit vocal about the war and everything else. It wasn't that I was afraid …  I just didn’t understand why we had to sacrifice for someone else’s country. And so I said, I'm not going to somebody else's country to kill innocent people. I know I joined the military and that was the purpose of it, but in my heart of hearts even although I was an expert at riflery, I remember even then, you know, sometimes they would put up targets that look like people and they would never shoot them because I said, 'Nope. that looks like a little old Russian woman. I'm not going to I'm not going to shoot that.' 

Adwoa Adusei This was the end of summer, 1989, and Brenda was sent to Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania to join a new unit. There, she had a lot of time to think as she waited to be deployed to Saudi Arabia. Months went by.

Brenda Bentt-Peters January was my birthday. Instead of me going home, my mom came to visit me. And I think I just had a mental meltdown by then. So when my mom came, I just went to pick her up at the train station and I don't know what got into me, but I just said, 'Mom. We're going back to New York.' And she didn't believe me at first. I'm like, 'Yeah, let's just get back on the train and go back to New York.'

So, I knew after 30 days I could get court martialed. So on my 30th day, I turned myself in to Fort Hamilton. They put me in handcuffs. They had this big level belt on and then the handcuffs in front. And they took me to Fort Dix, New Jersey. They were asking me, like, why did you go AWOL? And I was explaining exactly why. And they were saying like, 'We're fighting for democracy. And taking taking away the power from dictators from other countries make makes our country free.' And I'm like, I may be young, but that sounds like a lot of propaganda to me. 

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Brenda did end up getting sent to Saudi Arabia eventually, where she rejoined her unit. She had registered as a conscientious objector while in New York City, so she didn’t see any combat. She did serve for a full year as a medical supply specialist, during which time she experienced harassment from other soldiers stationed at her base, and was also court-martialed for having gone AWOL in Pennsylvania. She eventually received an honorable discharge after her year overseas. You can hear details about that part of her story in an interview now archived in BPL’s oral history collection “Our Streets, Our Stories.” We’ll put a link to that in our show notes. 

Adwoa Adusei Despite her own experience serving in the military, Brenda said it doesn’t take away the pride she feels for other veterans. 

Brenda Bentt-Peters I'm not going to say, oh, because of my experience with this way that everybody else should be miserable too, or anything like that. And I'm not even bitter about what happened. It was just a bad circumstance, right? And I can see how traumatic it gets because even I kind of had my traumatic moments there, too. Especially consider considering all that was going on, and I knew people didn't like me, and there were all these stories of friendly fire and stuff like that. I didn't know if I was going to come back alive. And I haven't been through half of what combat soldiers or, you know, Marines or anybody else has gone through. But I do empathize with them because I understand. You know, if there was any way I could help them, I would. I can. I will. I shouldn't say I would, but I will. 

Krissa Corbett Cavouras And that’s just what Brenda has done. In her role in Outreach Services at BPL, she has organized many events for Veterans over the years, including inviting a 40-piece Navy band to preform in Central’s lobby, putting together a veterans resource fair, and story times where veterans read to little kids. 

Adwoa Adusei Brenda also set up two libraries for returning veterans — one at Fort Hamilton Library, which is near the army base and frequented by service members and their families, and the other at the Brooklyn Veterans Center.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras So, for Veterans Day this year, we wanted to highlight a few more Brooklyn veteran stories. I’m Krissa Corbett Cavouras.

Adwoa Adusei And I’m Adwoa Adusei. You’re listening to Borrowed: Stories that start at the library.

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Adwoa Adusei In 2008, BPL staff recorded interviews with Brooklyn veterans. Fourteen interviews were collected, most of them at Central Library, with veterans who had served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, The Persian Gulf, and Iraq. 

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Those stories were all archived with the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress, and we’ll put a link to the archive on our website, so you can hear more.

Adwoa Adusei You know, Krissa, I listened to a good number of these oral histories — and the one thing I’m struck by is how different each story is. A person’s experience in the military differs drastically depending on the unit they served in, their reason for joining, the time period, and the person’s race and socio-economic background. So we’re going to bring you three stories we feel represented a diversity of experiences, starting with Milton Lefkowitz, who served in World War II.

Milton Lefkowitz I asked the draft board to speed up my entry, and they didn't. But I went in. And the first part of the draft, the war wasn't on. For instance, my brother was one of the first ones in. And by the time the war came around, he had been in the service for about a year. 

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Milt, or Milty as he was sometimes called, was the youngest of four boys in the Lefkowitz family drafted into WWII. 

Milton Lefkowitz My mother cried. My mother didn't cry so much ... who's going to take care of you? I was sort of the helpless one. And yet I always had a little taste for adventure. And I remember that morning I got up 5:30, my mother was up. The snow was beginning to fall and I had a little suitcase with my stuff in it. And I said to myself, what further adventures await this boy?

Adwoa Adusei Milton said he felt a sense of duty as a young Jewish man in America.

Milton Lefkowitz I had a good feeling that I might be doing something that would be necessary for my family, though I have three brothers and we all served. In other words, I didn't face the plight of European Jews. And so that that rationalization ... you had to have some kind of rationalization. That helped to carry me.

Adwoa Adusei Milton’s story takes listeners through bootcamps along the Eastern seaboard through his European campaign and finally VE day in Munich. Along the way, he details the smells, the meals, the looting, and even the sartorial choices of life at war. He talks candidly at several points about perceptions of Judaism and of Race from within his unit and from Europeans that they met along the way. You can listen to the rest of his story in the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras The next story we want to highlight comes from Arthur Elliott, who served in the Vietnam war. Arthur, a Black man from Brooklyn, was drafted from jail.

Arthur Elliott The government officials, military officials, they came to the Brooklyn House OF Detention, and then they got me out of my cell. We filled out all the forms, applications for my draft into the military.

I was still upset about the fact that Martin Luther King had got assassinated. I was still concerned about the fact that Muhammad Ali had lost his belt as a boxing champ because he refused to be inducted into the military. And there I was, and I was in the military. Not only in the military, but I was also in Vietnam at the time, you know.

Adwoa Adusei More than the dangers of combat in Vietnam, Arthur said that he felt more threatened by his fellow countrymen.

Arthur Elliott That racist element, you know, was it was insidious. I always think of it as being like cold air, because the cold, it finds its way into every nook and cranny. It was just killing the spirit. It was killing the spirit of fighting men. And the frustration just built to a point whereas they were really about to take matters into their own hands and eliminate some people. I wasn't really for that type of resolution.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Arthur ended up organizing a grievance meeting where a lot of soldiers of color “let off steam,” as he put it. Tensions between soldiers decreased, but for Arthur, things only got worse.

Arthur Elliott When we left that hall, they put me under arrest. They said I was a a Black militant. And they said that I just had a Black militant meeting right in the EM club, right in front of everybody. Even the non-commissioned officers, everybody was there. There was nothing secretive about it. From there, I went to Long Binh jail right outside of Saigon. And when I got there, it was all Black people in there. About 97% of the prisoners there was Black. So I knew that there was something going on. 

Krissa Corbett Cavouras From being drafted out of Brooklyn House of Detention to ending up in military prison in Vietnam, Arthur has a unique perspective on the American military, and on our nation. The interviewer asked Arthur to reflect on his overall experience, and here’s what he said.

Arthur Elliott You had wanted to know, had I ever been in any battles or suffered any injuries? I suffered quite a few. Mainly the faith and the spirit that I had for my country was shaken to the core.

There is to this day a lot of Black soldiers that are a falling short from having a good life after they served in a foreign war because of someone else's decision that they be treated less than honorable for the duty that they provided in Vietnam. And it needs to be addressed. Because there are still many wounds that have not been healed, and many people more than likely, if you ask me, will never make it home from Vietnam because of these prejudices.

Adwoa Adusei That was Arthur Elliott, speaking in an interview in 2008. The final story we’ll share with you today comes to us from Christopher Perkins, who served two tours in Iraq.

Christopher Perkins When it was my turn to go the first time, I mean, I was very—you're scared. But I mean, I guess my number came up, you know. The war already been on for two years. So you just knew it was coming. And once they finally called you, it was like, okay, let's just go and get it over with.

I was in Camp Adder, which is in Southern Iraq near on Nasiriya. The way I explained it when when I came back, when people asked me, was it felt like you were in a very bad neighborhood. You just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. You knew you had to be there, get it done, and then you wanted to just go inside. The limited contact that you had with the people there was tense. It's kind of scary, I guess. 

When we got back, they said, 'We can't touch you for five years.' And it was like, okay, wonderful. We got it out of the way and we're done. 

Adwoa Adusei But the following year, Christopher was approached again and asked to serve another tour in Iraq. He got certified as an EMT and served his second tour as a medic.

Christopher Perkins Going and working in the emergency room and treating people, that was doubly rewarding. I mean, you saw some pretty gruesome things. Probably the busiest we were was ... they started mortaring Bucca, which was the prison camp further south. And there were no American casualties, but there were plenty of Iraqi casualties. And they sent about 20 people up to this all at once or, you know, medivaced at once. So that was very, very busy.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras After his second tour, Christopher got a job as a health technician at Fort Hamilton Army Base, in Brooklyn and then rose in the ranks. He’s made a career out of serving in the military.

Christopher Perkins Kind of full circle. That's the same place where I did my enlistment and it's kind of a good feeling to help young people into the same career that I have, you know? I mean, I know it's not positive for everybody, but it's been very positive for me. And I like talking with young people who are coming in. You know, some some people say, 'Hey, whether you make it a 20-year career or two-year or whatever, just use it for what it's doing for you, you know?' And I hope they listen.

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Adwoa Adusei You can listen to the rest of these three stories and hundreds more at the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress. We’ll put a link to that archive on our web page page.  Brenda also collected a book list and resources for Veterans in New York City, which we’ll include on our web page as well. 

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Borrowed is brought to you by Brooklyn Public Library and is hosted by me and Adwoa Adusei. You can find a transcript, as well as the full book list on our website: BKLYN Library [dot] org [slash] podcasts.

Adwoa Adusei This episode was produced by Virginia Marshall and written by me and Virginia, with help from Ali Post, Fritzi Bodenheimer, Jennifer Proffitt and Robin Lester Kenton. Our music composer is Billy Libby. Meryl Friedman designed our logo.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Borrowed will be back in a few weeks with a special episode for Thanksgiving. And, we want to say thank you to everyone who has served in the armed forces. Happy Veterans Day, from Brooklyn Public Library.