Spirit in Action
Vietnam Vet, Recovering Alcoholic and Russian Sojourn
Pete Wagener spoke at the 2006 Veterans Day event sponsored by the Veterans for Peace. His stories about what he learned in his 4 years with the Marines, in facing his alcoholism, and in the course of the 5 years he spent in Russia, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, are personal and powerful.
- Broadcast on:
- 04 Feb 2007
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- other
I have no hands but yours to tend my sheep. No handkerchief but yours to dry the eyes of those who weep. I have no arms but yours with which to hold. The ones grown weary from this struggle and weak from growing old. I have no voice but yours with which to see. To let my children know that I am out and out is everything. I have no way to feed the hungry souls. No clothes to give nor give, the ragged and the morn. So be my heart, my hand, my tongue. Through you I will be done. Fingers have I none to help I'm done. The tangled knots and twisted chains, the strength of fearful minds. Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeet, each week I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Above all, I'll seek out light, love and helping hands, being shared between our many neighbors on this planet, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. I have no way to open people's eyes, except that you will show them how to trust the inner mind. Today on Spirit in Action, we'll be speaking with Pete Wagner. Pete was a Marine for four years during the Vietnam War, encouraged to serve his country by several of his professors at the Catholic school he attended. He found a different kind of religion on the battlefield. After his service, he came home and among important steps in his life was his coming to terms with his own alcoholism. In 1992, he headed to Russia, spent five years there, learned a lot about the Russian spirit, language, culture and the important role that religion needs to play in coming to terms with serious addictions like alcoholism. Pete, I'm really pleased that you could join me today for Spirit in Action. Yeah, well, thanks for inviting me. I heard you speak last November 11th on Veterans Day for the event given by the Veterans for Peace. I felt like you had a compelling personal message, and so I wanted to invite you here to speak about that. I know your message is bigger than just what happened to you during the Vietnam War. There's been a lot that you've been through, including your five years in Russia, and so I want to invite you to speak about that stuff too. But I also want you just to give, if you can, some kind of sense of what you learned by your time with the Marines during the Vietnam War. When I was asked to speak for the Veterans Day gathering for the Veterans of Peace, I wrote a couple of things down. I revisited some of my earlier thinking about my experiences, both in Vietnam and also as an ex-marine. I started thinking about my experiences in preparation for giving that talk and realized that I had been in a similar position, some 14 years ago, or 15, I guess, in '91 when the First Iraq War was carried out. Where I could see that I was powerless, there was such overwhelming support for protecting this little country of Kuwait from the Iraqis, and I certainly didn't feel as bellicosis, even my closest friends, were talking about what America should do to protect freedom of the Kuwaitis or whoever these people were. I also happened to belong to a speech club at that time, so I worked out a little speech based on an experience that I had in Vietnam that I'd almost forgotten. Where I was driving in a jeep, saw a little girl hitchhiking on the side of the road, and even though it was against my orders, I shouldn't pick up any civilians I had to. She jumped in my jeep, and she was taking her little brother looked like her, and anyway, she was about 10 years old, and boy was maybe about 3. She wanted to go about 10 miles. She could say the name of the village, but she didn't know any other English. There was no way I could start a conversation with her, all I could do was just look at her out of the corner of my eye and give her this ride. But I was responding to something at that time that I desperately wanted, and that was some contact with these people that I was in this situation, trying to protect. But I realized that her life was even more miserable than mine was. She was taking a big chance just riding in this jeep, and even though no words really passed between us, I could see that she enjoyed this ride. When I dropped her off, the thing that really stuck, this way she thanked me, she gave me the finger and said, "Fuck you, G.I." With a big smile. And I realized that that was probably the only English words she knew. An obscenity was the impact that we really had on her life. We had reduced her life to a gross obscenity. When I put my thoughts together and wrote that speech back in '91, it kind of put a focus on something that I had been afraid to look at ever since 1970. When I did leave Vietnam, and that was the shame and the guilt that I felt of participating in something as inhumane, as callous, and as insensitive as this war was. I don't know much about war in general. I just know about my peace in this one particular war, and I know that I lost whatever innocence I had. Although by the time I went to Vietnam, I thought I was a full-grown man. It was kind of ridiculous, but I thought we were men going into battle. But it turns out that I was just barely scratching the surface of maturity. In fact, it took me a long time after I came back from Vietnam to mature as a man. But in my upbringing, I was taught that one needed to test his metal in order to come of age, to become a man. And one way that my father's generation did was in the great war. And then there was another war that some of my high school teachers fought in, Korea, and now Vietnam. This was my chance. It was almost an accident that ended up there, but it was a part of it. A part of it was that this was one way to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with my dad, to go to war, face the music. If I survived, well, then perhaps I could be. If I didn't, well, it wasn't meant to be. Here I am now at an age older than my dad was when I returned from Vietnam, and I can see how ridiculous that thinking of mine was. I had no real communication with my dad. Let me go fast forward a little bit to somewhere in the mid-80s. After I had come to terms with my alcoholism, which was full blown by the time I even got into the Marine Corps. But I had come to terms with it by the mid-80s and had been sober for a number of years and had dealt with some other former servicemen, Vietnam vets, who had trouble with alcohol and other drugs. Maybe some as a result of their experiences in Vietnam, maybe some as a way of adjusting to life after Vietnam. I don't know. But if somebody wanted to get sober, I'd try to help Mountain. If he was a Vietnam vet, well, I could relate to him on that level, too. And one of these friends who had spent a full tour in Vietnam, he got invited to a private showing of the movie Platoon by a local newspaper. It wasn't really a private showing. They were going to provide him and anybody he wanted to invite. They were going to provide us with tickets, and there were several veterans, and then they wanted to interview us after the movie. So they sat us all together and just practiced a little bit before the movie, and then the movie rolled and other people filled the seats around us. And I had not watched any war movies after Vietnam. I used to go hunting and never owned a gun after Vietnam after sleeping with a rifle for 13 months, and that was all I wanted out of it. And so I kind of slammed the door on that part of my life. But here was a chance with this friend of mine to look at this movie and maybe say something about it and explore something about what was going on. And the movie was very close to realistic. The opening scene, I particularly remember, was very much like my experience in Vietnam. After I got over that and got into the movie, it really kind of lost its relevance, but what really struck me was the reaction of the other people in the movie who were being entertained by this movie and how they were so bloodthirsty. In their reaction and their cheering for, you know, when somebody was getting shot and how they hungered for the action parts of the movie. And they were young people, maybe 10 years younger than me, sitting right in front of us, and I particularly thought, "Oh, that's going to happen again." We didn't end wars by pulling out of Vietnam. Our social memory is very short. The next generation, they're going to hunger for it just like I was taught to hunger for it when I was 16, 17, 18 years old. And even though that was beyond the scope of the newspapers purpose, I couldn't help but mention that. It's like we learned nothing in our problems in Vietnam. Now I'm going to go fast forward again until 1991, and sure enough, we had a couple of skirmishes in Granada and different places like that, and there weren't hardly any casualties, and I think there was more of a Kodak picture point of a war than anything else, but here we were in a real shooting war in Kuwait, Iraq, and people were just signing up to go. Because of this feeling that was being generated, it was frightening for me. Frightening that here it goes again. Well, now, if I can go fast forward 15 years to the present day, and I was asked to give the speech, all these things are going through my mind and say, "Is there something that I can say that could perhaps make somebody who's 19 years old or 20 years old stop and think about what they're doing?" I've taken some comfort in doing some reading about an old Marine Corps General, Smedley Butler, who resigned his commission after 33 very successful years and started talking about the military industrial complex and saying all the time that he was in the Marines, all he was was really a policeman for the interests of the bankers, especially while he fought in five continents. Twice awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, one of only a handful of people who've ever gotten that award twice, so he was a hero in my mind. Somehow history has kind of covered him over, just like history seems to cover over Dwight Eisenhower and his warnings about the military industrial complex. Last night I had a lovely dream. I saw the parade with ticker tape galore, and men were marching there the likes I've never seen before. The bankers and the diplomats are going in the army. Oh, happy day, I'd give my pay to see them on their way. Their punch is at attention and their stripe at densities. They're getting patriotic and they're going overseas. We'll have to do the best we can and bravely carry on. So we'll just keep the laddies here to manage while they're gone. Oh, we hate to see them go. The gentlemen of distinction in the army. Oh, we hate to see them go. The gentlemen of distinction in the army. The bankers and the diplomats are going in the army. It seemed a shame to keep them from the wars they love to plan. We're all of us contented at the fight at Andy War. They don't need propaganda, they know what they're fighting for. They'll march away with dignity and in the best of war. And we'll just keep the laddies here to keep their lovers warm. Oh, we hate to see them go. The gentlemen of distinction in the army. Oh, we hate to see them go. The gentlemen of distinction in the army. The bankers and the diplomats are going in the army. We're going to make things easy 'cause it's all so new and strange. We'll give them silver shovels when they have to dig a hole. And they can sing in harmony while answering the roll. They'll eat their old k-rashions from a hand embroidered box. And if they die, we'll bring them home and bury them in Fort Knox. Oh, we hate to see them go. The gentlemen of distinction in the army. Oh, we hate to see them go. The gentlemen of distinction. Just look at them. The gentlemen of distinction. I love a man in uniform. Oh, the gentlemen of distinction in the army. That was Claudier Schmidt and Sally Rogers doing that tune together. Actually originally it's by Melvina Reynolds and it's called We Hate to See Them Go. You're listening to a spirit in action interview with Pete Wagner. He was a Vietnam vet and his spiritual travels include time with alcoholism and recovery from that and some time in Russia. He spoke on Veterans Day, November 11th, 2006, sharing some of his stories so I invited him here today for Spirit in Action. I'm Mark Helpsmate. Let's listen some more to Pete Wagner as he talks more about what he learned from his time with the Marines in Vietnam and the aftermath. What this current war machine needs is young men and women defeated and unfortunately we live in a society that thinks that this is honorable. I say unfortunately because in my lifetime there has not been a good reason to go to war. You can see through the reasons. Every time we've gone the people that we work the hardest to persuade are those who are most impressionable in their teenage years trying to come of age, trying to state who they are as people. And we aim our propaganda right at them because they are the cannon fodder. Without them Iraq couldn't happen. Pete you said that you started out. I mean you willingly went into the Vietnam War. You went for the Marines. You wanted to prove you were a man. You wanted to come of age. I think you ended that war feeling differently and somewhere I don't quite understand where you made that transition and what you made the transition to because I'm not sure that when you came out of the Vietnam War you were what we would call anti-war. What did happen for you? What changed in you? Where did you end up? The main thing that changed in me was realizing when I was being trained to be part of this machine, this war machine, that I couldn't think of the enemy as a human being. I remember standing outside of myself in my training, referring to Charlie or the gooks or the chinks, whatever it was that we had to kill in order to survive ourselves. We had to dehumanize it. When I got into a situation where the things that I was doing either as an individual or as part of a battalion was killing people, I couldn't really think of that as what I was doing. I wasn't killing people. As soon as I got a glimpse that I was killing people, that there were people on the other end of this gun, on the other end of these big guns, then I couldn't do it. Or if I did it, I had to override everything I was taught prior to joining the Marines. Now, self-defense is one thing, but in no way was I in a situation, or did I realize that America was going to be overrun by communists if we didn't win this war in Vietnam? Moreover, there was some political aspects of that war that really showed me that they didn't even care about us as American soldiers. There were ceasefire days where we could not shoot our guns. I don't know what those days, Ho Chi Minh's birthday was won, I think. There was some truce called in Paris, I believe, at one time for five days or whatever, where we weren't supposed to fire a gun. What that meant, I don't know. But I do remember that the war didn't get out in the bush. I remember one day listening to a recon patrol on a radio calling in coordinates for support, fire, that we couldn't give. And the next day, seeing the chopper bring their bodies into the landing strip. So I realized that it wasn't just the gooks, the chinks, Charlie that was being dehumanized. It was us as well, us Marines. We weren't considered to even be valuable. We were just tools, just pawns. Another situation that turned my thinking, and I was brought into a unit that received 70% casualties just prior. I came into the unit in April and in February and March they had taken 70% casualties. And the 30% that were left were just shells of people. Just getting to know these guys, I realized it. All the patriotism, all the ura-ra that we were given in our training in these guys was gone. In fact, the best that they could do was count the days until they got back. Even getting back didn't solve their problems. So he asked me this question, "What turned me?" I thought it was my scourge. I had a four-year hitch. I was ready to get out. As soon as I got back from Vietnam, I had a year and a half left to go. And I caught orders to go to reserve training camp on the east coast. I thought I got gypped because other guys were getting out. I was pretty bitter, pretty salty. I went to this training camp. It was pretty, it wasn't very difficult duty. And I came to realize, not then, not while I was still in the Marines, but some years later, that at least I had a chance to get some kind of deep programming. In a military setting, that saltiness and the shame and the guilt that I felt having participated in that situation washed out with time. By me staying with Marines in different situations, none of them combative. It was a deep programming time for me. I look at that as maybe something that saved me from some pretty big problems that friends of mine had experienced later on after their time of service. Especially my friend from Minnesota, who the day he got out of Vietnam, the next day he was home in Albert Lee, Minnesota, and expected to carry on a civilian life. It took him much longer than me to recover from his military time. I guess that was a turning point in my life. I didn't measure up to the man that I thought I could be by joining the Marine Corps. There's a lot of disappointment in that, but I also recognized that same disappointment in my fellow Marines. So, you know, that was part of the camaraderie, is that I bought a bag of goods. It didn't really turn out the way it was supposed to be, and I wasn't alone. So there was some comfort in that. Would you have described yourself as anti-war at that point, or was that something that came on in following decades? No, I was definitely anti-war. As soon as I got out of the Marines, well, even in the Marines, I associated with non-military people. I had, of course, Marine Corps friends, but I lived off base. I tried to get as far away from the military while still being in the military and keeping my nose clean. It was important for me to get an honorable discharge and be able to afford to go to college one day. Then when I did go to college, I was interviewed by a local reporter at that time, and I remember being quoted in the paper saying, "It's over for now, but they're going to find another way to start a war again sometime." So I guess I'm not as much anti-war as I was skeptical. I felt like I'd been misled. I fell for the propaganda. What was the family culture you were raised in, and what was their view on you going in the military? Were they all pro-military, and how did that all go within your family? I think if it were up to my parents, they would rather than I didn't enlist. In fact, I think my enlisting as a senior in high school was an act of rebellion against them, not that they were pacifists or against the war even. I guess I would characterize my mother as being a frightened parent, and my father and I, we didn't get along in my teenage years. We just didn't know how to relate to each other in a civil way. As a teenager, I was starting to use drugs and drink, and parents were just not a part of that scene. The people who had the most influence on me, I think, to join the Marines were my school teachers. I went to a Catholic school, and like I said, I had teachers who were veterans. One civics teacher and religion teacher, a priest, had served in the Navy in World War II, and a history teacher who had been a Korean War veteran. Another science teacher who had been Korean War veteran. I guess it was in this fairly religious Catholic school that I realized that that's one way I could show my dad that I was a man, was by participating in this war. I know Pete that you've got a sister who's a nun. You come from this strongly Catholic family. How does Catholic support of war look to you from your point of view now? Well, I don't think I'm a Catholic today, and I don't think that Catholic support war as a church. In fact, I find that the Catholic church is really, I wouldn't say anti-war, but anti-violent, non-violent. The Catholic church that I subscribe to today is one where Jesus is a figure for peace. There are elements in Catholic church that are more bellicose, and like I said, in this Catholic school that I went to, I was encouraged to join the military almost like a right of, or a responsibility of living in this country. And of course, earlier years, the anti-communist flavor of almost like a John Birch attitude toward the communist menace. I can see that that was kind of setting the stage for not only Korea and Vietnam, but the whole nuclear holocaust threat that we were living under. But by and large, I go back to that civics teacher who was a World War II veteran, who struck a point with me when I was at a very impressionable period of my life. And that point was that liberty has its cost. Some people, like those who fought in the American Revolution, those who fought in the Civil War, those who fought in World War II, have to stand up for freedom and put their life on the line. It's an argument that we hear today. No one will go to war in their own self-interest. If there is a better than 50% chance that you are going to get shot, or killed, or worse, people just aren't going to volunteer. And I've seen the other side too. I talk with people who say, "Yeah, democracy makes no sense. Nobody will fight if they're given a vote." But this civics teacher approached it from, "There's a lot of different things in life that you must do that you don't like." And one of them is defend your country. If you don't, who will? He was probably speaking from his experience going into World War II. This is in the 60s, it's only 20 years later. And I'm sure he felt very strongly about it. He was one of my favorite teachers. Like I said, he had a lot of influence on me. The fact that he was a priest, yeah, that kind of went some authority to what he had to say. Especially when he told us that the reason he was a priest was because he met God on the battlefield and decided to dedicate his life to God. And I guess I had my own Armageddon of that same sort. Probably in a different direction. I don't wear a Roman collar today. I got a different kind of religion. But those were the influences I think that were existent in school. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] That was Crosby Stills Nash and Young. Their song "Find the Cost of Freedom." You're listening to Spirit in Action. I'm your host, Mark Helpsmeet. And my guest today is Pete Wagner, who was a Marine during the Vietnam War. He spoke last November at Veterans Day events sponsored by Veterans for Peace here in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Raised Catholic, having additional spiritual openings as part of his experience dealing with his alcoholism and his travels in Russia. Pete has a lot to say about war and peace and what he's learned in the course of his six decades on this Earth. Another thing I have to say about that is that we can't take the Vietnam War. I can't take it out of its context. There was a lot of things happening in the country in the 1960s that I was watching on a daily basis. I was a newspaper boy. Everything kind of got scrambled in those 60s, in the middle 60s. So there's a lot of confusing things that I was trying to make sense of. And joining the Marine Corps made simplified things for me. And it simplified things for a lot of people my age. Just one comment about the civil rights movement. When I joined the Marine Corps in 1967, the Marine Corps was about 40% black and minority, Hispanic, Native American, but mostly black. And the reason for that, I know today, but I didn't understand it then, is that military was one of the few jobs that blacks could get in the 60s and rise to a decent level based on their accomplishments. What I wanted to say is that there was a lot of things going on in the 60s besides war, and all of them were violent. All of them were violent changes to society. There may have been different degrees. I was in Vietnam for six months when I met a friend of mine. His name was Marsh. Marsh had been to Vietnam before. This was the second tour when I met him. He had gotten out of the Marine Corps, went home to Watts, and said that he felt so insecure in the riots and Watts that he felt safer going back to Vietnam in the Marine Corps, which is where I met him. And that kind of gives you a picture of where we were in the 60s. We were all at war. You mentioned, Pete, that you gave the speech for the Veterans Day event by the Veterans for Peace, but you're not a member of that's for peace. I'm curious to know why not, and what groups you are part of, your Catholic Church, evidently. I'm wondering why you choose and choose not to be members of different groups. What leads you into this and what keeps you from associations? I don't know. There was a point about 15 years ago or so where I thought that I would be more of an activist. I've sympathized with a lot of causes like Veterans for Peace, and I really don't know, I guess maybe I'm too selfish with my time. I have a brother who's pretty active, although he's not a veteran. His son tried to become a conscientious objector in Iraq, but he did serve his time, and now he's out. I don't know. I think there's another item that I guess I take a more personal view of it. Years ago, I had a father-in-law who was a World War II veteran who didn't spend any time in combat, but spent quite a bit of time training a unit. He went to various reunions around the country to these units. When I left Vietnam, I couldn't get out of that country fast enough. Nobody wrote letters, and I lost contact with all those people that I had served with. We went there as individuals. We came out as individuals. We didn't go as units like they do today. I guess I've always felt more of a kinship, not with so much the peace movement as with the men who were beaten down by the war. The people with the Agent Orange problems, especially the chemical dependency and alcohol problems, drug addicts. I lost a lot of friends. I thought that when the shooting stopped, I'd stop losing friends. But there's been a high degree of suicide and drug abuse and abuse of different kinds amongst the people that I had known, but I lost contact with. I wish that we had some way of contacting each other. So I think that if I were to become a part of Veterans for Peace or some organization like that, an activist in that regard, that would color myself out of that picture. We know war. A hundred years it haunts our homes. We know war. The generations left alone. The wombs forever wanting. The burdens we all bore. The empty chair at supper. The chaplain at the door. We know war. Death falling from the sky like rain. We know war. In the sirens wail again. The blackouts and the blitzkrieg, as we huddled on the floor. Children trembling in the shelter amidst the unrelenting roar. We know war. We know war. The roads and crosses and feet. The endless longing that cannot be concealed. The history shows what lays in store. We know war. By the blood in every speech we know war. In the poison that they preach. The young ones see horrors they've never known before. The scars that never heal in hearts were hatred keep to score. We know war. The armies rolling through the street. We know war. We are the ones who taste the beat. The endless occupation and the searches door to door. The fear that stalks the night until you can't take any more we know. When the battle's over. Victors count the cost. Cold calculation. What is one and what is lost? The survivor song will be forever. [Music] We know war. Everyone's so much the same. We know war. No longer will we add our name to the killing and the dying. We have known too much before when we pray for patience and you ask of us what for. Because we know war. [Music] We know war. We know war. We know war. So many people. Soldiers and civilians who suffered from war. That was John McCutchen, nationally known folk singer and a fellow Quaker with his song We Know War. You're listening to a spirit in action interview with Pete Wagner. I'm your host Mark helps me. Pete spoke at last November's Veterans Day Recognition sponsored by Veterans for Peace. He shares with us today his experience as a marine his experience as a recovering alcoholic and as a traveler for five years in Russia. I want to jump to another area of topic just kind of briefly because you and I had some conversation about this before. In the early 1990s you spent about five years in former Soviet Union in Russia and you even got away from there Pete and you had some reflections about that experience that I thought would be really valuable to our listeners. Again my area of quest is about religion and spirituality and you can't live life without experiencing religious and spiritual things. And I think you experience some insights that will help all of us in our spiritual quest and our spiritual search. Can you share with me a little bit about your experience of how information gets to us and then how we make the decisions out of that relevant to your experience in Russia. It was an exciting time 1992 for me as an American with an opportunity to go to Russia, live with and among Russian people to learn their language to breathe their air. There were a lot of doors that were open to me not only to me but to other Americans who came there. I guess I was first rather stunned how much Russian people really thirsted to know about America and Americans. I had all kinds of invitations to come to eat at people's houses where they would ask me questions about life that they'd seen only in movies or whatever. And of course there was a backdrop of the uncertainty of their society at that time too that they were trying to find some grounding in. Of course there were some things that were very fascinating to me about Russian society or I should say former Soviet society. One of those facets of course was religion. I had come across an organization that saved my life many years ago and helped me to get relief from the burdens of alcoholism. And I came across an organization of that sort in Moscow and was working with some people who were trying to get from drinking and realized that their society was built almost around the whole concept of drink. And also realized how difficult it was for them to get off alcohol. I found that I could do some things that could help them not the least of which was to bring literature from the states in Russian that had been translated from English into Russian to help them to give them some guidance. Now understand that this is always in the background in my life and this is something that I have to deal with on a daily basis in order to stay sober myself. And I couldn't do it without help from a lot of people and especially from God as I understand him. But at the same time I'm trying to conduct business. I had some money to open up an office but I really needed a lot of support for the kinds of infrastructure one needs in another society to get a business going. So I was introduced to a rather powerful man in the city that I was living, Viktor Murogov is his name and he was the director of a research institute having to do with nuclear power. And he wanted to learn English. As far as Viktor was concerned he was more interested in my English because he was interested in a career change. He wanted to represent the new Russian government in the United Nations Atomic Energy Institute in Vienna. And to take that position he had to have good English. So I was introduced to him and he asked me a question if I could do something and the relationship started. A relationship that went on for a couple of years until he finally did get his position in Vienna. During the course of relating to him I had an opportunity to, he wanted all of his staff to know English because they were dealing with Americans on a fairly regular basis. So I put together a couple of lessons for his staff. Well needless to say I got a lot of invitations from dinner out of the staff who were attending these classes. One excuse was to practice their English but another one was that curiosity that Russians had at that time and probably still have about what makes an American tick. And I would take up these invitations. One invitation I got from a researcher who already was quite fluent in French and now was perfecting his English. But he invited me to his house and I obliged, showed up with the customary flowers for his wife and some soft drinks so that I made sure I had something to drink with a meal. Because I got accustomed to being greeted with a bottle of vodka but at this particular place there wasn't any vodka. And I was so surprised by it I made a remark about it and he said well I'm sorry we can go get some but normally we don't drink. But if you would like some will go and I said no no no I don't drink. And then he related the story to me which puts a lot of things in perspective. He said that when Gorbachev was president of USSR and was trying to do something about the rampant alcoholism in the Soviet Union. He rationed alcohol and also made it known that if you wanted to do anything in the Communist Party you had to be non-drinker. Well a lot of people did what they could but most people just kind of took his advice and bought the limit on their allotment per month and whatever else they could get their hands on. And Vladimir wasn't any different. He said one night he was coming home from Moscow. He had about two hour train ride to where he lives from Moscow. And he stopped in this bookstore on his way out of town and he saw this book written by somebody in his particular area of expertise in nuclear physics. And he thought about buying this book but he just couldn't see spending the thirty rubles or whatever it cost. I think thirty rubles was a figure. After deliberating for thirty minutes he said he left the store without purchasing the book. And he walked to the train and on the way to the train he passed a kiosk and he noticed that they had his favorite vodka in this kiosk. And so without thinking he shelled out the same amount of money that the book was going for for this bottle of vodka. And without even thinking you know he was on his way home with his bottle of vodka it dawned on him. The vodka had priority over his profession and this caught him so much off guard or stunned him in such a way that by the time he got home he said to his wife I don't think we should drink anymore. And she said I agree and they poured not only that vodka but all other alcohol they had in their house down the drain and they were not drinking as of this meeting. But he didn't stop there. Vladimir didn't stop there. He wanted to do something because he realized that he had to have this alcohol and he wanted some help. At that time there was other westerners that had come in to the Soviet Union. This is before the collapse of the Soviet Union. There's a term in Russian called Sami's Dot. Sami's Dot means self-published. It is a literal translation. But what it is is here's a culture in the Soviet Union where it's illegal to own a typewriter. It was illegal to have a copier. But these are common tools certainly by the 1980s to have a fax, a copier or even a printer, a typewriter for crying out loud in America. I was weaned on one just about. But it was illegal to have a personal typewriter unless you were pretty high up in the Communist Party. So these books that were not legal to be read would somehow find a copier and copies would be made and they'd be passed around amongst people in different forms. A lot of modern Russian literature, some of the best I might add, that we were reading here in the States were read in this method behind the Iron Curtain, as it were, in the Soviet Union, passed around copies. Well, one copy that Vladimir got ahold of was a copy of this book that I had been carrying in translation, but this is in 1988, 1989, before the Soviet Union collapsed. Vladimir is an ambitious man and he was kept his nose clean as far as the Communist Party was concerned. He didn't buy the whole philosophy, but that was what you had to do in order to be what he wanted to be. Which was a top researcher in his field. And of course that meant that you needed to tow the line, especially when it came to what we would call a clandestine meeting. You could not meet any place in the Soviet Union, officially, and discuss God. And of course this book, which talks about getting sober, teaches people how to find a power greater than themselves to help them first get sober and then stay sober. So this Sami's Dot, this copy of a book, was passed around, but all the words that related to God, or higher power, or being greater than yourself, were all blacked out. But that's what he used as he started a group in his town to help them keep from drinking. Well, this is all in the past by the time I met him, and he hadn't had a drink for several years. But the group was still going, and now they had access to this Russian literature in the form. It could be read with the words God in it. In fact, Vladimir was a member of the local Russian Orthodox Church, a regular attender at services. And what's interesting about that is how difficult, like I said, how difficult it was for people to break out of that way of thinking. And yet, how they could. I'm just a basic belief that there was a possibility to stay sober. ♪ ♪ Some really hardy burned my eyes burn so hard I thought I'd die, thought I'd die, died and gone to hell, looking for the water from a deeper well. ♪ ♪ ♪ I went to the river, but the river was dry, I filled in my knees and I looked to the sky, looked to the sky in the spring rain filled. ♪ Eyes on the water from a deeper well. We're here looking by the water from a deeper well. We're here looking by the water from a deeper well. We're here looking by the water from a deeper well. I was ready for the love, I was ready for the money. Ready for the blood and ready for the honey. Ready for the wind, ready for the bell. Looking for the water from a deeper well. I found some love and I found some money. Found that blood would drip from honey. Found that had a thirst that I could not quill. Looking for the water from a deeper well. We're here looking by the water from a deeper well. We're here looking by the water from a deeper well. We're here looking by the water from a deeper well. We're here looking by the water from a deeper well. We're here looking by the water from a deeper well. We're here looking by the water from a deeper well. We're here looking by the water from a deeper well. We're here looking by the water from a deeper well. We're here looking by the water from a deeper well. We're here looking by the water from a deeper well. I rocked with a cradle in a row with a rage. I shook those walls and a rattle of the cage. Took my trouble down a dead in trail. I reached a night hand for a holy grail. Hey there a mama did you carry that load? Did you tell your baby about the bend in the road? About the rebel, yeah about the one that fell. Looking for the water from a deeper well. We're here looking by the water from a deeper well. We're here looking by the water from a deeper well. I hope you recognize the music of Emmy Lou Harris. The song was "Deep or Well", obviously a song about struggles with addiction. I'm Mark Helpsmeat and you're listening to "Spirit in Action". My guest today on "Spirit in Action" is Pete Wagner. Amongst his travels as a Vietnam vet and sense in his travels in Russia is the story of his own struggle with alcoholism and to share the methods of coping that he's learned with the people of Russia. I've often thought of this organization, at least the way it works in my life, as spiritual kindergarten. It's based on some very basic spiritual principles that when focused on the necessary personality changes that have to take place in order for a person to not only be sober but also stay sober and like it and like themselves. That's definitely a spiritual situation. One step leads to another to another. After a while, an association like that, you see spiritual growth in others and experience it in yourself. But understand that in a former Soviet Union, this whole question of religion was a big question mark. A lot of people, a lot of people that I was associating with really were looking for some kind of guidance. When I explained to them that in the small city that I was from, there were more churches in that city of 80,000 people than there was in the whole city of Moscow, a city of 13 million. People started to get this picture that I was some kind of religious fanatic and maybe all Americans were. And there were a lot of people, a lot of Americans coming to Russia from spiritual faith-based groups, I would say, to support orphanages, churches, building churches to try to get congregation started. One good friend of mine in that city was a faith healer who filled a stadium full of Russian people and laid his hands on them. Started a congregation from that. So there were a lot of things that people were exploring that they hadn't been allowed to explore. And that was both frightening for most of the people I was dealing with because they really didn't have much of a foundation. Also, people were getting somewhat skeptical. I know that there's a lot more you could share about your experience with Russia because of what we discussed before. And I hope I will have a chance to talk to you later about that. I want to thank you for what you have had time to share here about Russia, about your experience with Vietnam, and about the experience of the spirit working in your life and changing your life. So thanks for taking this morning to be with me, Pete. It's my pleasure and maybe someone can make sense of this. You've been listening to a spirit and action interview with Pete Wagner, Vietnam veteran recovering alcoholic and Russian traveler. You can hear this interview again via my website, northernspiritradio.org, and on that site you can find other information about this program, useful links, and additional programs. The theme music for spirit and action is "I Have No Hands But Yours" by Carol Johnson. Thank you for listening. I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. You can email me at helpsmeat@usa.net. May you find deep roots to support you and grow subtly toward the light. This is spirit in action. ♪ I have no higher cause for you than this ♪ ♪ To love and serve your neighbor ♪ ♪ Enjoying selflessness ♪ ♪ To love and serve your neighbor ♪ ♪ Enjoying selflessness ♪ ♪ ♪ [MUSIC PLAYING]