Minneapolis

October 13, 2008

Alec Soth is at Duke’s bedside.

Today I visited my uncle’s partner, Duke Schneider, at the Veteran’s Hospital in Minneapolis. The V.A. is never a cheery place, but the mood today was especially dreary. It was raining outside and most non-essential employees were off for Columbus Day. The hospital was dark and lonely.

McCain CNN, Veterans Administration Hospital, Minneapolis

To break the mood, Duke turned on the television. On CNN we watched John McCain at a rally in Norfolk, Virginia: “I’ve been fighting for this country since I was 17 years old, and I have the scars to prove it. If I’m elected President, I will fight to take America in a new direction from my first day in office until my last. I’m not afraid of the fight, I’m ready for it.”

Duke wasn’t afraid to fight either. He served in WWII from 1942-1944. Like so many of the “greatest generation,” he is reluctant to talk about his experiences in the war. But he has never been shy about sharing his political views. Duke is a diehard liberal and is frustrated by the hype over McCain’s military service. “If you were in an airplane and shot down, what would you have done for your country?” he said, “Look around this hospital. A lot of people have made sacrifices.”

I wonder how many of McCain’s supporters would be willing to salute the service of a gay liberal. Is the military, like Christianity, the sole domain of heterosexual conservatives?

Willie Turner, Veterans Administration Hospital, Minneapolis.

Leaving Duke’s room, I saw a man in the corridor crouched over a lens from a pair of reading glasses and small Bible. An employee who works in the hospital’s laundry room, Willie Turner told me that he often spends his thirty-minute lunch break reading the New Testament.

Willie came to V.A. after serving eight years in the Navy. I asked if his military background or his religion (he’s Missionary Baptist) affected his political affiliation. “I’ve always voted Democrat,” he said. “That stuff don’t sway me no way.”