Semper Fi
Jeremie “Bacpac” Franko
For Sgt. Thelma “Tee” Quarress
Tonight, I did something I have never done before:
I kissed my mother on her head and held her hand.
A sign that said “No public display of affection”
had been permanently etched into my ego,
making this final moment an almost impossible irony
as the woman who raised me to be tough
grew weak and passed without a fight.
The woman who enlisted at 18 did not go out
marching to the Battle Hymn of the Republic,
nor sit up in bed and salute to the Marine Corps Hymn.
At long last, it was time to call for an end to the war,
especially the one that raged quietly between us,
so I took my Sargent in my arms, and asked her to accept a truce,
and I let go of the battle and gave her a hug.
I played her a song on my i-phone, a Marine Corps hymn,
and I felt her cold skin grow clammy and white.
I thanked her in spite of past conflicts,
said, yes I did love you, you know,
And on a piece of paper I wrote the words:
Good-Bye, Mommy, Shalom and Peace
and placed it under a stiffened branch
that had been an arm yesterday.
And I pulled the blanket over her head.
Jeremie “Bacpac” Franko is a professional aerosol muralist, a rockabilly DJ, a swing dancer, and an emerging 3-D modeling architecture-centric artist. “Bacpac” has designed sound studios, having studied architectural acoustics; painted sets and backdrops as a Union Scenic Artist for major feature film studios, and designed buildings as a young architect. She was the guitarist for the English punk-band The Raincoats during the punk years in the UK. She has a passion for machines and poetry and is the daughter of Sgt. Thelma “Tee” Quarress and Sgt. Leonard Franko, both U.S. Marines who enlisted prior to WW II, where Sgt. Franko fought in the Pacific Theater (Guadalcanal) and the Korean War and was part of the special MAC-V-SOG (civilian) unit during the U.S. engagement with Viet Nam. “Bacpac” wanted to enlist as an architect for the U.S. Marine Corps, but both parents quashed her wish, as they said it was “not necessary during ‘peace time,’” and that she should pursue architecture as a civilian instead.
ISSUED 