Johnny Pail Face Becomes a Human Being - Softcover

John Jarvis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1937146456 ISBN 13: 9781937146450

Publisher: Levellers Press, 2014

Synopsis

In the complex process of becoming a "true human being," Johnny Pail Face is an unusual guide. Born amid the desperate poverty of a Navajo reservation in New Mexico, he has passed through many worlds, cultures and peoples on a 90-year quest for dignity and self-respect. Along the way, he experienced not one but two genocides. In the first, his Native American people were the victims. In the second, he fought with gun and bayonet alongside fellow Americans against Hitler's war machine and came out the victor. "I don't know which fight wounded me worse," he says. The first genocide left him crazy with anger, the second crazy with despair. It took him two more wars to work things out. In the end, Johnny Pail Face fought in three wars for his country. He lost the ability to love in World War II and did not find it again until two wars later, in the jungles of Vietnam. He also fought alcoholism and won, but lost three wives and two daughters in the decades-long battle. He spent years abroad working for the U. S. military. He learned the languages of the places he lived. He worked the black market on the side. He devoted himself to finding God. He bought a woman in Korea and set her free. He gave his heart to a woman in France and she set him free. In this life-long journey, he learned first to survive, then to prosper, and finally to conquer those forces within and without that kept him from being the understanding and giving human being that he feels it was his destiny to become. His tale offers hope of redemption to those who struggle. A Navajo boy taught to loathe who he was learned how to love who he is. To get from there to here, Pail Face admits that he "did everything for all the wrong reasons." Then he adds with a twinkle in his old eyes: "And it has all turned out just right." John Jarvis teaches English and Native Cultural Studies at Bay Path College in Longmeadow, Massachusetts.

About this edition

• Publisher: Levellers Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1937146456
• ISBN 13: 9781937146450
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 410