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Good-Bye Jack McCloskey
Veterans' activist dies at 53
Larry D. Hatfield
OF THE EXAMINER STAFFSun, Feb. 18, 1996
TY: NOTABLE OBITUARY
Jack McCloskey, a wounded and much-decorated veteran of the Vietnam War who quietly spent the rest of his life trying to ease the pain from that war, has died. He was 53.
"Jack was one of the few people in the world that you run across that you know has made this world a better place," said Michael McCain, a former fellow activist in Vietnam Veterans Against the War and now a Chicago television producer. "His work saved thousands of lives here (in the United States) after the war ended."
"Jack was our beacon of what was needed to help disaffected and disadvantaged Vietnam veterans," said Ron Bitzer, a Southern California health care fund-raiser who helped Mr. McCloskey create Swords to Plowshares, one of the nation's premier veterans groups.
In poor health since the war
Mr. McCloskey died of heart failure at his San Francisco home Thursday night. He had been in poor health since the war, suffering from various side effects of two sets of wounds, Agent Orange exposure and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The product of a Philadelphia orphanage, Mr. McCloskey served in the Navy from 1962 to 1966, then was recalled in 1967 and sent to Vietnam as a corpsman with a Marine division.
While there, he was wounded twice, once in the Tet offensive at Hue, and was awarded the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Silver Star.
When he returned to the United States, Mr. McCloskey found a nation tired of war and unwilling to accept its veterans back as it had those of previous wars. Like many of his colleagues, he had picked up a drug habit during the war and found little help for himself or other veterans coming home.
"We were invisible to most people," he told an Examiner reporter in 1973. "Those who did acknowledge us hated us because they knew the war was wrong and they had to blame somebody for it, so they blamed us."
He became an activist, both against the war he considered unjust and for the rights of veterans of the war. He also kicked a morphine habit, although neither his health nor habits ever fully recovered from his war experience.
Mr. McCloskey became active in the anti-war movement, particularly VVAW, but he also was a catalyst in the infant, early 1970s movement that dealt with such issues as the then-unrecognized post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism, suicide, joblessness and other problems Vietnam veterans were facing.
He formed an organization called Twice Born Men, the forerunner of Swords, Flower of the Dragon and other veterans self-help groups.
Author Jerry Nicosia, who is writing a book on the Vietnam veterans movement, said Mr. McCloskey and a few others were responsible for forcing the medical establishment and the Veterans Administration to recognize post-traumatic stress and agent orange-caused diseases as service-related disorders.
"Jack was highly respected for a lot of reasons, but most of all, people talked about his purity," Nicosia said.
"The cause of veterans' rights was his purpose. He never gained fame or made money from it, as some did. He lived a totally poor, destitute life, essentially hand to mouth. His whole life was dedicated to correcting the wrongs against veterans.
"He was never famous in a national way, but he was famous among his friends. He was always there, always there for Vietnam vets."
Country Joe McDonald, an icon of the anti-war movement, said he became involved in veterans' rights issues because of Mr. McCloskey. "Jack was solely instrumental in making me realize I was personally a veteran," McDonald said. "It really blew my mind and destroyed my cover as a rock star. He was part of a small handful of Vietnam vets who were activists in treating the problems of veterans that had not been acknowledged. Jack shouldn't have died."
Country Joe dedicates concert
McDonald planned to dedicate his Saturday night concert to Mr. McCloskey. It was a dinner for homeless people at a veterans center prepared by the chefs from the USS Constellation.
Mr. McCloskey was a pioneer in the system of storefront veterans counseling centers now operating throughout the nation, said Swords Executive Director Michael Blecker.
"He helped get the Veterans Administration out of its institutional walls and into the streets where the problems were," Blecker said, adding that Mr. McCloskey also pioneered self-help programs for minority and women veterans. "He was in the forefront of the whole idea of peer counseling, the idea of Vietnam veterans healing themselves."
Mr. McCloskey attended Antioch College and City College of San Francisco. He is survived by his former wife, Lydia, of Oakland, two daughters, Molly and Susan, and a brother, Vincent, of Philadelphia.
A memorial will be held Monday from 3 to 5 p.m. at Reilly Funeral Home, 1598 Dolores St., San Francisco. Rather than flowers, the family would appreciate contributions to Swords to Plowshares, 995 Market, San Francisco, CA 94103.
© Sun, Feb. 18, 1996 San Francisco Examiner, All Rights Reserved
When Jack McCloskey passed away all I could think of is his over 20 years with Rock Medicine and countless years working for peace and Veteran’s rights in the Haight Ashbury, San Francisco, for longer then I can remember. I’ve known Jack for over 20 years and I’m going to miss him as much as Jerry. Jack was also a co-founder of Swords to Plowshares, Jack is survived by his former wife and two daughters.
OCT. 20, 1942 -- FEB 15, 1996 53 years to short!
I'd like to thank the over 300 friends of Jack's who attened the good-by at Reilly Funeral Home, San Francsico, on Monday February 19th 1996.
Memorial benefit for Viet vet activist features local stars
Tues, March 12, 1996
A benefit featuring Bay Area entertainers Country Joe McDonald, Michael Pritchard, Paul Krassner, Wavy Gravy, David Harris and others will be held March 24 in memory of Jack McCloskey, the legendary Vietnam veteran activist who died in San Francisco last month.
The benefit is sponsored by Swords to Plowshares, the San Francisco-based veterans rights organization McCloskey helped found, and the Family Dog.
Proceeds from the $10-a-person admission will be split between Swords and an education fund for McCloskey's two daughters.
The benefit is at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, March 24, at Maritime Hall, 450 Harrison St. Tickets are available through BASS, by phone at (415) 974-0634, at the usual Family Dog ticket outlets and at the door.
Vietnam Veterans Against the War will hold a similar memorial in Chicago on the same day.
McCloskey, 53, a much-decorated Marine medic in Vietnam, played a critical role in organizing counseling groups for Vietnam veterans and the first of what became the successful network of veteran centers around the nation. He died of heart failure in San Francisco Feb. 15.
MARCH 24, 1996 Sunday Time 2:30 PM -- $ 10 tickets
THE FAMILY DOG PRESENTS: "Good-bye Jack McCloskey"
Benefit featuring Country Joe McDonald, Michael Pritchard,
Paul Krassner, Wavy Gravy & many other.
Maritime Hall, 450 Harrison Street, San Francisco
More info: 415-974-6644 * 415-974-0634 For Tickets
http://www.familydog.com/
Who was Jack:
Co-founder of Swords to Plowshares, and Rock Medicine
Volunteer for over 20 years.
http://www.RockMed.org/jack.htm
A Benefit for his two daughters and Swords to Plowshares.
From: "Allen Cohen" (SFORACLE@HOOKED.NET)
To: Rock Medicine (RAZ@RockMed.org)
Subject: Poem
Date sent: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 10:35:09 -0800
THREE LIVES AND SOME HIPPIE TRUTHS.
For Jack McCloskey, Ron Thelin
and Ambrose HollingsworthSometimes I get the feeling that I'm disappearing behind the glaring spotlight of media- the political circus, TV, and Sports, and Movie heroes In this world of 6 inch and 20 foot tall images who do nothing for humanity except sell sneakers or make empty speeches, or appear in the dream world of sex and violence, and get paid millions of dollars despite their marginal and illusory existence, in this world our own lives, the lives of those whose acts come within the scope of their talents, their intelligent daily decisions, their unrewarded kindness and love. seem to dissolve in frustration and toil against the silence of the calculus of history. But look closely at those lives with their true heroism of every moment, fulfilled through the sustenance of friendship, the love of the children and one another. For each other they become larger than life, far larger than movie screens, in the singing of a song the reaching out of a hand across the emptiness, the drawing of a picture, the writing of a poem even in the washing of a dish, the repairing of a fence or car, the sewing of a loose button. I am sitting at the memorial for Jack McCloskey, at the Family Dog Ballroom. Jack was the Vietnam Veteran counselor whose life starting in that war that so defined our era, was given to reaching out to others. First to their bodies when as a front line unarmed medic, he gave aid to the wounded. He would overcome the fear of witnessing death's witless massacres each time he hurled himself into the line of fire. After the war, he learned the necessity of healing the mind that survived the broken bodies, and then the souls that were left helpless before the void of meaningless pain. In this way he gave his heart away to the veterans who needed it. There was no People Magazine for Jack McCloskey No "Jack McCloskey dies News at Eleven." Country Joe McDonald is playing Sweet Lorraine. The light show vibrates the air and his friends dance. Now, my friend Ron Thelin also has died at too young an age. How we were tied together by those mysterious threads that pull us from life to life. Two unheralded, trusting young men traversed the Godhead, and a spark ignited in that calculus of history. Ron started psychedelic central in the Haight Ashbury, and a few months later he gave us the money to begin the San Francisco Oracle. Our lights lit a small path for the world. We learned in that cauldron the integrity that kept our lives dedicated to the unfolding of the mysterious heart and the infinite depth of the moment and place we live in. Through the years the glowing diamond of Ron's life was his wife, Marsha, and their children, Kira, Jaspar Starfire, and Ace. This was the longest running marriage and family of our generation. Yes, we also shared our lives with our mistakes, with our excesses and our failures. But our love, my brothers and sisters, enters into the small molecules of our genes and builds souls, and those souls will create histories, and beings, and worlds, and unite generation to generation, and that love is at the beginning and the end. Then Ambrose Hollingsworth, whose small light also lit the path of our history. Ambrose bound to his wheelchair a writer, scholar, and occultist taught the occult philosophies wherever he rolled. He told me once during the time he was choosing the astrologically correct date for the Human-Be-In what the hidden secret was, "We are not just the broken body," he said. "We are one infinite soul vibrating, expanding, contracting - one being, one God." Watch out now we are heading here for the basic hippie truths - no political analysis: Like the swirling vibrating colors of the light show we are rocking with the galactic winds. Brothers and sisters, we are the galactic winds and all the burning suns rolling toward the end of the universe, which we are also, or the endlessness of the universe, which we also are or the turning mobius strip of the universe which we are. And our love, the inner and the outer love, that is our true nature, our contribution to the calculus of history. Sensual love and the love that binds us to All of It, to the oneness, that smiling, joyful, peaceful love that makes each step, each motion, each breath so real, so eternal and so momentary, the carrying water and chopping wood moment the marrying through moment, the merging into your lover moment the moment when death and life are one.Allen Cohen
Everyone is cordially invited to a casual gathering of the
“Friends of Jack McCloskey”
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
5:00PM-9:00PM
San Francisco Brewing Co.
155 Columbus Ave.
Call Raz 415-487-3681 for questions.
1942 - 1996
CLICK ON PHOTO
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