J. Michael Orange
Who am I? More than the mere sum of my experiences? You are probably reading this because of an interest in my book, "Fire in the Hole: A Mortarman in Vietnam," so I'll start there. My book is not a typical war story. While I do describe in detail the carnage and insanity of war, it's more a story of transformation of character--my character--as I came of age in the 60s. Vietnam was my rite of passage as I morphed in a few short years from Catholic seminarian to Marine to sailor in the Merchant Marines to college student to anti-war protestor. After surviving a year of combat and the loss of fellow Marines, I came home in 1970 to another battlefield-Kent State University, where the Ohio National Guard gunned down my classmates. The next year, I was in front of the US Capitol when fellow veterans, led by former-Senator John Kerry, protested against the war they fought by throwing their medals over the Capitol fence. I joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War on the spot.
My book is a deep reflection on my journey of tumult and tears. This is what my friend, the late Senator Paul Wellstone wrote about my book: "Orange has written a powerful book. . . . He has crafted a morally sensitive story that begs for discussion and demands that we remember those whom we sent to fight the Vietnam War--a war that continues to define the next generation."
In 1973, I married the love of my life, Cynthia, the woman I had met at the top of the Empire State Building five years earlier, and we raised our daughter, Jessica, with great love. My education involved earning a B.A. at Kent State University and an M.A. in city planning at Minnesota State University, Mankato, but my most important classrooms were my thirty odd jobs that included auto assembly lines, railroad and home construction, roofing in New Orleans' French Quarter, and driving school buses. Finally, I got my dream job as a city planner for the City of Minneapolis. Thirty-one years later, I retired from that fulfilling career to form my own consulting company, ORANGE Environmental, LLC, with a focus on environmental planning. I also had a brief career in the most honorable of all jobs--teacher. I taught a graduate student course, “Sustainable City Planning,” at MN State University Mankato and classes on the Vietnam War.
I'm still sufficiently fit to enjoy biking, cross-country skiing, yoga, hiking, and pickleball. Fantasies of learning to paint and being in a rock band entice me still. For some strange reason I keep getting invited back 3-4 times a month over the last few years to sing the songs of my coming-of-age-years to the vets and staff at the Minnesota Veterans Home with my 1966 Gibson J45 Dreadnought acoustic guitar. I love it!
Cynthia and I are embraced and loved by our incredibly supportive community of family and friends. We collaborate on each other's involvements, especially writing projects (visit her "Author's Profile" and read about her most recent, award-winning books, "Shock Waves: A Practical Guide to Living with a loved One's PTSD," and “Take Good Care: Finding Your Joy in Compassionate Caregiving."
Thirty-three years after Vietnam, I finally mustered the courage to face the demons that lurked inside me all those years and get the help I needed. I completed nine months of therapy for my case of combat-related PTSD. As part of my ongoing recovery (there is no cure), I stay very involved with Veterans for Peace and befriend fellow vets with PTSD.
My second book, "Embracing the Ghosts: PTSD and the Vietnam Quagmire,” is best described by psychotherapist and grief counselor, Dianna Diers, "Michael Orange presents a deeply-toned mosaic, a 're-membering,' of exiled parts of the life and memory that brought him to psychotherapy, meditation, political activism, and elderhood. Met with much honesty, humility, courage, and compassion, the ghosts reveal their lessons to Michael and to us. It is not what or even who we are, but how we are with all of ourselves and one another, that heals."
This is the most fulfilling period of our lives together, due primarily to being grandparents for our identical twin grandsons who were born in 2006. They are joy personified.
