Keeping Faith
 John Schaeffer & Frank Schaeffer
 (Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
 2002 Carroll & Graf
  ISBN: 0786710977

A Father-Son Story About Love & The United States Marine Corps.

Written in alternating voices recounting 18 year-old Recruit Schaeffer's experiences of being broken down & built back up on Parris Island & his father, Frank Schaeffer, doting father, novelist, movie director & family chef's experiences of having his youngest son join the U.S. Marines.

I came up in a place (England) in a time (1940s & 1950s) when all my older brothers had to do their National Service. Those were the good old days when females were yet unacceptable in the military, so I simply had to stand on the sidelines, filled with an unnameable pride to see them in uniform, in union with their unit. Coming up in a nation forged out of & molded by war, reverence for all things military--navy, army & air force was a given. Our family religiously attended military tattoos, visited cenotaphs, laid wreaths, bought handmade poppies from veterans on sidewalks, read newspapers to wards of broken Warriors & stood in silence at the eleventh hour of the eleventh month every year--all inculcated in my early years.

Then I emigrated to America at the height of the Viet Nam War & the protests. At first I didn't understand the lack of patriotism rampant among the young, even as I was also meeting the Warriors returning home from their tours over there. I also didn't understand why America wasn't “winning” that war. Many years later I came to understand some of it. Now we've passed through the looking glass & terrorism has come to our land. Now as an American I want my country to remain free protected by The Brave. Keeping Faith is all about that protection & that bravery.

The Schaeffer father was raised by American missionary parents expatriated in Switzerland. Surviving a bout of childhood polio that left him limping with a leg iron “like Forrest Gump,” he barely made it through English boarding school & back to Switzerland to a Bohemian lifestyle as an artist, a teen marriage to American Genie before finding his skills as a documentary film maker. When husband & wife & two children eventually arrive in America, Frank was American only in name. Then John was born & the years passed, Frank's directing career blossomed, his novels were written, & his older children grew up & headed for college. His all-American liberal New England family life unfolded as expected until the fateful day when his youngest & most dearly beloved offspring decided, right out of high school, to enlist in the Marine Corps.

John Schaeffer was a bright, poetic boy, so bored by school he was failing. Raised in a loving, intellectual, cosmopolitan, affluent & liberal family he was growing away from his father, yearning for direction, for discipline, for commitment, for pride--perfect raw ore for the U.S. Marine Corps.

That last summer before Frank's nest was finally emptied & John's Boot Camp was about to start is a classic study of the clashes between father & son--of having to go & having to let go. Of a son choosing a career & a world about which the father knows nothing & thinks even less.

Through the son's experiences we are privy to seeing a boy grow into a man, of an egocentric teenager being remade into a team member with the ancient & honorable traits of commitment, endurance, honor & pride of a Warrior.

Through the father's experiences we discover how a parent loves, how an unexamined life begets jealousies & martinets are made, how thinking things through brings understanding, & how patriotism is grown.

Frank Schaeffer writes with unabashed honesty about his passionate reactions to his son's choices of both career & girlfriend during that Last Summer John was home. Frank's telling of his unusual childhood & life in quick & bright sketches--an expatriate who returns to the land of his birth into the Viet Nam War era & the crazy decades since--makes for fascinating reading. Frank's own path to maturity as a free American, a husband who finally starts listening to his wise & enduring wife, a father of successful college graduates, mirrors his son's struggle through training, both learning that the person next to him is more important.

John Schaeffer, through poems, letters home & narratives, tells of the intensity of daily life at boot camp, of surrendering to the ministrations of Drill Instructors during the three months (7,776,000 seconds because every second counts!) on Parris Island where he shed his ego & gained his identity--as a U.S. Marine. That John matured from half-hearted rebel into stalwart man is evident both in his own words & the glowing ones of his father.

In the aftermath of 9/11, the War on Terrorism & Operation Iraqi Freedom, Keeping Faith is a compelling glimpse of what makes a Warrior, & what makes an American patriot.

Throughout my reading of Keeping Faith J.C. Fogerty's lyrics & Creedence Clearwater Revival's hit Fortunate Son, a vehement Viet Nam War era song, rang in my ears:

“Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they're red, white and blue.
And when the band plays “Hail to the Chief”,
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, son...

“Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,
Lord, don't they help themselves, oh.
But when the taxman comes to the door,
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaire's son, no...

“Some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord,
And when you ask them, “How much should we give?”
Ooh, they only answer More! more! more! yoh,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no military son, son...”

In Keeping Faith, both father & son were “fortunate” ones who stepped up to the plate & said it was them, & I was right there cheering.

Very well done! An exhilarating read!

Frank Shaeffer's documentary films include: a series on medical ethics made for Dutch television, with the then surgeon general of the United States, Dr. C Everett Koop; “Wired to Kill,” “Headhunter,” “Rebel Storm” & “Baby On Board.” His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, the Miami Herald, the Pittsburgh Gazette & many other newspapers. He has also been a guest essayist on the PBS'NEWS HOUR with Jim Lehrer, & has been a guest commentator on NPR's ‘All Things Considered' & was recently a guest on Oprah (04/15/03). Frank has also written widely on Eastern Orthodox theology & history & is a frequent lecturer on the subject.

More from Frank Schaeffer: Saving Grandma, Portofino & Dancing Alone: The Quest for Orthodox Faith in the Age of False Religion.
(06/01/03)

Rebecca