He Continues to Inspire

I met Joe Labriola after he wrote to me in response to a column I had written about my Marine drill instructor. I visited him at Souza Baranowski. We found a lot of common ground in the Marine-Vietnam connection. And I wrote a column after learning that Joe's Vietnam service had actually been used against him during his trial. I found that disgraceful but not surprising considering the image of the psychotic Vietnam veteran that had claimed such a prominent place in our popular culture in the early 70s.

After that first visit in 2003, I kept going back. I drive the 85 miles from my home in Fall River to Shirley because I have found a friend who shares a vital experience with me and who is funny and smart and caring. Joe's spirit, that's what his friends talk about. We feed on it. He really does do far more for us than we can ever do for him. He is an enduring example of human dignity, of claiming a life of thoughts and ideas and friendship within the most emotionally draining atmosphere imaginable. After more than 35 years in prison, he continues to inspire. He also continues what seems an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and information. He has a better informed take on what's going on in the world than a vast majority of people who live free.

This is an extraordinary man. He has claimed a life within the prison system by going deep inside himself and finding and nurturing the things that sustain him in the darkest hours. I have seven volumes of his journals on my desk. I can pick up any one of them, open to any page and claim a small piece of history from the last 40 or 50 years.

Obviously, I think Joe Labriola should be free. I keep hearing of others who are released from similar sentences. And none of them shed blood for his country.

Bob Kerr
The Providence Journal
75 Fountain St.
Providence, R.I. 02902

October 8, 2008