Review: The Korean War: A forgotten conflict

The Korean War is one of the most sorely overlooked events in modern American history.

An eloquent remembrance of a father who served in the Korean War.

The Korean War is one of the most sorely overlooked events in modern American history.

In response, Michelle Myers Berg’s one-person memoir, "Blue Collar Diaries," which opened Saturday at St. Paul’s History Theatre, is a prayer answered for those who want to see the war acknowledged. Myers Berg draws from childhood memories of her late father, Paul Myers, a Korean War veteran who suffered night terrors sprung from chronic post-traumatic stress. He raised a family of eight on a tight budget as a union machinist with his wife, Arlene, while keeping his military heroics a secret. Myers Berg narrates and plays several characters.

As directed by Suzy Messerole, "Blue Collar Diaries" is a boldly compassionate work that never succumbs to blind patriotism or agitprop. Set in St. Paul in the 1960s and early ’70s, the play reveals Myers Berg as an observant girl who cannot yet process her father’s behaviors. Paul could be a frightening disciplinarian and then abruptly shift into astounding acts of kindness — such as the time a little girl came through the family’s front door out of subzero temperatures wearing anklet socks and sandals. Paul took her to Montgomery Wards and bought her snow boots. Though jealous at first, Myers Berg reveals how her little girl’s mind and heart came to understand what a beautiful act this was.

Two other entries are beguilingly enigmatic in their exploration of Paul’s state of mind. In one case, race seems to cloud his ability to accept a kindness extended by an African-American child who comes to his door. The other shows the Korean War veteran’s visceral disgust at his father’s orders to shoot roosting birds.

Myers Berg drolly notes how the war was euphemized as a "police action" — nothing more than a dispatcher’s call about trouble at the local 7/11.

By JOHN TOWNSEND