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Randall Lee Dockstader has become the record keeper of his family tribe. In Colonial times, his Oneida Indian relatives sided with American colonists fighting the Revolutionary War. They saved Washington's starving troops, during the winter at Valley Forge, by bringing their own food supplies several hundred miles to feed the soldiers. In 1777, the Continental Congress pledged to remember their contribution.
War and peace are two major themes of this book. Wars mentioned include the Revolutionary times; World War II when his father, half Oneida Indian, served in the Navy from 1942-45; and Vietnam where the author too served America. Patriotism is clearly an ancillary theme. How strange to observe such fidelity even after promises made by the government to the Oneida tribe were broken.
The author too has struggled to get the government to pay medical benefits for his service. Several photos in the book show documentation assembled and submitted per instructions that resulted in requests for more paperwork. Peace finally enters the book with Dockstader's relocation to India to live and study religion. Floral photos and a rangoli, Indian floor art, reveal a now happy, post-war life.
Sophistication Honors is a record more than a book, especially in the first section where this author uses six or seven paragraphs with broken phrases and capitalized words to tell his life stats. You can almost hear the sound of tribal chanting in the background. Some record keepers pass on life stories orally through chants, poems, or choruses; others record in drawings on cave walls or photos stored in a shoe box. Still others, unlike Dockstader, journal their memories into diaries that preserve the past. However, this short book demonstrates two things: Everyone has a story to tell, and close relatives and friends likely make the best audience.