My Veterans

Veterans’ Day 2020 is a long way from the end of World War II in 1945.  That was a very significant time in my young life.  I was born just before the war ended.  I was 7 months old before I met my father who had been serving in the Army in France.  Today I am thinking about my family members who served.

My Dad worked in a grocery store as a butcher prior to the war.  After being drafted and going through basic training, he was viewed as having leadership potential and was sent to Officers’ Candidate School. While in the military, he tripped a mine, but other than a ruptured eardrum, he was not hurt.  He told me that the day I was born was the last day anyone actually shot at him.  He came out of the Army as a 1^st Lieutenant, and this gave him a leg-up in job hunting after the war.  He worked for a time at Wurlitzer, a company that made juke boxes, and then began working for American Standard as the foreman in the core room.  He later moved and ended up as the production manager in a small business. He spent his life as a “blue collar” worker but always in management positions within the factory.

My Dad’s brother Roy was a conscientious objector, so he went in the military as a medic.  He was stationed on a hospital ship in the Pacific and saw some pretty awful things.  He had one experience that caused him to realize that he could kill someone if he needed to do so.  Coming out of the Army, he used the GI bill to go to college.  He became an engineer specializing in cooling systems.  I knew he traveled all over the world in the early 1950s, a time when such travel wasn’t typical.  Near the end of his 91 year-long life, he confessed that he had been working on cooling systems for nuclear reactors and couldn’t really admit that or talk about it.  He never married or had children.  I was his only niece and was probably closer to him than the nephews were.  He believed having to be in the military had negatively impacted my Dad’s life and earning potential, so in later years, he would send Dad large sums of money.  Dad would turn around and donate it somewhere.  This annoyed Uncle Roy.

My mother had three brothers, all of whom served during WWII.  The oldest brother Frank was already married and had a child when he left for Europe.  He was wounded by a German sniper, had a metal plate placed in his elbow, and recovered in England, before being sent back to the states.  In his absence, his wife had an affair with her boss.  She left Uncle Frank, divorced him, and took their son with her.  He tried to keep up with his son initially, although they were living in another state, but eventually he gave up.  He remarried, but never had another child. I don’t remember his exact career path, but he ended up as a Family Court Clerk.

Mom’s brother Chuck was my Dad’s best friend when they were young men.  That is how my parents met.  Chuck also served in Europe.  When he came home, he had a fairly short career as a fireman, but then went back into the military in the Air Force.  He made a life-time career of this, so he was around the least of my uncles as I grew up.  He sometimes sent letters and photos of places he was stationed.  He was in Alaska in the 50s and was once stationed at the Pentagon.  He was married but had no children.  He died unexpectedly at the age of 50 as a Lieutenant Colonel and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.  I have visited his grave there.

Mom’s youngest brother Art was in north Africa during the war and contracted malaria.  He had some bouts with this after the war.  He used the GI bill to attend college and law school.  He married and was into a promising career as a lawyer when his young daughter died of cancer.  He went through several disastrous years of grief and not working.  His wife supported them for a time.  Eventually, he pulled himself out of this time of despair and became a college professor.  He structured one of the first paralegal programs for a junior college.  He had always been a heavy smoker and died of lung cancer at about the age of 60.

In retrospect, I can see ways in which military service benefited some family members and had a negative impact on the lives of others.  No one talked about PTSD back then, but I suspect they all had it.  My parents said that after the war, they went to a movie together.  There was a scene at a party, that abruptly went into a war scene with guns blazing.  My Dad flattened himself on the floor of the theater and was shaking so badly that they left the movie.

None of these wonderful men are living now.  I have fond memories of all of them.  My uncles were very kind and encouraging to me.  Immediately after the war, all of the men I have mentioned except Uncle Roy were living with my maternal grandparents.  I was the little princess in the house, and my wish was their command.  I was spoiled rotten.  My mother thought she would never straighten me out.  Some of my first words were also their “colorful” language, but there was a great deal of mutual affection with all of these guys.  Uncle Chuck gave me anything I asked for, Uncle Art taught me to tell my mother I was “standing on my constitutional rights” if she scolded me, Uncle Frank was tallest and would bump my head on the ceiling….I called him Uncle Bink, and Uncle Roy and I developed a life-long secret word with which we greeted and admonished each other.  My Dad was a sometimes harsh and difficult man, but I loved him.  We butted heads right to the end, but we appreciated each other.

I am grateful they all made it home in 1945!