Veterans Day - 2007

It is Veteran' Day. Beth and I attended a nice program at the Timberlane High School auditorium at the invitation of our good friends Janet and Roger Denison. As I looked through the program this caught my eye:

DEFINITION OF A VETERAN: A Veteran - whether active duty, retired, reserve or national guard - is someone who, at one point in his/her life, wrote a blank check, made payable to "The United States of America", for an amount of "up to and including my life." --Author Unknown

I guess for most of you who know me, you know that the two holidays most difficult and most loved by me are Veteran's Day and Memorial Day. Memorial day has always been a day to remember those comrades that I lost in the Vietnam war, along with the loss of so many military people in so many conflicts. But Veteran's Day is a little different. Veteran's Day is a day to remember those who served in the military forces. Basically, for me, Memorial Day for the dead, Veteran's Day for those who were living. Thus, Veteran's Day, for me, was always a day to remember...my father. Dad epitomized to me 'The Veteran'. I have so many memories all tied into Dad's military service, because the effects of his military service tied into his whole life.



From what I have put together along with other members of the family, Dad joined the Army in about 1938 or 1939, after a not so wonderful home life. He had his share of issues and problems and quit high school to join. I am hypothesizing now, but I think that he had to know that war was eventually coming, after all Hitler was beginning his takeover of Europe and a lot of Americans were enlisting in Canada and England to fight the Germans. Anyway he enlisted and was a member of the 1st Infantry Division, in a Field Artillery Unit. I think the Army and Dad were probably a good fit. It gave him some of the discipline he needed and also allowed him to be something he wanted to be. Somewhere during that time he began dating my mother and just before being shipped to England on the Queen Mary he went AWOL and married my mother. His figuring was, If I am going to war anyway, what can they do to me if I go AWOL a few days first. They got married secretly with just a few people present, Robert and Mary Roy I believe stood up for them (Mary was mom's best friend from high school). Then Dad went back and was subsequently (which means after perhaps a little time in the brig) shipped overseas.



Dad did not have it easy. He landed in North Africa and fought first the Vichy French and then later the Germans. He fought at a number of famous battles in North Africa, to include Kasserine Pass, and was frequently shelled not only by the Germans but also by the Americans when their long range shells fell short. He was also lost more than once behind enemy lines, including at Kasserine Pass, during quick retreats by the American Forces. Then it was off to Sicily. While there one night his unit was told to expect a German air drop. Sure enough the air drop occurred and they were picking off the paratroopers like flies. Dad tells of sighting in on one that twisted in his harness as he descended, and Dad caught sight of an American Flag arm patch in his sights. The intelligence had been wrong. The airdrop was one of Americans not Germans, and the ground troops had been killing their own comrades. Dad was able to help the paratrooper he had almost killed, from a tree and, again as Dad tells it, he and this trooper (a major) found a Sicilian barn full of wine together. They didn't leave for two or three days! AWOL was one of those things that just didn't seem to bother Dad too much.

I don't know how long after the paratrooper incident occurred that Dad was hospitalized. He could no longer emotionally take what had occurred through the North African and Sicilian campaigns. He was transferred to a hospital in England and later to a military hospital in Florida. While in England he became aware of the Normandy invasion and tried to sneak out of the hospital to board the ships with his beloved 1st Division. Unfortunately (or fortunately) he was unsuccessful. The treatment at the hospitals was probably the newest of its' kind - Electroshock treatment and various physical and occupational therapies. He was finally discharged, I believe in 1944 or 1945, with a disability. Mom said that this was not the man she had married, he was very different; and, he never did fully return to who he was before the war.

This was the only Dad that my brother and sisters and I ever knew. I recall my early childhood sprinkled with visits to the VA Hospital in Manchester, NH, playing on the leather sofa with my brother while Dad and Mom met with Dr. Lombard - the staff psychiatrist. That went on for quite a few years. Dad was always on medication, Valium, Lithium and a variety of others. Mix it with a drink or two and he was gone. I think the alcohol he used was a way to help quiet the demons that roamed inside of him. Rick and I would play a game with Dad when we went on trips. We would both be in the back seat and would tap dad on the shoulder unexpectedly. Whoosh his arm would fly out and we would duck. Occasionally it caught mom but usually it went flying over our heads - we thought it was pretty funny - little did I know at the time this was just one manifestation of the problems he had.

I won't go into other details. Dad never talked about the war, although he enjoyed shows like "Combat", "McHale's Navy" and "Bilko", as well as other WW II shows and war movies. That is what we all grew up on.

I think that Dad was proud that both Rick and I joined the Army. He certainly tried to get us to wear our uniforms wherever we went - whether we wanted to wear them or not. Again we didn't talk much about such things. When I shipped off to Vietnam Dad told me the same thing his father apparently told him, 'Don't worry, a bad penny always returns'. it was meant to try and keep us both from tears. When i came home he was right there, with a cooler full of beer in the back of he car. We sat and had one together as we waited for Rick to arrive from Hawaii. I think it was the first time I ever really started to understand a little about my Dad and what he had been through. I had had a taste with a year in Vietnam, he had eaten the whole meal in North Africa and Sicily.

Veteran's Day really began to take on focus to me when Mom and Dad moved in with us in Pennsylvania. We started going to the Veteran's programs together. I loved sitting next to him at the Tunkhannock High School auditorium when they would have their Veteran's Day program. We would both stand proudly together when they played "The Caisson's Go Rolling Along", the traditional Army song. And when I was asked to be the speaker at one of the programs it felt great to have Dad in the audience. For a few years I was the Sergeant in charge of the rifle detail for the "21 Gun Salute" at the Memorial Day programs. Dad was there. I even got him to ride in the parade inside of a Humvee.

When we moved to New Hampshire we continued to go to some of the programs, but it was never quite as good as sitting in the auditorium at the high school in PA. Once or twice he shared some stories about the war - like the one I mentioned earlier in Sicily. I think if I had asked more he would have told me. I wish I had...but who knew he wouldn't live forever. A few years later, ironically while I was on active duty locally with the Army reserve, Dad was dead.

It was only upon his death that I realized how very much I loved him, and how much I missed him. There are many days when I think of him and wish he were here, but none more so than on Veteran's Day. I never heard him complain about being a veteran, never heard him complain about his treatment at any of the VA facilities, never heard him once wish that he had done something other than join the Army and fight in WWII. Never once did he complain about being a soldier, regardless of what it had done to him emotionally and mentally. Dad was always,always proud of his service. He loved the military, loved the 1st Division and he spoke with an unabashed kind of love for General Terry Allen who had commanded the 1st Division.

Veteran's Day will always be, in my mind and heart, my personal Father's Day. Dad never failed to buy a red poppy on Veteran's Day to help the Disabled Veterans. I make sure every year I have one, just a small tribute to him, who was a disabled veteran. I can not go to a program and hear the Army Song without getting to my feet and, with a tear or two, think of my father. Understanding him now, at least better than I ever did before, makes me realize was a good man he was, and how hard he tried, regardless of the obstacles in front of him. There are millions of veterans out there in the world, including me. But whenever I hear the word "Veteran" only one person's face comes to my mind, my Dad. Dad, wherever you are, I hope you know that I love you...and thanks for your service... and for your example.