There for the Love of God Go I
I loved my father. He has been gone for quite a few years, and I miss him everyday. I am watching an old movie…about the time in 1941, when America had to cope with a military that was outdated…and was surprised by a sneak attack at Pearl Harbor.
In the days and weeks after Pearl Harbor thousands if not millions of American men and women volunteered for the military.
The Axis Powers had miscalculated, and encouraged Japan to start WWII (which was already happening in Europe) in the Pacific.
My father was in his early 20s. He had not even met my mother.
But it was the thing to do, and by December 10, 1941 millions of young men had volunteered to enter the service.
My father was one of them.
He was a poor kid, with an alcoholic father, in Red Bluff California. My mother was still in high school.
Millions crowded into the enlistment system in the days and then months of 1941 and 1942.
My father was a mechanic, but barely out of high school.
But like millions of others, young boys really were volunteering for the service. And he enlisted in the Marine Corps….
THE MARINE CORPS.
The Japanese had tragically misjudged the United States, and in a sense woke up a sleeping giant.
The Axis should have known, having basically lost WWI…that once the Americans got going, wars were lost.
My father never really talked about his role in WWII. I was about five when I started asking questions about “The War”. In the late 40s and early 50s WWII movies were the thing to watch.
My brother and I (I was four years older) would play war all the time…with toy guns.
My father never said a thing about “the War”…
Once I got into Kindergarten I started asking my fellow students what their parents had done in “The War”.
I got a range of answers. Many of my friends told me their fathers “were in the service” but refused to talk about it.
I got the same response from my Dad.
When we went to the barber shop, a man was always sitting outside, and sold pencils with a sign that said “Support a Veteran”. At the time, I found out later, the Veterans did not get the help they do now and the man did not have any legs!
One day, I asked Mom what my Dad did in the war.
She told me not to ever tell my Dad what she was going to tell me.
She told me that my Dad had signed with the Marine Corps!
Oh, I remember saying…he must have been a hero.
She said no, he had been discharged…I asked her why and she shied me off…she didn’t know.
Later when my father was dying, he told me he had been discharged for a ear problem…he had fallen when he was a child and forever was hard of hearing.
Later, when he was about to die, he told me he had intervened in a fight with some soldiers.
He told me a guy was gay…had lied to get into the service, and when his fellow soldiers found out they were going to beat him up. My Dad told me he intervened and said, “You will have to fight me first”.
The men backed off, but told their Drill Instructor and my Dad was told to go home, due to his injury to his ear. I think he was discharged because he stood up against a mob.
I didn’t take a rocket scientist to know the real reason, he had defended a homosexual, who of course was also kicked out of the service.
I had a conversation with my wife, and she told me, “Your Dad getting kicked out of the Marine Corps, probably saved you being born.
I FROZE….AND THINKING ABOUT ALL OF MY FRIENDS WHO HAD FATHERS AND MOTHERS WHO FOUGHT IN WWII, AND ALL SURVIVED TO HAVE THEM AS THEIR CHILDREN.
I then realized that I would never been born probably, and my father would more than likely would have been killed if he stayed with the Marines. A Marine in the early part of WWII had a huge mortality rate…
My life then, was a matter of luck….
Most of my high school friends had parents who served in the military…or were nurses if they were female. My wife’s father was a heavily decorated Officer, who had earned several metals (Silver, Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart etc). I asked my wife if he ever talked about “it” and she said NEVER.
Never, the man was obviously a war hero!
We were visiting with my in-laws and my wife’s son asked his grandfather what he had done in the war.
There was stunned silence…and then his grandfather slowly stared to talk, and broke into tears. The man broke into tears, with all of those medals!
They were called the “Greatest Generation” and I was a son of one of them.
Today, we are faced with a past President Trump, who mocked veterans during a Veterans Day Affair. He said “They are the losers”!
Trump actually said that. He had dodged the draft by bribing a Doctor to say he had bunions! He is running for President again, and lying, yet again.
I am the proud member of the generation who lived in he shadow of WWII veterans….many of us, used to say we were alive because my dad or man survived the war. We were certainly spoiled because many of our fathers had been in the war and survived…or had been discharged just in time.
I was a Baby Boomer, one of million of children that veterans and people had in large numbers…our generation when it was our turn, had to face Vietnam…
We protested, and our parents where enraged….because they obeyed the call.
By the way, Trump found a way out of the service…with a friendly Doctor.
I had on the other hand joined the U.S. Army National Guard…and was discharged because I had a legitimate medical problem…a back injury that I got playing football for Stanford. Nevertheless I serve four years of my six year stint…
Many of my friends at Stanford and in high school had parents who fought in WWII. Some joined the service just like their parents had done…and some of them did not come home.
I had been taught to serve my country…so I joined the service even though the Vietnam War was unpopular. I had been trained by the “Greatest Generation”.
I because a teacher, coach and school administrator….serving my country as my Dad had done, and as my wife’s parents had done.
People who had served had that special thing about them…..
There for the Love of God Go I