Memorial Day

My father.

The above photo is of my father, a veteran of World War II. He served in the Army as a medic and left the service in 1945 as a staff sergeant. He served in the Pacific Theatre.

Daddy was forever grateful for being one who was able to come home from war. He never forgot those who did not come home. He told me that on Memorial Day 1996, a little over a year before he died.

Larry and I watched the National Memorial Day Concert on PBS Sunday night. It has become a ritual for us to watch it.

This year there was a special section commemorating the 70^th anniversary of D-Day, the invasion of Normandy in June 1944.

One of the 12 men on stage for the commemoration was a local man, Jack Shields of Altavista.

Thank you to all those who served their country in the military and to those who made the highest sacrifice, with their lives.

I pray for the day when there will be no more war.

My father was a veteran

“On Dec. 7, 1941, Japan bombed Hawaii, and the U.S. declared war on Japan. So after that, the draft was for six months after the war ended. In February 1942, they lowered to age to 20 years, which caught me.

“In March 1942, I went to see a draft board member and asked him whether to start a crop. He said he saw no reason not to, and if they did, to just ask for time to get my crop in.

“On July 25, 1942, I got my notice to be examined on Aug. 12. I went to the draft board and asked for a two month delay and was refused. The draft board chairman said, ‘You will be getting $50 a month. You can hire someone to do it for you.’

“On Aug. 12, 1942, I was examined, passed and was sworn in the U.S. Army the same day. This was done in Roanoke, Virginia.”

“My birthday present on July 1, 1944 was going under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California and seeing the U.S.A. the last time for one and a half years.”

--from my father’s writings

My father and his mother.

My father served in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He was a medic. He served from 1942 until 1945.

In 1942, he left behind his farming, his family and his life in rural Central Virginia to answer the call from Uncle Sam.

He saw parts of the country and the world that he would never have visited otherwise. He saw horror and pain. He made lifelong friends. He came home and was forever grateful for being able to come home.

Today on Veterans Day, we honor all veterans. We take a day to thank those who served their country.

There will be programs and ceremonies to formally honor veterans. I’ll attend one in my town.

But I also remember my father’s service. He has been gone for many years, but I still have his words, his memories, his thoughts about his time in the Army. I hold them dear.

Memorial Day and thoughts on my father



My father in uniform, probably on leave at his home.



I think of my father on Memorial Day.

Actually, I think of my late father probably every day, but my thoughts of him are particularly strong on this day that we in the United States honor those who sacrificed their lives for their country.

My father served in the Army as a medic during World War II, mostly in the Pacific. He was wounded on September 30, 1944, but survived and came home and built a life with my mother.



My father somewhere in the Pacific on Aug. 21, 1945.



It was on Memorial Day 1996 that my father first expressed to me his thankfulness for having made it home when many of his fellow soldiers did not.

That gratefulness fit with the rest of his life: he never bemoaned growing older, never complained about an upcoming birthday. He was always proud of his age.

I was not very close to my father when I was growing up. We grew more comfortable with each other during the last few years of his life, before he died in July 1997.

He wrote down his life story at my request. And after his death, letters that he had written to one of his sisters while he was in service came to light.



A postcard my father sent his sister in 1942.



These written documents have helped me to know more about my father than I learned while he was alive.

Years ago I scanned the letters and gave copies to my brothers and my mother. I want to go back and catalog them better.

I also want to transcribe his whole story (I’ve done only part of it) and distribute those to family members, too.

I know there are still things to learn about my father and my family as I delve deeper into his writings.

That is not an always easy task for me, though. I had and have a troubled relationship with my family of origin. Some memories are painful.

But I don’t want that to hold me back from the truth, from the story of my father, and through his story, part of the story of my family.

It will be a project worth doing.

With that, I leave you today with wishes for a safe and peaceful holiday.

How have you preserved family memories and mementoes?

Memorial Day and my father's legacy

Flags covering the National Mall. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Americanflags.jpg

Note: Today is OCD Monday, but more importantly, in the United States it is Memorial Day. So this post is mainly about what Memorial Day means to me.

A year before my father died, I visited him and my mother on Memorial Day. As I walked up the steps of the deck in the back of their house, my father came to the door to greet me.

“Happy Memorial Day,” I said. “I don’t actually know if you’re supposed to tell people that.”

My father smiled and said, “Well, I’m just grateful to have made it home.”

This was 1996. My father had been discharged from the Army on Dec. 25, 1945. Fifty-one years after he “made it home,” he was still grateful.

On Memorial Day, I, along with millions of others, think about the soldiers that didn’t make it home. I think of the families grieving for the child, sibling, parent, relative or friend that didn’t return home from service.

I also think of my father on Memorial Day, and his gratitude and his service to his country during World War II.

My father was drafted in 1942. He was a young farmer who had lived in rural Central Virginia all his life.

He was pulled from basic training before he was finished in order to begin training as a medic.

His company was eventually sent to the Pacific Theatre.

He was on the island of Peleliu on Sept. 30, 1944, in combat when he was shot in the arm. He recovered on a hospital ship and then returned to combat.

When I was growing up, my father didn’t talk specifically about his time in service. We met some of his former Army buddies and their families, and he told general stories of life in the Army, but not what it was like for him.

My father was not a person to talk about emotions.

Have you ever read “The Greatest Generation,” by Tom Brokaw? It tells the stories of people who returned from war in 1945 and took up their lives with purpose and resolve?

My father was like that.

When he was in his early 70s, I asked him if he would write down his life story for me. To my surprise, he agreed, so I bought a notebook for him and he wrote.

He needed a second notebook to finish.

In those written words, he was much more open about what it was like for him going into battle. I found out things about him that I never would have known otherwise.

So on this Memorial Day, I think about him and his gratitude, and I think, how can I be less grateful for life?

To my readers who are in the United States, may you have a safe Memorial Day. And to all my readers, may we be grateful for every bit of time we have.

  What does Memorial Day mean to you?