esrosedotblog

VETERANS

I am not a veteran. I was in the US Army Reserve, ROTC. But I didn't serve two years of active duty.

I was a 6 month wonder and then spent 6 years in the active reserve. But I didn't even do that. I have written here about my sparse service to my country. I am not proud of it but there it is. I did correspondence courses and meaningless summer camps to fulfill my obligation. Not much experience. And no vet benefits. Good. I don't deserve anything.

My Dad is the veteran of the family.

He was "too old" to be drafted at 39 so he volunteered for the last half of WWII.

He enlisted in the Navy and was put through all the same training as the young guys. He passed with flying colors.

Then he went to radar school. Radar was new then.

He took his learning to the little radar shack at the top of the bridge on a destroyer escort.

The USS Ebert.

Can you imagine? They have the ship in Wikipedia. Some old grizzled vet has gone through all the ships and made an entry for them. Good for him.

There were "countless" North Atlantic crossings. Rocking and rolling. A number of sub attacks. Depth charges.

Then to the Pacific for the finish of the war where they were hit by a kamikaze with a few deaths and no damage to the ship.

My dad had a piece of shrapnel in his neck when he came home and a lot of bad dream material which he worked on for many years.

He never told much about the War until the end and then not much.

It was hard at home being without him. I can still remember seeing his bus off in the early morning dark. Leaves stirring in the wake of the bus.

But that was nothing compared to his own experience.

He may have, like most men who enlist, a limited view of the reality of war. It was a lot tougher than anyone I know, who went, could have imagined. He never looked back. Never complained. He did his duty.

After the war he joined the American Legion and had a good time with it. He wore his hat, marched in the parades, served as a Commander of the local post and followed the news about other men in other wars.

He was not a right winger. He was a liberal, loving man with a lot of strong resolve to do the right thing. And, in that war, going off to fight was the right thing for him.

I may have resented his being away, particularly the volunteering part. But I saw a lot of other guys, draft dodgers, who sneaked through and they never got over that either. For whatever personal reasons they skipped out and paid a different price.

My dad never spoke against any of these people. He knew in his heart that he did the right thing and that was enough.

For me, I had the reward of pride in my Dad. He was a great guy. He had a great life.

In a way, I also know that he didn't want to miss out on the chance to get "into something" that was way bigger than he was. This is a different kind of thing than patriotism but it is admirable nonetheless. Adventurism. Courage.

My Dad had that in spades too.

My hero.

Labels: family, fathers, nostalgia, patriotism