The Battle

Today is one of the many days throughout the year I wish I could sit down and ask questions of my Dad......

Pop was in the Army during WW2.  It must have been a horrible experience.  Kill or be killed.   Wounded in action eight times, he lost a kidney, had a metal plate in one leg and shrapnel wounds that pockmarked the right side of his jaw and neck.  

As a child I never thought to ask him about 'the war'.   It was in the history books I read and seemed far removed from my father.  It was impossible for me to put him into the battle scenes that sometimes ran through my head like a news reel as I read about it.

I knew he couldn't sleep in a dark room;  we always had a night-light in our bathroom that shown into my parents bedroom. He never watched war movies or TV shows about soldiers.  He would quietly leave the room or change the channel...I never gave it much thought.

Dad fought malaria all his adult life, depression, pain and "nerves".  Later in life he was treated in a veterans hospital where they tried to bridge the nerves in his body that no longer connected because of the wounds he had suffered.  The drugs they treated him with had terrible side effects, so for most of his life he lived in constant pain because that's how his body interpreted everything.  Stitched together like Frankenstein's monster,  Dad's muscles and nerves were now his enemy.

Only in the last months of his life did Dad talk to me at all about his experiences.  He seemed fragile, so I still didn't ask questions, but accepted what he wanted to share.  Eventually I came to understand how deeply wounded he had been, and I was amazed at the herculean effort everyday life must have been for him.  His battle continued all his life without the possibility of any peace treaty. 

Somehow my Dad came out of the war physically damaged, but with a kind and gentle soul that never met a stranger.  He was a loving husband and a good father.  I miss him every single day,

Memorial Day makes me curious about the years of Dad's life that I know little about.  I wish I had asked more, I wish I had interviewed him then just as I would any hero I might talk to today.  Dad would have enjoyed Heart of Ohio Magazine and the article I surely would have done about him.   He is, and always will be, my hero.   

                                            Life is Good