If my Father was still alive, he'd be 100 years old today.
I've written before about the birthday present he received on 7 Dec 1941. To make a little extra money, Dad had joined the Indiana National Guard in 1940. So when he heard the news that Pearl Harbor had been bombed I have no doubt he had two thoughts:
His older brother was aboard the U.S.S. West Virginia. I don't know whether or not Dad knew my Uncle Garlin was aboard the ship as it sank at Pearl, but he no doubt knew that both he and his older brother's lives would be forever changed from 7 December onward.
Both survived the war.
My Uncle stayed in the Navy; took a direct commission, and retired as a Full Commander.
Dad was wounded in the Philippines, received the Purple Heart, and came home from the war three months early because of his wounds.
Dad died in 2003 at the age of 82.
Truly a member of "The Greatest Generation", I still often wish I could have a conversation with him.
I didn't do nearly enough of that while he was alive.
07 December 2021
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My father served in the CBI. His sisters all married WWII combat vets. One brother was in the Aleutian campaign and later in Germany ending on the Rhine at the end of the European war. Family gatherings when they started talking were educational.
My father finished Coast Guard boot camp at the end of the war. He ended up being stationed in occupied Japan. The photos he took, and the stories to be told, are gone forever. The photos were damaged in a fire, and I have a feeling a sister-in-law took those that remained while pilfering in my mother's house, when she was taking care of her father.
My father died in 1989. I was young, and at the phase I was just discovering the treasure he was, while starting my married life. I never heard him recount his time in Japan, but knew he had photos he took, while walking through the ruins of either Hiroshima, or Nagasaki. Those I thought survived the house fire, but I could never find them when settling my mother's estate.
My friend Nate who died a couple years ago, a couple weeks shy of 100, was at Pearl.
Later he was sent stateside to OCS. He decided he wanted to remain a sergeant.
So they sent him to Normandy.
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