The trunk in the attic.

My dad had a trunk of stuff he brought home from the war stored in the attic of my grandmothers house. It was a treasure trove of wonders for a kid who was fascinated by all things military and who idolized his father who served in it. It held his signal flags, an old pea coat, service ribbons and shoulder patches, and old photographs of a sailor with his cap tilted back on his head grinning in the sunny pacific.

My dad served in both WWII and Korea. He was drafted into the second world war rather late in the game. As a result he, as he said, "followed the war." He never saw action and never fired a shot in anger. The closest he came to action was almost getting busted lifting war souvenirs from a warehouse in Tokyo. He told my brother and I once about anti aircraft training drills and wondered how in the hell we won that war because his crew couldn't hit a damn thing. We loved the war stories even though they almost never involved fighting but rather had more to do with semaphore and Morse code and how it seemed like the airplanes that bolted off the fantail of the aircraft carrier in front of his escort destroyer in Korea seemed like they would plow right into him.

For some reason, I don't know why since I was very young, my dad told me about something that happened when they were anchored in Tokyo Bay for the surrender of Japan. I don't know how the conversation turned that way, but he told me about how a group of sailors discovered an old Japanese guy rowing a boat near the bow of his ship. He told me how the sailors started throwing coke bottles at him. He said before he left they had knocked him out of the boat and he was holding onto the anchor chain. It was years later before I realized the remorse and shame he felt about that event. I don't know to this day whether he was one throwing coke bottles or not because he never said. I don't know whether the pain of the memory was from guilt about participating in the event, or from not doing something to stop it. I don't even know if I remember the details of the story right. But I remember the pain in his voice when he told me about it. I remember my dad leaving me with the image of an old man clinging to a chain at the bow of an LST being pelted by coke bottles.

I still have the coat, flags, service ribbons and photographs. And I still have the memory of my fathers sadness at what he saw in that war. It makes me sad that we bring out the worst in so many good people even for the best of reasons. It makes me angry that we do so for no good reason at all.

Soldiering is hard dangerous work in peacetime, never mind with some sumbitch shooting at you. I've knows a few veterans and they are to a man deservedly proud of the service to their country and glad of the friendships and accomplishments that went along with that service. But if you get to know them, sometimes they will reveal something of the sadness that I heard in my father's voice. I've heard about the smell of unburied bodies on Pacific islands and how maybe "somebody got shot more than he needed to" in Iraq.

For me Memorial Day isn't about parades, flags, medals or ribbons. It's about asking good men and women to wade neck deep into the very worst mankind has to offer and drag those memories along with them for the rest of their lives. While I am sorry they have been asked all too often to do so for no good reason, I am grateful they did it anyway. I hope in the future we will do better by them.

Thank you.

I got out a few photos of family members who served in the military. I spend time talking to my children about some of their experiences in wartime.

Memorial Day is not about glorifying war. It is about those people who have left their homes and families and answered the call of duty. Many did not live to return to those homes and family. Memorial day is about those people. That's why my flag is flying.

It's nice that we designate a day to remember those fallen in battles with those who would do us harm.

Wars are fought - primarily - by young, innocent Americans. There are "lifers" and "brass" that stay in for the long haul and make a career out of it, but by and large it's the newbies that are literlly on the front lines. Pumped up with a sense of invincibility in training, they're handed a weapon and led to the battlefront. While some service-folk are lost in training, or in rear echelon accidents - it's here - forced with facing the enemy, or facing court martial - that they're tested and proven. If that moment of truth is met and physically survived, the after-effects can be torturous. If the ultimate sacrafice is tendered, they're to be assigned patriotic reverence - possibly even "hero" status - no matter how well they performed their assigned duties.
In past wars, those who walked, limped or rolled home from their assigned conflict were told to "tough it out" if they suffered effects that haunted them thru the rest of their years. Science and medicine is only just starting to acknowledge that surviving battle without a scratch does not indicate that all's fine on the inside. Suicides are up dramatically amongst service personnel of late. Up also, are divorces, domestic violence, homelessness and other social misfit maladies in the military community. Some afflicted servicemembers find help thru counseling and medication - some find relief at the end of a rope or gun barrel.
Just the other day, one of the ever-popular remotely operated drone aircraft fired on a suspected hideout of Al-Quida members. The end result was 14 Afghan women and children dead. Tragic enough on the face of it, what about the servicemembers in some remote installation that operated that drone and fired it's weapons? What must it mean to them that they wiped out a bunch of women and their kids? Simply collateral damage or...?

Whenever I stop to think about the meaning of this holiday, the black and white images of bodies floating in the surf of Pacific isles during WWII is what pops up in my head. Those kids never made it to shore - never got to return fire to the enemy that awaited them. It might seem cold-hearted to say this, but given the suffering - both physical and mental, of their comrades - maybe those departed ones are the lucky ones. I don't know. What I do know is the day that this race (the human one - not the American one) stops trying to eliminate one another...... THAT will be a day to commemorate. But the way things have gone so far, I trust I'll never get a chance to observe that holiday.

This will be a tense twelve months.

When my father died, we gave it to my then 13-year-old nephew who adored my father. My father's mementos are in good hands.

found among a bunch of other small boxes and little jars holding screws and nuts and bolts, all in the jumbled pile that is often typical of a home workshop. My friend, Frank, had passed away and his kids were cleaning out the house. We knew he'd served in WWII, but he rarely talked about it; the only detail we knew about was that he'd gotten frostbite at Bastogne. He just didn't talk about the war.

Anyway, most of the small boxes were emptied into a coffee can and the boxes were tossed into the trash. This box was just as time-stained and dirty as the others, different only in that it was hinged. To his sons' great surprise the box contained two purple hearts. Not even his wife had known about the medals. His silence, we have learned, wasn't all that unusual.

-

I have a similar story. Some day I will tell it all.

One day when my son came home from the Third Grade and was unpacking his bookbag, I couldn't help noticing when he pulled out my Purple Heart--which had been tucked away for years in an old Army footlocker in the attic. Out of sight, out of mind.

When I asked what he was doing with the medal, he said, proudly, "We had 'Show and Tell' today, Dad! So I showed it to the kids. I couldn't remember if it was WWI or WWII or WWIII you were in. But I figured it was WWII, and that's what I told them."

I didn't want to burst his bubble, but I had to tell him: "No, it was the Vietnam War."

My son skipped out to play and I thought that was the end of it until his mother told me the question he had saved to ask her that night as she tucked him in bed. "Mom," he'd asked, "was the Vietnam War a good war or a bad war?"

I really felt for my son when I heard that. The question he was struggling with--what my son really wanted to know--was whether his dad was a good guy or a bad guy...

... I was so angry; I got drunk one night and burned everything I could find from the place except the uniforms my parents had stored at their house. I managed to get some of it back because my grandson has been showing a lot of interest in his Poppy's story.

I am still very angry about what I participated in and have always moved into the shadows on Memorial Day.

:hug:

You should write a book on the trunk :applause:

As a kid it had the same effect you describe.


I still have it, but have not opened it in years. Maybe later today I will open it up and let things air out.


Thanks for the post, very nice (K&R).

Thank you for sharing the memories of your beloved father.
Brought back many memories of my own father.




peace~