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He served a four-year tour and reenlisted in 1934, hoping to get out in 1942 and go to school.
Things didn't go according to plan. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor just a few months before his second tour was to end. He was in the war for the duration, serving as a Radio Man. He finally retired from the service in 1956, and took a job as an electronic systems engineer at General Dynamics. He worked there until he retired in 1987.
He was frighteningly close to a lot of action in the South Pacific. When he and my mom were married in 1967 they went to Hawaii for their honeymoon. Mom says that when they went to the USS Arizona memorial, he went down the list of names of men killed in the attack saying over and over "I knew him, and him, and him...." He came out of the war physically uninjured but changed for life. He never lost his compassion for poor people. On occasion he'd pick up some destitute migrant farm worker and bring him home for a meal.
His ashes were scattered at sea by the Navy. By now there are traces of him all over the world. I only have to look at the ocean to see his grave.
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