Thinking of my F.I.L. this morning oh shit our daughter is pregnant by a G.D. Paratrooper
A ramble can’t sleep yet just got off a Flushing Queens turn and home leaving Queens I had to go out over the top this morning by way of the G.W. bridge. On the way in the BQE was tight backed up heading out towards Verrazano bridge into joisey.
Thinking of my Father in law he served with the 101st he rucked with 2/327 PIR as a combat medic. He was a character as the title of this post he mentioned to me once over few beers after i E.T.S that when they found out Liz was pregnant oh shit the 82nd has gotten our daughter in that way with a baby.
He had an excellent sense of humor and he looked at life the glass was half full, it was Christmas 87 I know Liz and the baby will be ok with you he said to me in that you will always take care of them.
I remember that time I was a dock man for Preston 151 union trucking company and on 12/23/87 I passed my chauffeur license test to drive truck Preston helped me get that license. From the dock to yard jockey to ok kid your gonna go out and do city pickup and deliveries and drive on your permit with a city P&D man.
12/24/87 Liz and her mother head out from the small town we lived in about 30 miles from Johnstown Pennsylvania. They were headed to I think Monroeville mall to finish up the Christmas shopping or maybe Altoona maybe both I do not remember.
They both mother and daughter were on a mission because this was our oldest daughter first Christmas. And her father who would eventually be named pop pop by Heather father in law and i were in charge of Heather, go have fun enjoy will be ok I remember handing Liz maybe three to five hundred in cash that morning she wanted to buy presents for all family, Liz asked can we afford this I said sure and it’s a lot of overtime cash so yea do it.
They left and we loaded Heather into his car on the down low to roll to this jewelry store so I could get Liz these pearls necklace and earrings that she liked.Pop pop rode along drinking a 12 pack as I drove. I remember Liz looking at those pearls and she said I don’t wanna spend the cash on me. We scored the pearls headed home to chill , my father in law was a huge guy in build six foot four yea 18 today is built like his pop pop I look up at 18 from my six feet in height.
Yet everyone of our children I remember him father in law holding them as babies newborns holding them in his huge hands with love just beaming. Or a memory 18 who was probably two at that moment passed out asleep leaning into his pop pop who had his arm around his grandson in this memory I have they both were napping on the couch as the Eagles played.
Anyway to get back on point my father in law always told the story of the day Liz was born thanksgiving day 1968 she came five weeks early and for thanksgiving he ate two hotdogs for thanksgiving dinner so every thanksgiving we had hotdogs for lunch before the turkey dinner. Liz was conceived in Hawaii on his R&R he says my wife flew home carrying our oldest daughter we didn’t know if we did we’d probably gone to Canada to bail and I flew back to Vietnam.
Like a lot of veterans he had his memories that he would try and drown them in whiskey yet he was never a violent man. He was very self conscious of his legs as in he never liked to wear shorts his legs were covered in scars from when he was wounded he told me once eleven months into that bitch and I got hit. He told me of that night I never asked because of growing up with my father and his memories of Vietnam you just do not ask.
The story was he told me once he was drunk so was I they hooked up with some mech unit not sure who the unit was as I know the 101st was light infantry yet they we’re gonna dig in and spend the night and the NVA came for them.
And when it went down they were dragging the wounded to these 113’s and treating them and the track he was on took a RPG and that’s how his legs became scarred bad from his wounds. We use go to the beach on vacation they had beach house and he would try and set up on secluded part beach to swim in his swim trunks I’d tell him fuck what people think yet it bothered him.
He passed in 2009 he was a victim of agent orange later in life Liz pulled out that time took off work with 18 who was maybe four to go and help her mom take care of her father. And his boy his only grandson would spend the days talking with his pop pop in the family room where his hospital bed was Liz told me that made him so happy at that time in his life.
Tell you that man was anti war rewind to 2003 and we’re sitting in this club he belonged to and W bush just announced mission accomplished some shit. And my father in law said yea that fuck did great job keeping Texas free of the NVA flying close air support for air national guard yet now he just created a new generation of dead and wounded.
Great guy my father in law.
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