A war. A Father and a son. Some guy in the grocery store [View all]

[1-Old-Man]

Fundamental change.

My father's luck in birth-dates was horrible. He was in his late teens when the Great Depression began and had to make his way into adulthood as it raged. And then he was still of age, though a bit old, when the Second World War hit. He was a Marine and he was part of the invasion force of every major beach landing in the Pacific. He was what is called a decorated war veteran. It was hard on him.

I was in the military too. I served in the Army and did three tours in Viet Nam. I too am a decorated war veteran.

You would never know my father was a veteran. You could hardly get him to even say it. I have never felt much compulsion to dwell on my war either. We only talked about our experience one time. I'll quote the entire discussion. I had not seen him in five years when I arrived at his house. I went in and we talked a bit. He said "How was it?". I said "It wasn't that bad". And then he said nothing. And that was it, our entire conversation.

This morning I had to stop at the grocery store and as I was walking out there was a fellow in front of me who was wearing a T-shirt that had printed on its back something like "Operation Iraqi Clusterfuck" "123rd MP Unit" and then some other bullshit. Nice shirt, bright colors. This guy was advertising his pride at having gone to war. He wanted the world to know where he had been, and implicitly what he had done.

And I was trying to imagine my father wearing a T-Shirt that said "Iwo Jima" or me to wear on that said "Dak To" and I just could not make the picture appear in my mind. My father was never proud of what he did and my service was nothing anyone would brag about either, both are better forgotten.

The country has fundamentally changed.