A Soldiers Duty Taught to Me by My Dad

I understand life in the Military. Born at Ft. Benning, Georgia, my entire childhood was spent growing up on various Army bases. Our family had to pack up and move to another post about every two years. My mother would GI our post housing and pass the white glove inspection, help the movers with our things and we would be off to the next Army Post. Saying goodbye to my best friend in the house beside ours, or the desk beside of mine, would always be difficult, but I knew he would also be leaving soon and there would be other friends.

My dad was around most of the time. My brother and I were not born yet while he was overseas fighting WWII. We were quite young when he was in Korea during the conflict. My dad never talked much about what went on during the wars. He made comments about how he and his fighting buddies had to eat dandelions, for lack of food, and how they finally got a decent meal when MacArthur was relieved of duty. He had a particular way he rested his head on his hand, one day telling me it was how he slept in the fox holes and was still a habit.

My dad had three purple hearts. He was shot once in WWII. A bullet went straight through his hip without hitting anything vital. He recovered and went back to duty. While he was in Korea he received two gunshot wounds in the same battle, one in the arm and another in a finger on the same arm. The doctors told him he had gangrene and they needed to amputate his arm. The gangrene must have been concentrated more in his finger, but the doctors didn't want to take the risk of further infection. He talked them into only amputating his finger and he recovered, taking a great risk.

By losing just a finger he was able to stay on active duty. After the war he was stationed in Germany during the Allied Occupation. The Germans didn't think much of the Americans but he seemed to look at it in a positive way, not reveling much of what happened or what he saw. My Mother was stationed in Germany with my dad and I was almost born there. The military flew my mother back to the states so I could be born on American soil, which seemed important to both my mom and dad. It had to be a difficult trip for mom since she was many months into her pregnancy and had to travel alone. In the 1960s he got orders to go to Vietnam to do some troop training and left us again for awhile.

Dad had a difficult time adjusting to civilian life when he retired. He was always quite and reserved, as usual, but you could tell he was used up, tired, and seemed to be missing something in his life. One day we were working on an old Chevrolet pickup when a wire shorted out and he grabbed it while it was hot and burnt his hand. He acted as though nothing happened. I know it had to have hurt badly but he showed no emotion. I told my mother about it and she said he was like that, never complained even under great stress and resented it when someone called attention to it.

He knew what it was to be a soldier, he could be nothing else. A soldier does what he is told to do. A soldier doesn't complain or question. Orders are taken and carried out. My dad was at peace with all the killing he had to do. He knew he carried out his orders and did what had to be done. It was a sad day when he passed away sometime after midnight. Johnny Carson 's Tonight Show had just went off, when someone came in the waiting room and told me. When the sun come up, I walked outside noticing a large number of small, white, wooden flags all over the veteran's hospital's lawn, and remembered it was Veteran's Day. He had a military funeral and was buried in a National Cemetery. His head stone has his name, the dates and then it reads: World War II, Korea, Vietnam. I looked around and couldn't find another head stone that included all three wars.

If he were alive today I am sure he would have no problem fighting the wars we have going on now. There would be no complaining, just taking orders and carrying them out. He would do all he could to help his men who he referred to as his "knuckle heads". No talk would be allowed against what was to be done or why. Upon returning from WWII and Korea he and the troops were met as heroes. It says a lot for a country from how they treat their military personnel. Many that say bad things or split out negative rhetoric probably doesn't ever to stop and think, these soldiers are our sons, daughters, moms, and dads.