The Heroics of Being Alive, Part 4

The Pride

Author’s Note: Friends, for the past several years, I’ve made a point of adding or updating an essay about my father’s military service and posting it around Memorial Day. What began as a short remembrance of my dad, who was a reluctant soldier, has grown substantially. I add to it each year, including this year. Despite its expanding, I fear we still haven’t come to any conclusions. But we’ll keep trying, if for no other reason than because my father deeply disliked being a soldier and perhaps he’d appreciate my attempts to come to terms with this part of my family history.

So, this year, we’ll present you this new updated essay in five parts – Today, Part Four, is titled The Pride. Link here for Part One: The Ceremony. Link here for Part Two: The Romance. Link here for Part Three: The Heroics. I leave judgement to you all and post without further comment.

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My dad, on his way to Japan.

Part 4: The Pride

Flashback to my eighteenth birthday. My father drove me out to the downtown post office where I was to register for the selective service. For the life of me, I can’t recall if this is still a thing or not. But at the time, he wanted to do this personally. He wanted to talk to me about what it meant to him and what was in his, and my, heart.

If you knew my father, you knew he was a man of few words, but when he had something to say, he didn’t hold back. It was a long afternoon, but the thing I remember the most was his ultimatum, something I never remember my father ever giving me.

“The draft is one thing because if you ever get drafted like I did, I want to you to do your best and make us proud,” he said. “By if you sign up on your own, if you volunteer, I’ll disown you.”

That was my true father.

So, where are we? What is the lesson for us on this day set aside to honor the men and women in uniform, gone but not forgotten? Would I disown my daughter were she to sign up for a military career? Of course not.

Maybe it’s just that I’m far less interested in the waving flags and speeches then I am in the stories. Maybe I’d rather put a microphone on the lapel of some of these folks while they are still alive than to salute their gravestone after they have passed. Maybe we should ask “How do you feel?” instead of “How did you fight?”

My father grew more cynical and distant about his time in the service as he got older. I remember a Memorial Day a few years before he passed, when I was trying to practice what I preached about remembering vets while they were still alive, so I called and thanked him for his service.

“I ain’t dead yet,” he said.

“Obviously, dad! I just wanted you to know I appreciate your service.”

“Daniel,” he said, using my full name which meant business, “the only way to honor them is to not make any more dead ones.”

That’s good advice, of course, but we’re very, very bad at taking that advice, aren’t we? We somehow, always, relentlessly, do just the opposite.

Tomorrow, we conclude with Part 5: The Path