My father served with the Marines in the Korean War and was one of the lucky ones to return home alive. He passed away in 1985 and Memorial Day is one of the many occasions that I pause and remember a lot of life's lessons he taught me. Of course I didn't really grasp the meaning of those lessons until much later in life, but such is the stuff of fathers and sons.
Dad rarely spoke about his military service. (Dad rarely spoke about his feelings on most things.) In fact when I search my memories I can only recall a few instances of him speaking of his time in Korea. Three such memories always stand out when I think of Dad on Memorial Day.
Actually this first memory isn't from a conversation with my father, but more of a series of recollections that led to a statement from him much later in life. Every family has a morning ritual. Ours consisted of my mother waking up and starting breakfast. Once things were sufficiently underway in the kitchen she would wake me (my bedroom was in the section of the house close to the kitchen) and send me to wake up my father, who in turn would wake up my sisters. I was always told to gently rouse my father from his sleep by standing in the doorway of the bedroom and telling him it was time to wake up. Even as I followed those directions, Dad would always wake up with a horrible and violent start. Much later in life, after I had gone away to college, I asked him about that on one of the many trips where he had come to pick me up for a weekend at home. He said that since the war he always woke up violently when he did not wake up on his own accord.
Second, in the culture of our rural community it was assumed that every boy would learn to and know how to hunt. Of course this was passed down from father to son, and my Dad did his duty here. He taught me to shoot, first with a BB gun, then a .22 rifle, small guage shotgun, and later heavy gauge weapons. He was meticulous with his teachings and if I goofed, I paid a price in having to wait a long time for the next lesson. He also took me hunting, mostly for squirrel, on about 5 or 6 trips as I recall. And then one day I recall him saying that I was ready to do this on my own or with my friends. He never hunted with me again. Nor did he participate with his many friends in the annual rites of hunting in our community. My career as a hunter continued with my friends and one day I asked my father quite simply why he didn't hunt anymore. His answer is still burned into my brain. He said, "once you've had to hunt and kill men for a living, you lose the taste for hunting."
And the last searing memory I have of these conversations occurred when I was sixteen years old. The Viet Nam war was still raging and I was two years away from draft eligibility. My father and I were working in the back yard on some project or the other and somehow the conversation turned to the draft and the war. Now, my father, if he was alive today would be considered to be on the farthest wing of the right-wingers. He was an ardent Republican and supported the war effort. But as we were having this particular discussion he said quite pointedly, "If you're drafted you'll have to serve. I don't want you to get drafted. If you're not, don't even think about joining. No way are you going to live through what I did."
I can't begin to understand or comprehend what my father experienced during his military service. But these three memories had and continue to have a profound impact on me. Our family was fortunate that Dad did not have to make the supreme sacrifice. (Of course our immediate family including myself would not have even existed had that occurred.) But as I grew older and began to put some of the puzzle of life's mysteries together, I always feel that a part of him was lost forever during his service.
So, on Memorial Day when I think of Dad, these are the thoughts that come back to me. I'm glad he survived his service in Korea. I'm sad it took a part of him away. I'm grateful, that in his own halting way of communicating, he was able to let me in a tiny bit into his feelings and fears.
For those who understand, "There you go".
