From the Halls of Montezuma....

           Daddy wouldn't get in an airplane. Period. He didn't think they were safe.

           When he and Mom had a chance to fly to the Holy Land in 1978 he wouldn't even consider it. I chided him, gently. He was 65, but he could still whip me with one arm tied behind his back. "Dad, it will be a great trip. You and Mom have earned it. I'll talk Leon and David Mark into paying for the tickets..."

           "Son, in New Guinea, we blew those Jap Zeros out of the sky and we didn't even hit half of them! The concussion of a shell CLOSE BY would blow a wing right off one of those things."

           It was a rare reference to the war that had cost him three and a half years of his life. He was with the 476 Anti-Aircraft Battalion. I don't have a clue what they did. But apparently they shot some enemy planes down. I know he saw his first action in New Guinea. I read about the hand to hand fighting in those steamy jungles years later. I know he "went in" with the first wave on Biak Island. And I know on that tiny island he got cut off behind the Japanese lines for seventeen days and nights. I think maybe that is where he earned some of those copper colored stars and arrowheads that me and David took off that old green coat and lost playing "army" down in the big ditch.

           When we were kids we'd ask him about those ribbons and stars. His stock answer was, "Oh, you just got them for being over there." If we pressed for details he'd say, "It was hot and it rained a lot." And if your curiosity pushed the point he'd tell you how bad those C-rations were.

           Not much of a history lesson from someone who had been there.

           He waded ashore in the Philippines a full week ahead of Douglas MacArthur! He was sitting on Luzon, gearing up to invade mainland Japan, in August of 1944 when the big bombs were dropped. I have no idea what he was doing the exact moment he got the word of the surrender. I have wondered often if he cheered, or cried. Or drug out that faded old picture of Mom. Or hugged a buddy. Or thought "I can get home and have another son..." I know he didn't choose to catch a fast flight back to the states. He opted for a troop ship that didn't reach the Golden Gate Bridge until December 19th of that year.

           "Dad, come on" I was not about to give up. "Mom has wanted to go on this trip her whole life!" His eyes hardened. His jaw jutted forward just a fraction.. The Japanese had seen this look! Some wily old veterans first demonstrated it at Valley Forge. The British saw it up close and personal at Trenton, Saratoga and Yorktown. And they saw it again a few years later in New Orleans. Places like Antietam, Cold Harbor and Gettysburg stand out in American history because both sides hardened their eyes and stuck out those chins! The Germans saw it for the first time in the Argone Forest in September of 1918. And they wilted in front of it...

           The United States of America lost five thousand of the bravest men this world has ever seen BEFORE noon on June 6, 1944. Don't you know the German army commanding the heights at Omaha and Utah beaches marveled at the courage of their enemy that day! It was some of the best chin jutting this country has ever done!

           By December of that year we were beating on Hitler's door. During the Battle of the Bulge that bitterly cold winter one American soldier reported that he didn't take his boots off for 31 straight days..

           Don't you reckon we owe our Veterans more than a nod and a handshake once a year!

           Korea looked freezing cold even in black and white. I can still see those old Life Magazine photos of hordes upon hordes of Chinese soldiers in those ugly fur hats rushing down on our troops. And I remember thinking, what were these Chinese doing fighting Americans in Korea? War was beginning to get a tad more complicated.

      The American soldier just eased his chin out a mite. 

           The David Mark of this story spent 1970 in the jungles of Viet Nam. He was a green beret. They sent them out in six men teams to locate the enemy and call in the helicopter gun ships. I asked him once, "What did you do if the six of you walked up on a hundred of them?"

           He said, "It was hot over there and it rained a lot."

           I don't know what the troops coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan are saying. I don't think it rains all that much over there. OVER THERE! Isn't that a special term! We have sent them off by the millions. And let me tell you, they have done us proud every time!

      I don't know about the politics of war. I figure the enemy has changed over the years. I sure hope as a nation, we haven't! I'm still mighty big on truth, justice and the American Way. But I do know this, our veterans haven't changed. There is a common thread from Valley Forge to the Pakistan border! It has to do with heart, courage, integrity, fortitude..and chins.   

           "Dad, you can't miss this trip!" I never went off to war but I can be a little stubborn myself. "You will enjoy it."

           He smiled wryly as his chin moved out to the locked position. I shut up. But I have pondered long and hard since then on his "Jap Zero" statement made thirty-three years after the war ended.

           Maybe for the veteran it is not over just because they make it back home.

             Most Respectfully,

                        Kes