This is for You, Dad

OUR DEBT TO THE HISTORIC MEN AND VALIANT WOMEN IN THE SERVICE OF OUR COUNTRY CAN NEVER BY REPAID. THEY HAVE EARNED OUR UNDYING GRATITUDE. AMERICA WILL NEVER FORGET THEIR SACRIFICES.

The memorial has been a long time coming. First authorized by Congress in 1993, it has generated seemingly endless debate and even spawned a lawsuit that sought to halt construction. Meanwhile, the World War II generation was passing on at the rate of 1,056 a day. Of 16 million Americans who served, fewer than 4 million remain.

The numbers are staggering. 405,000 Americans died in a conflict that engulfed the world. Another 671,000 were wounded. Many more fought and came back with bodies intact, but pitifully few escaped unscathed.

These are not men who swagger and boast of deeds outside of the increasingly rare reunion. These are men who did a job and then set about the business of getting back their lives.

My father served but rarely spoke of anything except the boat trips -- getting seasick on a huge ship, standing at the railing with eyes fixed on horizon.

A lifetime of military service has generated an encyclopedia of anecdotes. As he was putting up a picture of the base commander in an office an officer asked him what he was doing, to which he quickly answered, "Hanging the general, sir!" He claims to be the first driver to tip over a vehicle designed to be untippable: the new-fangled half-track. And many, many more; a different story for every occasion.

Being in Security Service and a Crypto instructor, there is much that he cannot tell: what communications were whizzing across the oceans when the Pueblo was captured; how close we came to war at various times when he would disappear for days into a mountainside framed with concrete; how many idiocies he observed but cannot tell; how many unnamed heroes he has known to have fallen, but whose deeds remain veiled by national security.

Being in The War there is much that he just won't tell. Sometimes long ago we would catch him in just the right mood and we would get a peek into the horrors of war that he and his millions of comrades were forced to endure. The propaganda machine that generated more hate of the enemy than sympathy for their plight. The twisted bodies of those that fell. The stench of burnt flesh draped over an island like a shroud as the crews first flamed a cave and then blasted the opening shut, sealing up those inside. And the screams that haunt the memories of everyone that heard them.

Today I sat with my mother and my wife in emergency admitting at a VA hospital, waiting to hear why my dad had been in severe pain for most of the night (which my stoic father only admitted to my wife because she wormed it out of him) and had passed out in the waiting room to which we made him go and to which my mother dragged him.

Sitting in that room I was surrounded by a few of the remnants of the greatest generation. Black, brown and white, they have a common dignity and respect unmatched by those that came after. Even as each minute ticked interminably by and I waited with a cold fear gripping and twisting my insides for hour upon hour, I was proud to be sitting among such men and women.

My father will not be among the 1,056 that we lose each day, at least not this day. Although he was admitted for observation, the danger seems to have passed. For that I am thankful.

The materials of the 7.4 acre monument are granite and bronze, and every stone was quarried in the United States except for some green accent stone from Brasil.

Its central element is the Rainbow Pool, now with fountains, that sits between arches symbolizing hostilities in Europe and the Far East.

The arches are flanked by semicircles of pillars, one each for the states, territories and the District of Columbia - together, signifying national unity. Beyond the pool is a wall of 4,000 gold stars, one for every 100 American servicemen killed in the war.

This memorial is for you Dad, and for the patriots that joined you. It is for Uncle Harry who drove tanks against a seemingly overwhelmingly powerful foe. It is for Uncle Frank who manned the airfields amidst attacks and fierce bombardments. It is for a generation the likes of which we can only pray that America will be lucky enough to ever see again.

TODAY THE GUNS ARE SILENT. A GREAT TRAGEDY HAS ENDED. A GREAT VICTORY HAS BEEN WON.
Gen. MacArthur

Blog post #2695 in category AlphaPatriot

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» Greatest Generation from Pinwheels and Orange Peels:

OUR DEBT TO THE HISTORIC MEN AND VALIANT WOMEN IN THE SERVICE OF OUR COUNTRY CAN NEVER BY REPAID. THEY HAVE EARNED OUR UNDYING GRATITUDE. AMERICA WILL NEVER FORGET THEIR SACRIFICES. AlphaPatriot posts on the opening of the WWII memorial [Read More]

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