HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, DAD

Last month my father, John Hovanic, would have been 105 years old. The above picture was his high school graduation picture from 1930.

Dad was born in the coal mining town of Crabtree, Pennsylvania, the third child in a family of eleven children. There would have been thirteen, but twins died a few days after their birth. His father was foreman of the mining stable. They lived in a patch house owned by the mining company. They had the bigger of the two sides because of their larger family. Like others in the small town, they shopped at the company store and what they bought was taken out of the miners’ pay checks.  One time my grandfather was reprimanded by the mining superintendent because my grandmother was not buying enough in the company store. She grew a large vegetable garden, did a lot of canning, and took a bus into a neighboring town to shop in a grocery store with far better prices than that offered by the company store. I don’t remember if it stopped her trips or not. I know at a later date, my grandfather threw down his keys and quit his job during the Depression because the mining superintendent wanted him to work the mine ponies longer hours and cut back on their feed. I have a feeling it was also because he didn’t want any of his sons to end up working in the mine.

 Because Dad was a good student, after his graduation from high school, two bachelor uncles, Uncle Charley and Uncle Emmitt Radesky, and their unmarried sister, Katherine, from Ohio paid for a year of college. Dad had lived with them for several years during his high school years so he could attend a larger and better school. Since it was the Depression, Dad quit college after the first year to help his family rather than continue, but he never stopped learning. He was one of most widely read, intelligent and knowledgeable people I’ve ever met. All of his children got their love of books and reading from him.

Grandpa & Grandma on the small farm they bought

After Grandpa Hovanic quit the mining job, they came to Ohio where Grandma’s brothers and sister lent them money to buy a small farm (the same ones who gave Dad a year of college). Even though it was still the Depression, Grandpa, my Dad and two of his brothers got jobs in a factory and paid back the loan.  He didn’t have to go to war because he had two children then, and the factory was making ammunition for the war effort. Dad worked his way up to foreman, and then to an office job as a purchasing agent and stayed there until he retired. Although he hadn’t been a union man for years, he still believed staunchly in unions.

A few years after moving to Ohio, my dad met a shy young woman and fell in love with her. They met at an outside party in the summer where there was a bonfire and young people sitting around it. My dad was playing a guitar and singing. She didn’t hear from him again until right after Christmas when he asked her to go out New Year’s Eve. She told him she only would if he brought a date for her best friend. They didn’t marry until the following November. Her father, a farmer who’d inherited enough money so he didn’t have to farm too much, objected. He opposed the marriage because my father was a foreigner. (Dad’s father had come over from Slovakia as an eight year old boy.) And just as bad as that, my father was a Catholic, (My Grandfather rarely if ever went to church), a Democrat, a union man and carried a lunch pail to work. In spite of Grandpa Jones’ objections, John and Elnora eloped and soon started a family. I was their first child followed by a brother, three sisters and much later another brother. When I was about five years old, they married in the Catholic Church, and mom became a good Catholic.

 

My mom and dad, brother Jerry and me

My father always treated Grandpa Jones with respect and helped him around the farm when needed, and Grandpa soon returned that respect. He gave my mom and dad a lot next to the farm land across the road from the farmhouse and barns, at the same time he gave one to his oldest son and daughter-in-law across the road from the house my father built for us on the lot given them.

Dad was an excellent father. He was firm, loving and had a good sense of humor. He read to us and sang songs to us, and he taught and showed us by example what was important; honesty and respect for others. Years and years before the Civil Rights Movement, my dad preached equality, that all people were equal. He was so honest that to this day, I still feel guilty about the marble I put in my pocket and took home from a cousin’s house.

I could fill pages and pages with what a great husband, father and person he was, but I’m going to give one example. My Grandma Jones was probably one of the world’s worse cooks. At a large extended family reunion, she took boiled chicken. Picture grayish, uncoated, unseasoned,

boiled chicken on a platter next to dish after dish of mouth-watering golden-brown fried chicken brought by others. My father didn’t care much for chicken in any form after years and years of his father raising chickens and that being the meat most often cooked. But he took a helping of Grandma Jones’ chicken and ate it. I think he was the only one who did. That’s the kind of man he was - unfailingly kind and caring.

Dad was a listener, too. When we’d go on camping vacation trips, he’d disappear for a while and then came back with wonderful stories about people he’d met; people who opened up to his genuine interest and told them their story. Stories like the one he’d heard from an old man on the dock of a river in West Virginia. The old man had worked hard to send his first child to college, and after that each child helped the next one until all his nine children had a college education.

In the summers, he would load up his Buick with us, our cousins and the neighbor kids and take us swimming at Eagle Creek or another place north of us a spring fed creek and quite cold. Almost every Sunday after church from spring through fall, with my mom’s sister and her family, we went on picnics all over the place; Lake Erie, Warner’s Hollow, amusement parks, and numerous parks in driving distance in both Ohio and Pennsylvania. Once because we lost our way and everyone was hungry, we ate our picnic beside a stream in a cow pasture with the cows watching us. Fortunately there were no bulls.

For years and years when I’d meet someone who knew my father, their faces would light up with smiles as they would tell me what a special man he was and something they’d always remember about him. In fact, I got my first job after graduating during a down time in the economy because of him. After several months of pounding the streets looking, a woman interviewed me who had once danced with him at an office party where her husband was a vice-president. She had such fond memories of meeting him that she hired his shy and awkward daughter. He had a way about him – not flirtatious, just a nice guy with a nice smile who liked people.

It’s been over twenty-five years since Dad died, and my siblings and I still miss him. He was the scaffolding on which each of us built our lives.  

What memories do you have of your father?

No More of Dad's Short Stories

No More of Dad’s Short Stories

I have shared here some of the short stories my father wrote.

http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/2012/02/my-dads-short-stories-ii.html

http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/2012/02/my-dads-short-stories-i.html

At age 83 while living in a medical care facility, after he had a series of heart attacks

and strokes, my father decided he would write short stories.  Over the next two and a half years wrote stories that he wanted to share.  He was pleased when I put them on this blog.

There won’t be any more stories. My father died on January 31 of this year at age 88. During the time he was dying, he refused pain medication on one day so he could see and talk to family members who flew in to see him one more time.   The next day he died.  I will miss so many things about him.

One thing I will miss is reading my father’s musings about dogs that can tell a republican from a democrat from the way they smell, playing bridge with five aces and the importance of blankets. 

At least I can imagine my father in heaven waiting for The Savior to finish his nap so they can talk about Westerns together and watch squirrels. 

Camping with Dad

My father passed away on Thursday. He was 87, lived a good life and, as deaths go, his wasn’t too bad. Regardless of your beliefs in an afterlife, of this I am sure you will agree: as we remember our ancestors in stories, they yet live with us. So here is a story of Dad and me.

I was a boy scout and I belonged to a camping troop. We camped one weekend every month of the year except during the summer when we spent two weeks at Camp Massawepie in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. I liked camping a lot—the more remote the better.

Dad had a bad back, so hiking was not something he was able to do, but he did enjoy canoeing. Our family owned a log cabin on Chandos Lake, Ont. where we spent two or three weeks each summer. It was rustic—no electricity (or hydro as the Canadians would call it), cooking over a wood stove. A few hours north exists a canoeist’s paradise: Algonquin Provincial Park. Unlike most parks with miles of hiking trails, Algonquin’s trails were the myriad lakes connected by portages. Dad and I made several outings over the years.

Our canoe was a monster designed for family outings—much larger (and heavier) than necessary for just two of us, but we made do with what we had. I was the bowman; Dad took the stern. Back then I could still kneel in a canoe for hours at a time, and we could cover many miles a day. When the wind was against us we would have to huddle next to the shore to reach our destination. We chose times with good long-term forecasts, but even the best laid plans didn’t always work quite as expected.

With a little planning you could canoe multiple lakes in Algonquin with just a few short portages. If you were willing to do just one long portage, you could often find yourself the only canoe on a lake. That was what Dad and I preferred to do, although on one trip Dad threw his back out on our first long portage, and we had to beat a painful retreat.

We shared a two-man tent. If the weather was good, we’d set up the fly to keep the dew off our gear. If it rained, we crammed everything inside the tent. Our duties were clear: Dad would collect firewood, I would do the cooking (what little skills I had from scouting far surpassed Dad’s) and clean-up. Once dinner was complete, we played card games using a set of miniature cards and a small cribbage board for scoring.

Dad’s snores assured us that we would not be disturbed by any wildlife during the night. If I could get to sleep first, I wasn’t bothered since I was physically tired from the exercise. However, I was often awake first in the morning, and the snoring meant I would not get back to sleep.

Once we were away from people, wildlife viewing opportunities increased. A distant log became a black bear swimming across the lake. When he reached shore, he shook off great sheets of water, much as a dog would, and then bounded up a 30-degree slope with no more effort than I would need for a Sunday walk. A beaver scared the bejesus out of us when it surfaced and slapped its tail on the water right behind us. Apparently we had stayed too long looking at its lodge, and it wanted us gone. Other fond memories: Osprey fishing for dinner, belted kingfishers leading the way down an outlet, raucous rattles announcing our presence to all the other animals so they could hide before we turned the next bend.

The individual memories are too many to enumerate, so I’ll just relate one more. One evening we camped on an island in a distant interior lake. We had not seen anyone else for more than a day. A dense fog built up overnight, leaving the lake shrouded as the Mists of Avalon. I awoke early and could not get back to sleep because Dad was snoring loudly. A solitary loon was making his “rain call”—that’s the haunting call you often hear in wilderness scenes in movies (even those set in the Amazon which is not exactly loon habitat). Often loons continue to make that call until they are answered by a mate. They have other calls when they are disturbed or frightened. From somewhere in the fog the loon continued calling.

I sat on the shore and watched the day unfold as the sun crept over the eastern hills. The fog did not diminish in the sun’s heat, and I wondered how we were going to find our way home. Our schedule was a bit flexible, but… Then in a manner of seconds, the fog bank lifted three feet off the water. If I stood, my head was in the clouds (something I have been accused of more than once). I waited for the fog to dissipate, but it didn’t and then fifteen, maybe twenty feet in front of me up popped the loon. It tilted its head and gave its call, which echoed around the lake, bouncing from shore to shore, seemingly trapped by the fog.

Normally I let Dad sleep as long as he liked, but this time I woke him up so that together we could listen to the loon and watch it fish in the window under the fog bank. Many minutes later we heard an answering call; a second loon flew in, splashing down in what must have been an instrument landing. It swam to the first loon and together they dove after fish. Soon the fog bank began to disappear.

Earlier this week, I took my last camping trip with my father. It was a different wilderness experience. Rather than sleep in a hotel, I pulled a blanket over me and slept on the cushioned bench in his hospice room, sharing one last night with him. Although his breathing during the day had been ragged, that night it smoothed out. I fell asleep to the rhythm of his respiration, awoke every time a nurse came in to check on him and fell back to sleep to his steady breathing.

And in my waking hours I remembered our camping trips and the fog and the loons and the snoring I will no longer hear.

Night, Dad.

~ Jim

My Dad's short stories II

This is the second blog about my father’s short stories.

To recap briefly, I helped my father write his memoires and I’ve blogged about it here. My father introduces me to his friends with, “He wrote my autobiography.” Not long after we finished he was diagnosed with dementia. Quite some time later, unexpectedly, he decided to write short stories. Since he started writing, his mental abilities have remained stable — substantially diminished from his initial level but stable. Others with his diagnosis have declined over time. My mother and I believe that writing has helped him keep up his sense of humor, interest in the world around him and even hope for the future. With his permission, while I am going through the process of having cataract surgery on both eyes, I thought I would share some of his efforts with you. Last week I included some of his stories. Here are some more,

Dad’s Short Stories

DOGS 11 1021-‘11

I live in various places along the west coast. The food is best there. It is more plentiful between May 1^st and September 1^st. Otherwise I live in Idaho and Montana the rest of the year as I find law enforcement is not so strict there. It isn’t bad elsewhere. I am a dog aged 5. You can always find food in this mountain state but you look harder. I have been considering a foreign state but you are no better off there. I was best man in Canada once. My girl friend Arlyne was the bridesmaid. Customs are different there. First, guests are carefully invited. If you are not invited, you have to wait until after the wedding to say hello to them. Second, there are lots of cameramen and they are taking pictures. This is spreading to the U.S. as everyone has a camera. I received several prints. To share the happiness, I put some on my bulletin board. No one ever mentioned them. One was of us kissing and my girl friend almost had a fit. She stepped back in surprise. She hadn’t yet adopted the custom. I intended to send a copy to most of my relatives. But Arlyne said no. My relatives would have to meet her. And so the custom died. Then we all got some mail. All dogs were free! They couldn’t be shot so we failed to spread that function.

How To Play Bridge

I am an average player and my partner is one of the best. One time I had 5 Aces so I moved one of them. My partner didn’t criticize, she had seen worse. One time I had six clubs but they were 6 spades. She didn’t criticize. Another time she put a spade with a club. She may or may not have seen the difference. I didn’t criticize but she didn’t wear glasses. Another time she had three hearts when she really had three diamonds. I didn’t criticize. I do wish she would buy phony glasses. I had five Aces again. I moved one and didn’t say a word. I got pretty good at moving cards. She ran for a spot on the council and for once I was very quiet. I wanted to see what she would do if she was elected. Then I had a great idea. You could have any number of any suit, up to two Spades. That was passed unanimously, even another voted for it.

SQUIRREL 11-16-‘11

The squirrel lived in a hickory tree in our back yard. Most of the time, he woke up every morning with his endless chatter. He was almost tame but he wouldn’t let a human touch him. He lived mostly on hickory nuts. He teased the dog for recreation. He ignored fences, of course. He spent almost as much time in the neighbor’s yard as he did in ours. He greeted us when we went out at night. I don’t know what he did in the winter. I’m sure that heaven has lots of squirrels; all they do is make one feel well. They do no harm. I wish I could live as well.

BLANKET 1-1-2012

This is a short story about a blanket. When you are cold, it is very valuable. When you are hot, it is a piece of junk. I have a red blanket and today I use it because I am cold. It could be green or black or brown. What other property could be so volatile? I have a car and it is the same way. My nurse throws the blanket on and off of me. Maybe we should have a national blanket day. Years ago we had a national dog day every year. In Africa they have a national dog day. They hunt and eat dogs. That day the dogs hide in a place they never tell humans about. The cats are very happy that day.

My Dad's short stories I

My Dad's Short Stories

I’ve written before on this blog about my father and helping him write his memoires. My father introduces me to his friends with, “He wrote my autobiography.” Not long after we finished he was diagnosed with dementia. Quite some time later, unexpectedly, he decided to write short stories. Since he started writing, his mental abilities have remained stable — substantially diminished from his initial level but stable. Others with his diagnosis have declined over time. My mother and I believe that writing has helped him keep up his sense of humor, interest in the world around him and even hope for the future. With his permission, while I am going through the process of having cataract surgery on both eyes, I thought I would share some of his efforts with you.

Dad’s Short Stories

MANGER 1-8-‘12

Away in a manger lies Jesus. He lays in total innocence getting ready for anything that will come. He has known the Spirit of God for many years. He was much older than the Spirit of God but he stayed with him anyway.

He already knew the characters of God and had known them for many years. He knew the good points of people like Adam, John, and Lazarus. Their work was yet to come. They journeyed for many years, even thousands of years. He had looked for husbands for some characters. He had found wives for a large number of Mongols. He found wives for every head of state. He knew of their good points and the foibles of all the world’s famous people as he guided them in what they were supposed to do. He showed them what God wanted them to do. He showed them how to handle the gate and not to stay as they all preferred. In other words, he showed them how to please the Savior. They were all ready to do Gods’ good work. No one is perfect in every way. They could only work with what they had. The Savior was pleased with what he saw. He could read western magazines and sleep. He called on Ike and helped guide him during his service.

RABBIT 1-3-‘12

The rabbit enjoyed Mr. McRae’s garden patch. Mr. McRae’s eyesight wasn’t very good so if caught, the rabbit didn’t move and the rabbit chuckled as Mr. McRae continued to look for him. The rabbit liked lettuce best of all. He also liked radishes and corn. Mr. McRae looked in the tomatoes a lot. Mrs. McRae was different. She had good vision but neither of them was able to catch the rabbit. The rabbit spent quite a bit of time in their neighbor’s garden but for some reason he particularly enjoyed teasing Mr. McRae. The third garden in the neighborhood was further away. So the rabbit didn’t get into it but occasionally. Then he overheard Mrs. McRae talking to her husband. She said that this rabbit never works in the garden at all. He just eats the stuff without helping. He thought about her side that night. She was right. So the rabbits stopped eating out of Mr. McRae’s garden. Their two children were well cared for and they lived in Farson. That is all.

Searching for Sergeant Bull

The first time my father traveled to Europe was in the hold of a boat built to haul bananas. He was a nineteen-year old Iowa farm boy sailing on the USS Marine Devil with approximately 1,700 other young men recently inducted into the army. He was assigned one canvas shelf to sleep on in a stack of eight shelves set eighteen inches apart in a frame of pipes. The convoy zigzagged slowly for eleven days while the men on the ship endured seasickness, bad food, and cold seawater showers.

The convoy also carried bombers, gasoline, tanks, weapons and ammunition. All these were thrown into World War II against the veteran forces of Nazi Germany.

My father’s division, the 99^th of the 395^th Infantry, suffered an 84% casualty rate over the next six months. The war ended for him when he was wounded severely enough that he had to be evacuated to a hospital for treatment.

Forty-five years later he returned to Europe by traveling for ten hours in commercial jets that offered warm meals, drinks, and cozy reclining seats. He traveled with his wife, his two sons and their wives.

Like many men of his generation, my father walled off his war experiences. I remember as a child being fascinated by and frightened of that part of my father I saw in rare glimpses that raged and cried within him. My father never let the monster out and, although it became less ferocious over the years, it never went away entirely. He let me play with his sergeant chevrons and other patches from his uniform. My father could occasionally be persuaded to talk about being in the army. He explained that he still has shell fragments in his lung and showed me where he was wounded in his finger. He told funny stories about training and mentioned one or two minor things that happened while he was in Europe. When I asked my father if he was a hero, he invariably answered, “No. The heroes did not come home.” Even as a child, I had a sense that there were many things he refused to talk about.

However, over the years he had gradually become more active in attending reunions of his battalion. He toured Europe with my mother and visited places he saw as a young soldier. When he asked my brother and me to accompany him to Europe on a second visit, we saw the invitation as a chance to learn something about a chapter of my father’s life that he rarely opened. Maybe his sense of mortality gave him the impetus to show us something of this part of his life while he still could.

Although father was not ready to speak about the battles he was in, to help us prepare for the trip, he gave us books about his battalion written by fellow soldiers who my father profoundly respected (Infantry Soldier by George W. Neill, University of Oklahoma Press, 2000, and Butler’s Battlin’ Blue Bastards by Thor Ronnigen, Brunswick Publishing, 1993) plus a book by the commanding general, Battle Babies by Walter Lauer, The Battery Press, 1985).

We read about the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler’s last desperate attempt to break through the allied forces in Europe and drive toward the sea in hopes of splitting the allied armies and forcing truce talks that might leave him in power. The Germans successfully hid the movement of their forces in preparation for the attack. On December 16, 1944, they threw approximately one quarter of a million soldiers in twenty four divisions against five American infantry divisions (the 99^th, 2^nd, 106^th, 4^th and 28^th) defending sixty miles of ground known as the Ardennes front.

Outnumbered and outgunned at least three to one, the 3^rd battalion of the 99^th division held its ground on the north shoulder of the bulge against three veteran battalions. Small groups of men in isolated foxholes and buildings survived by killing the enemy with unfaltering efficiency. American artillery was sighted directly on the battalion positions. Men had been told to dig their shelters deep into the frozen ground to avoid being hit by shrapnel from their own guns. When the battle began the untested Americans held their fire until the Germans were so close that in two cases dead German soldiers fell into American foxholes. In the bitter cold, usually knowing nothing about the scope of the battle beyond what they could see with their own eyes, the soldiers held on through December and to the end of January. There were no celebrations when the front line finally straightened out again. The allied forces were ordered to continue their advance.

…

When we visited the area forty-five years later it had changed from an icy hell to a hilly, forested tourist destination close to the medieval city of Monshau, Germany. Despite construction of a bridge and a highway in the area, my father walked directly to depressions in the ground that he was certain were what remained of foxholes he had stayed in during the battle decades before.

My father said that during the part of the battle that took place at the city of Bastongne, Belgium, American forces were surrounded, seriously outnumbered and short of food and ammunition. In a famous incident they were offered the chance to surrender so they would not be completely annihilated. The American commander, Major General Anthony McAuliffe, answered, “Nuts.” My father said years after the battle he asked his battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel McClernand Butler, if the Germans had offered to accept the surrender of the 99.^th He said Butler told him, “Hell, no. They were too busy attacking us to ask for our surrender.”

We read about crossing the Rhine River on the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen, Germany. With allied forces advancing following the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans ordered every bridge across the Rhine River to be rigged with explosives and blown up before the allies could cross. The orders also stated that the bridges should remain intact as long as possible to allow retreating German troops back into the interior of Germany. The river would then present a serious natural barrier protecting Germany. There were 22 road bridges and 25 railroad bridges that spanned the Rhine. All but the Ludendorff at Remagen were destroyed before they could be captured.

The Ludendorff bridge was completed in 1918 just before the end of World War I. It was constructed of steel, 1,069 feet long, and wide enough for two sets of train tracks and a pedestrian walkway. It was 96 feet tall at the highest point and 48.5 feet above the average water level of the Rhine. Twin towers three stories high were constructed with gun embrasures built into the walls to serve as defensive structures at each end of the bridge. Construction included features to help the defenders destroy the bridge.

On March 7, 1945 the 9^th armored division of the 1^st American Army commanded by Brigadier-General William Hoge appeared on the horizon above Remagen. They drove into the town toward the bridge. The Germans used explosives to create a trench, preventing tanks from getting to the bridge. The defenders attempted to blow up supports from one side of the structure so it would slide into the river below. The ignition system failed. A squad of volunteers lit the fuses of the secondary charges by hand. When those charges went off. The bridge was lifted into the air, but it settled back in place, damaged but intact.

The American commander immediately sent his men running across the span, dodging obstacles while under fire. The Germans shelled the bridge with every gun available because it was the only way to get more than a few men at a time across the river.

In the next days they fired V-2 rockets at the span. Bombers tried to destroy the bridge. Seven frogmen went into the river in a futile attempt to blow up the supports. Hitler was so upset that within a week four officers were executed for their failure to destroy the bridge. As soon as they could the Americans sent amphibious vehicles to carry troops across the river while a pontoon bridge was being built next to the Ludendorff. Building the pontoon bridge and repairing damage to the Ludendorff continued twenty-four hours a day despite constant shelling so that tanks and other vehicles could cross. When vehicles trying to cross the span were hit and disabled, they were pushed off the bridge and fell into the river below through holes that shells had blasted in the railroad bed.

By March 11, the 99^th division was the first complete division across the bridge. Stepping over dead bodies and avoiding holes from the bombardment, the men worried that the Germans were waiting to blow up the bridge until it was full of GIs. Men were hurried across without regard for organization. McClernand Butler directed them to their units on the east side of the bridge. MPs stood on the bridge directing traffic and urging men along. Some were killed by the shells that landed on the bridge on average once every two minutes. My father said that the combat veterans thought that it was about time someone else had the experience of being under fire.

On March 17 the bridge finally collapsed from the sustained damage. Twenty eight engineers died, and ninety three more were injured in the collapse, but by that time roughly 25, 000 soldiers had passed over it. Crossing continued on the pontoon bridge and engineers pushed other bridges across the Rhine.

…

The Ludendorff bridge over the river is gone now, but fragments remain on each side. The remnants are of various widths and roughly five feet thick like puzzle pieces discarded by a giant. Massive black towers still reach high into the sky. Inside one of the towers a peace museum has been set up that tells the history of the bridge. When we visited my father wanted to see it but he did not want to buy a ticket.

He allowed me to pay saying, “I already paid.”

From time to time, I caught a glimpse of the nineteen-year-old farmer’s son who my father had been. The army drafted him and sent him to an intensive college program to develop needed engineering skills. When the need for combat infantrymen outweighed the need for engineers, the army terminated that program and sent him with many others to the front line.

As we drove through a lush green valley, his infantry skills came back to him. “This is a bad place for tanks – too narrow to maneuver. We’d knock the steeple off that church to keep it from being used by observers and send in infantry with just a few tanks. We’d have to watch for mine fields and for dragon’s teeth set to funnel us into the pre-sighted killing zones.”

At the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery, he separated from us to mourn over three graves of friends, men from his platoon. In his words, “They never came home and never got any older. I wonder why I survived and they didn’t.” My mother told me that after visiting the graves my father had nightmares like the ones he had just after the war.

Without a current address and not speaking German or French, we stumbled upon the house where my father and his squad sheltered with a family in Belgium for a few days forty-five years earlier. My father said, “It was the first time in months that I was dry, warm and safe.” Guy, who had been five when my father saw him last, still lived in the house. When Guy figured out who he was talking with, tears came into his eyes. He brought out a photo album with pictures from that time. My mother brought out photos she carried to compare to Guy’s. Two identical photos showed the family with Guy in shorts. Only Guy and his older sister, Josie, were still alive.

Another two images showed my father’s eight-man squad. In the photos my father knelt front and center, a young, handsome man with black hair. My father pointed to the young men in the picture and recounted their fates. “He died a day or two later. This one died a week after that. These three men and I were wounded seriously enough that they evacuated us back to the states. That one disappeared on a night patrol and I never learned what happen to him. This man survived the war without a scratch.”

Guy called his niece who spoke English. She took us to meet with Josie. Josie had a picture of her daughter in clothing that my parents sent shortly after the end of the war. My father asked how many men from the several groups of soldiers who sheltered in their home had made their way back.

She told him, “Only one, you.”

We walked across the Wied River on a pedestrian bridge in a recreation area. My father said he remembered wading through waist-deep freezing cold water in the middle of the night while machine guns fired from the other side of the river. We saw someone parasailing through the bright blue sky.

Not far beyond the Wied, my father had been wounded seriously so he was transported to England and back to the United States. Not long after we crossed the Wied, our vacation ended and we returned to our daily lives. Ever since then, I have thought about that trip frequently and about the teenager who became my father. I don’t think I will ever understand what he went through or how it changed him. I do know that I treasure the memories of moments when I saw an Iowa farm boy in the face of my father.

Writing with my Father, Bronze Star

Writing with my Father part 3; On Winning a Bronze Star

Note: I’ve written before about helping my father write his memoirs. You can read

more in this blog on 18/08/10 and 11/12/10.

From my father:

One day we went out in the field to shoot at an embedded foxhole. We shot from across a railroad embankment. I was one of the better shots in the company with a rifle grenade so I think that’s why I got the assignment. I don’t know if we did any damage.

When we started to return somebody said, “ Hey, look. We’re in a mine field.” I looked and there were little wires sticking up. The mines were called, “Bouncing Betties.” When set off, they would jump up two or three feet and then explode. The idea was to kill or wound as many men as possible. In our minds we could feel the mines exploding into our private parts. We were already scared but I said, “Follow me.” I walked very slowly and carefully. The squad members were content to stay behind me. One man was wounded by a mine when he stepped out of line. Later he died. When we got back to my company they made a big deal out of me getting the men out of the minefield. I was regarded as a hero, but I should have been criticized for taking them in, in the first place.

About a week later a fellow from headquarters showed up and said, “I’ve got a bronze star for you.” I said, “Thank you. What is it for?” He told me it was for getting the men out of the minefield. There was no way I could refuse, but I knew I didn’t really deserve it. I think the company had medals to give out and were looking for any excuse to award one to somebody. They should have given me criticism for getting the men into the minefield in the first place. That’s what the bronze star amounted to.

Note from Warren

For this part of the memoir, I did a few line edits and got out of the way of my father telling his story. I’ve witnessed his attitude about earning a medal and being considered a hero in other members of his Division. When called a hero the universal answer is, “I am not a hero. The real heroes never came home.” He maintained the many outstanding acts of bravery were not witnessed and that getting a medal was based on someone seeing the act and pushing the paperwork.

On November 11, 2010, I watched a segment of the television show 60 Minutes about Staff Sergeant Sal Giunta, who became the first living soldier to receive a Medal of Honor since the war in Viet Nam. He seemed embarrassed to be in his words, “singled out” when so many people were doing so much. He described himself as an “Average” and a “Mediocre” soldier who did only “What anyone else would have done.” He said that members of his unit who died were the only people,

“who gave their all for their country.” He credited his medal to somebody else filling out forms and talking to other people, not to his own actions. His award was for repeatedly charging into enemy fire to save other solders despite being shot twice. He was considered extremely brave in the face of almost certain death.

The Staff Sergeant maintained that he was never in a firefight without others in his unit supporting him. He said he accepted the medal on behalf of all who have served their country.

What does “heroism” mean to you?

Writing with my Father

When I wrote about helping my father with his memoirs in this blog, many people responded with stories about their parents and family memories. I talked with my father, who is now 87, and he seemed pleased that others were interested. He gave me permission to share his memoirs with others as I pleased.

One thing I tired to keep in mind as I wrote was that I was telling my father’s story; not mine. I tried to use my father’s “voice” in the phrasing, vocabulary and subject matter. When writing I always try to find the voice of the protagonist. For example, in my short story Lady of Quality, although the writing took about three years to complete, the voice of the protagonist never flagged. No matter how long it took I always knew I would finish eventually. With my father’s memoirs, I had a lifetime of listening to work with. There have been times with my boys when I opened my mouth and heard my father’s words come tumbling out.

My father has a Midwesterner’s reluctance to call attention to himself and to downplay his accomplishments. That does not mean he lacks confidence or ambition. He does not. We agreed that readers would most interested in his war experiences and that should be the opening of the book. My father was insistent that he was not a hero and would not accept any description implying he was.

We discussed starting with the Battle of the Bulge, crossing the Rhine River over the only intact bridge left in all of Germany or earning a bronze star. My father suggested his first encounter with a jet might work, but I thought t would be less impressive to readers well acquainted with jets than it had been to him when his life was suddenly threatened by a weapon he’d only heard rumors about.

I searched for a theme, we talked extensively and I reviewed his thoughts, Finally I suggested an opening that we mutually evolved into the following:

My childhood ended on December 17, 1944. I was twenty years old then, but it wasn’t my age that mattered. On that date, the second day of the Battle of the Bulge, I was sent to the front line as a replacement for a man about my age who had been killed. When I went off to war my dad told me to do whatever I had to do to survive and come home again. I thought the man I replaced probably had similar instructions from his dad. The instructions didn’t save him. My dad’s instructions couldn’t deflect bullets of shell fragments. I knew I could be killed and that knowledge destroyed my childish illusion that everything would work out for me in the end. Surrounded by strangers, shivering in the bitter cold and aware that I could die without warning, I thought about how I ended up in a hole in the ground with people shooting at me. But combat was the defining experience of my life.

Would you like to hear more about his memoirs?