“My dad went to go dance with mom.”
This past Tuesday, a World War II Navy vet – Donald Buska, of Billings, MT – passed away. He was 86.
Buska died suddenly, but his end was not completely unexpected. Besides his age, he’d been in hospice care since mid February.
This normally would not be noteworthy. We’re rapidly losing the few remaining vets of World War II due to age.
However, Buska’s passing was indeed noteworthy. And it was noteworthy for more than simply the fact that he was a veteran of World War II.
Buska knew he was not long for this earth. But he had one remaining dream: he wanted to visit Washington and see the World War II Monument before he passed.
On Sunday and Monday, he did so. He did so as a guest of Big Sky Honor Flight of Montana. His son Jeff accompanied him.
Buska and his son visited DC for two days. Mail call was held on arrival – where he and other participants received many letters of support from friends and acquaintances, coordinated by the Honor Flight program. He indeed saw the Monument – as well as the Changing of the Guard at Arlington. He reconnected with an old poker buddy. On return, he and the other vets received the proverbial hero’s welcome.
He stayed up until around midnight Monday night, reading the mail call letters with his family. He’d had a thoroughly wonderful trip.
And at 4:15AM on Tuesday morning, he died.
The Billings Gazette has an excellent story on Mr. Buska’s trip that gives more details. It’s worthwhile reading. But if you choose to read it, maybe have a tissue ready.
And in case anyone’s wondering: the title of this article is a remark made by his son Jeff after his father’s passing (Buska’s wife had predeceased him). IMO, the young man got it exactly right.
. . .
When our time comes, may each of us be so lucky as to have that kind of exit from this earth. Kudos to Big Sky Honor Flight of Montana for making it so for Mr. Buska.
Rest in peace, my elder brother-in-arms. Take some time to look up old buddies, and catch up on things. Enjoy seeing those old friends.
And enjoy dancing with your wife once again, too.
Category: Blue Skies
Amazing story. May he rest in peace.
A wonderful story. Something special here, not only for the obvious, but for the report that he had been in hospice since February. As a rule, hospice stays are brief and folks don’t go into hospice unless the docs believe death is imminent, usually two weeks or less.
When my card is drawn I hope I have the ability to shuffle on as nobly as this man.
God Bless Mr. Buska and his family.
Fair winds and following seas, Mr. Buska. Bless the good people of Big Sky Honor Flight for making his trip possible, and especially his family for supporting him instead of trying to keep him “safe at home” in hospice. Awfully dusty in here all of a sudden. I was particularly touched by Mr Buska’s concern that he somehow did not deserve the trip, due to not having seen combat. A humble and modest attitude which seems to have become vanishingly rare these days.
Things get blurry when it’s dusty, don’t they?
Rest in Peace, Mr. Buska.
Amen…. +1000000000000000
Good night, Mr. Buska. You were a good man and you will be missed.
That was beautiful!
My father, a WWII and Korea vet, did not get to see either memorial. So I visited them for him.
Last October it was a distinct honor to be among those present when an Honor Flight arrived at the WWII Memorial. Not sure that my heart has ever been so filled with all that honor, duty, pride of service thing plus a few hundred other appropriate emotions.
Rest now in peace, Mr. Buska. Enjoy the dance. My dad will likely be either leading the band or taking the occasion to finally dance with my mother.
I followed this as it unfolded.
Great story.
Rest Well, sir.
Rest in peace, my elder brother-in-arms, Donald Buska. Thank you for serving our nation. God bless your family now and may you enjoy an eternity of dances with your wife.
Two months after the WWII Memorial opened I flew my father-in-law, one of Patton’s soldiers, to Washington where a friend from Virginia Beach, also a Vietnam Vet, picked us up and chauffeured us around for two days. We were blessed with unusual Fall-like, cool, clear, blue sky weather in the usually oppressively hot Washington in July.
It took too long for the victors of WWII to get their memorial but they ended up with the most beautiful. The day we visited it was very busy with most of the old warriors being wheeled around by their families like my octogenarian father-in-law. Unlike the funereal atmosphere that has surrounded the Vietnam Wall every time I’ve been there, the crowd at the WWII monument was cheerful, even celebratory with the old guys pausing, wheelchairs side-by-side, to swap stories and to congratulate each other on having the good fortune to have survived long enough to see it. We heard that refrain over and over, “Glad I lived long enough to see it.”
It was a wonderful thing to see those old guys finally celebrating their victory memorial but as we wheeled around the pavilion with the spouting fountains in the center, I could not help but feel a bit of shame for this nation that should have built it decades earlier so that more of them could have visited it before their deaths.
We also went to Arlington and the old warriors in wheelchairs all got to sit front row for the changing of the guard. Over all, it was a wonderful trip and for the first time in the almost forty years I’d been married to his daughter, that old cowboy and oilman and I interacted as old soldiers.
I forgot to add that my in-laws, Depression area teenagers and high school sweethearts in rural West Texas, were enthusiastic dancers all their lives like the Buska’s.
After I married their youngest, my mother-in-law flew off to Iran to join her husband where he was drilling for oil. She then lived with him in many countries for the next twenty years and we have pictures of them dancing in many varied places.
They were still able to take a slow turn around the floor on their 70th anniversary. The inscription on their headstone reads:
“Two wonderful members of the Greatest Generation, they waltzed across Texas and all around the World.”
Thank you for your story, Poetrooper. I always enjoy your posts.
No tears, just joy that another hero has gone to live in peace with no pain, to dance with his wife again. God bless the ones he is leaving behind and give them solace in their grief.
RIP, Mr. Buska. God speed, sir.