Missed opportunities
I’ve known veterans all my life, you know because there was still a draft going on and nearly everyone had served during my youth. But there are some who I wished that I had asked more questions of when I had the opportunity.
In the neighborhood where I grew up, there was a fellow who seemed old to me (he was probably 65 or so) who would take us boys in his garage and show us his uniform from World War I, his helmet, his gas mask, his bayonet. He’d tell us stories about “going over the top” of trenches to charge into a terrifying wall of machinegun fire simply because someone blew a bugle. Today, there are so many questions I’d ask him, but he’s long gone.
My Uncle Barney who had married my grandfather’s sister fought across the Pacific with the Marines in World War II. He showed me his only war trophy – a Japanese helmet with a single bullet hole in it. You can probably guess the story he told me about it. But it was the only time we ever talked about his experiences. His wife, my Great-Aunt Edith, was a repository of the story about the “war at home”. She had piles of memorabilia related to the war years, posters and newspaper clippings. I remember a huge jar of steel pennies that she had saved when copper was more useful in war machine production. But, now that I know what to ask them, Uncle Barney and Aunt Edith along with their souvenirs are gone.
Across the street from my boyhood home, my best friend’s father had been a Marine in the Korean War and had survived the retreat from Chosin. He never talked about his experiences, like most heroes we’ve known over the years. He was proud of being a Marine, but that’s where his stories ended. He left us a few years ago from cancer, long after I had moved away and lost contact with them.
Not all of my missed opportunity were related to the military and war. My grandfather once hinted that my grandmother was a flapper (which explains my fascination with F Scott Fitzgerald novels) and that he had built Model Ts in Detroit after the war (he turned 18 just a few weeks before the war ended). My father tells me that my grandfather sold bootleg bathtub gin out of his small store to the local constabulary during Prohibition.
Their stories were the story of America. I feel as if I cheated myself out of a great education because I didn’t bother to dig into their memories while they were still here. I spent most of my adult years reading reams of books and primary sources about those years, it was probably a reason that one of my majors in college was history, but I still can’t beat this feeling that I missed something by not asking questions.
I guess my point is that history lives all around us and the fact that we don’t make the effort to force that history out of the real heroes, we’ll live to regret that, because the real heroes of the American Story won’t just tell us.
By the way, I’ve taken every opportunity to drag the stories out of my Vietnam veteran uncle. I learned my lesson.
Category: Veterans Issues
When I was a kid growing up, Daddy never talked about his job as a master sergeant in the United States Army at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
If I asked too many questions, he’d say it was “classified”, which being a kid, I had difficulty understanding what that word meant.
Sometimes, he’d get his medals down from the closet shelf to let me look at them, but he told me next to nothing about the Second World War, and absolutely never a single word about Korea.
Mama and Daddy taught me over and over that it was wrong to brag, and that real war heroes usually wouldn’t say anything about their experience(s).
When I went to Viet Nam, Daddy revealed that, at the same age, he had landed on the beach at Normandy.
You might remember a few months back, when Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in Afghanistan commented about the down side of receiving that decoration.
Every day, constantly, over and over, people would want to hear the story, but in his own mind, he considered that day to be the WORST day of his life, for his closest buddies died, and he couldn’t save them.
Jonn, thank you. Great article about true Americana. I too wish I had asked more of the Korean, WWII and even some WWI veterans in the family and neighborhood. It is sad to me they are gone now, along with their histories.
Thanks, Jonn! This is a short piece from my blog from 2 years ago. It’s in the same vein as your post: If we could only have a “do-over”. ———————————– Sometimes, you are blessed to meet someone whom you recognize as being important, but the depth of that importance doesn’t hit you until later in life. Such was my case with Colonel Chase Jay Nielsen. Colonel Nielsen came to speak to us when I was in elementary school. He’d recently retired from the Air Force and we were all amazed at getting to talk to a real-life Air Force Colonel. I don’t remember exactly what he spoke of, but it included bombing Japan. At that time, the war had been over for only 20 years, and many of the veterans still had vivid recollections. He told us that he had been captured and spent time as a POW in Japan, rescued at the end of the war, then resuming his career until retiring in 1961. But, he was from my hometown of Hyrum, Utah, and also went to Utah State University, where I would later go. In Junior High School, he came back and talked to us again and it was there that I finally understood who he was. Then Captain Nielsen had been the navigator aboard B-25 #6 on Doolittle’s Raid. It made an impact upon me because I had recently seen the movie “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” and also had a copy of the book. A while later, I noticed that my copy of the book was missing from my bookshelf. My dad said he’d borrowed it, so I didn’t think anything of it. Turns out he’d taken it over to the Legion Post in Salt Lake City when Colonel Nielsen was speaking there, and asked him to sign it for me. It’s one of my treasured possessions now. Later on I was fortunate to actually meet and talk with the Colonel when back home on leave from the Navy. He was still working as, I believe, a defense contractor. Still, you just never know who you might… Read more »
AW1 Tim…Thank you. Way cool story! The man never told of his fame only his modest service. What a true hero. I imagine you covet your book. I too read it in junior high when I started reading every book on WWII I could find. I was mesmerized by “30 Seconds Over Tokyo”. No matter what a Hollywood writer could come up with, they can never write better than what happened in real life.
I have the same regrets, Jonn.
At times, I certainly wish I’d asked more questions of my father, and of his brothers/brothers-in-law. And of a few of the folks I served with early on in their career, when there were still many Vietnam veterans and (and a very few Korean War vets) still serving.
Like the folks you mention, they were all pretty damn tight-lipped about what they’d done while serving – or would gloss over things.
I understand that, and at the time, I respected their desire not to talk. But in retrospect, in a way that’s a damn shame.
I might have gotten told to go p!ss off a lot. Or have gotten the cold shoulder for prying into dark places that weren’t my dark places.
But today, there are times I still wish I had.
Well written and very true.
Good article.
Excellent read, Jonn. I think those of us who have known the “old guard” may have been privy to a few of their stories, but they kept it at a minimum.
Ethel Guffey Simpson was a WAC Nurse who was one of the first on Normandy. This woman is so awesome. She showed me all kinds of memorobilia and a soldier’s “diary” etched on napkins or tree bark, whatever he found to tell the story…the stuff goosebumps are made of.
I’m a volunteer at our local VA Medical Center. My dad was in WWII (at age 16) but never talked about it. I am so so lucky to hear the stories of soldiers who fought in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. They want to tell someone, and as a volunteer I am there to listen.
Thank you for this site.
Sometimes even when we make the effort to document the stories, they just will not talk about it. My own family history is mostly broad generalizations about the war service of individual members. My own father simply refused to share any details until after I came home from DS/DS/DS, and then, it was only enough for me to appreciate just how much he had left out previously, and how little he was still willing to share.
Many in previous generations were simply private persons who saw no need to talk about everything they knew.
In 56′ there was a custodian for one of the apartment houses on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn where I grew up. Nice guy in spite of our being a local ball breaking group of teen age boys. He told a story about having a metal plate in his head. Seems he was part of the airborne group that jumped into Belgium that got caught on steeples and the Germans used them for target practice. Also had some glider time. Didn’t think much about it until a few years later when I saw the place in Belgium. Our country is full of unsung hero’s who we did not take care of when the war ended. What really pisses me off having just returned from the Arkansas State Veterans Cemetery (where by the way I handed the former American Legion Department of Arkansas Commander the printed TAH post about the phony in their Cabot Am Leg Post. She knew the guy and will take the post for personal action), that is filling up all too quickly, is our country NEVER learns from past failures. It’s only 1420 but screw it, I’m going to have a brew (an American brew).
When I was still in high school my father was the coordinator for the T-6 Demo Team down in Randoplh AFB, TX. They were doing a heritage/ legacy flight. The new T-6 Texan II and the original T-6. My grandfather trained in the old T-6 before he left for Korea. I didn’t realize how cool that day was going to be. Tex Hill from the Flying Tigers was there. I got to meet him, but I didn’t want to bother him with too many questions. Plus, when you’re around people like we were raised to be seen and not heard. He and my Grandfather talked a little bit about flying the old Texan, it was still amazing to meet him. Sometimes you just get lucky.
It isn’t just the 20th century wars. My great grandfather and his 3 brothers were all in the Civil War. I have three pieces of paper, from my great-grandfather and great-uncle George, that relate what they saw, in barely one typed page. And that’s it. And I never knew anything about it until I dragged it out of my mother.
My uncle Joe was an MP at Anzio. I never heard him speak a single word about it. My best friend’s dad jumped into Normandy, also never a word. My best friend was kicker for Air America – I have been to two of their reunions as his guest. My great grandfather and his brother fought in the 26 Ohio Infantry – that’s the Northern side – it is on his grave marker. A great uncle was gassed in France.
The only one that I talk to is my best friend, everyone else is gone. So many stories, so many missed opportunities. Somebody told me once, get them to talk about it. If their stories don’t get told then we have to relearn the hard lessons. We know what that costs.
May the Surface deities forgive me for quoting a bubblehead, but Dex Armstrong wrote about something similar. It’s kind of long, but the last 2 paragraphs sums it rather well. http://www.olgoat.com/substuff/dex207.htm Submarine Chiefs by Bob ‘Dex’ Armstrong One thing we weren’t aware of at the time but became evident as life wore on, was that we learned true leadership from the finest examples any lad was ever given… Boat qualified CPOs. They were crusty bastards who had done it all and had been forged into men who had been time tested over more years than a lot of us had time on the planet. The ones I remember wore hydraulic oil stained hats with scratched and dinged-up insignia, faded shirts, some with a Bull Durham tag dangling out of their right-hand pocket or a pipe and tobacco reloads in a worn leather pouch in their hip pockets, and a Zippo that had been everywhere. Some of them came with tattoos on their forearms that would force them to keep their cuffs buttoned at a Methodist picnic. Most of them were as tough as a boarding house steak… A quality required to survive the life they lived. They were and always will be, a breed apart from all other residents of Mother Earth. They took eighteen year-old idiots and hammered the stupid bastards into submarine sailors. You knew instinctively it had to be hell on earth to have been born a Chief’s kid… God should have given all sons born to Chiefs a return option. A Chief didn’t have to command respect… He got it because there was nothing else you could give them. They were God’s designated hitters on earth. We had Chiefs with fully loaded Submarine Combat Patrol Pins in my day… Hardcore bastards, who found nothing out of place with the use of the word ‘Japs’ to refer to the little sons of Nippon they had littered the floor of the Pacific with, as payback for a little December 7th tea party they gave us in 1941. In those days, ‘insensitivity’ was not a word in a boatsailor’s… Read more »
Third time sobbing today!
Thanks … I needed this today!
Awesome, and I’m not a Squid. That post alone makes TAH worth every electron it used to post it.
As I have said before, Army NCO’s are no slouches at training young soldiers and young officers. Anything I accomplished as an officer I owe to NCO’s of all grades that guided me.
I knew Chiefs like that when I was stationed in Monterey, CA. Retired Fleet guys. I first met them, if you could call it that, when I was a First Class. I knew one of them had been a China Fleet Sailor and a CPO. He was the owner of the apartment complex that I lived in. I’d say hi to him and he’d just grunt, “UH!”
Then I went through initiation.
The first time I walked into my apartment building in my khakis, the Chief saw me and a big smile broke out on his face. He was immediately my buddy! “How ya doin’, Chief?”
Same thing with the other retired CPOs. The brotherhood of the Goat Locker runs deep. Real deep.
Did I sit down with them and listen to their sea stories? Nope. I kick myself in the ass now for not doing that. I really screwed up.
Just like I kick myself for not pushing my father to tell me what it was like to be an ordnanceman in combat in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. What it was like to be at Montecassino. How it felt to liberate Rome. He just wouldn’t budge. There was a guy in my town who nagged him to join the VFW. “Why would I want to join a group where I would sit at a bar and talk about stuff I want to forget?”
There were so many other things. If you still have your parents by your side, find out about their lives before it is too, too late. You’d be amazed by the tales.
And THAT, Chief, is why I’m proud to be a submariner, and why I’ll always look up to those who EARNED their right to be in the Goat Locker.
And why I’ll forever despise those who falsely claim to be a Chief, honorary or otherwise.
Just to pipe in from the brown shoe side of things, here’s a bit about Airdales & their bars. http://goatlocker.org/resources/nav/airdale.htm ——————————– Airdales always stuck together. They worked and played as a crew and they gravitated to places where they could be with fellow aircrewmen, in locations where people who could tolerate their obnoxious conduct, impure verbiage and rollicking nonsense that was the standard by which the aircrew were measured. Their hallmark, so to speak. The airdale bar was unlike other naval watering holes and dens of iniquity inhabited by seagoing elements. It had to meet strict standards to be in compliance with the acceptable requirement for an airborne sailor beer-swilling dump. Loudmouth Barmaid. The first and foremost requirement was a crusty old gal serving suds. She had to be able to wrestle King Kong to parade rest. Be able to balance a tray with one hand, knock bluejackets out of the way with the other hand and skillfully navigate through a roomful of milling around drunks. On slow nights, she had to be the kind of gal who would give you a back scratch with a fly swatter handle or put her foot on the table so you could admire her new ankle bracelet some AE brought her back from a Hong Kong liberty. A good barmaid had to be able to whisper sweet nothings in your ear like, “Sailor, your thirteen button flap is twelve buttons short of a green board.” And, “Buy a pack of Clorets and chew up the whole thing before you get within heaving range of any gal you ever want to see again.” And, “Hey animals, I know we have a crowd tonight, but if any of you guys find the head facilities fully occupied and start urinating down the floor drain, you’re gonna find yourself scrubbing the deck with your white hats!” They had to be able to admire great tattoos, look at pictures of ugly bucktooth kids and smile. Be able to help haul drunks to cabs and comfort 19 year-olds who had lost someone close to them. They could look at… Read more »
Ah, yes! Those were the days! Shit River Centurions. Stay away from Magasaysay…too expensive. Turn right down Gordon. The bar fines were cheaper and the girls much nicer. But still didn’t beat the Barrio Barreto. Staying at the Marmont. Partying all night.
One time I was to pick up a ship in Subic for a TAD trip. David R. Ray. We were headed to Hong Kong, then to one of the first Cobra Gold exercises. 1983 I think.
I landed in Subic and the port was empty except for subs and little old David R Ray. Pretty unusual. Being the good liberty hound that I was, I immediately headed to the spook hangout on Gordon called “One for Da Road.” Knew and loved all the girls there. No matter how long it had been since I had been there, they ALWAYS remembered my name and what I liked. If I walked in there today after 30 years, they would shout out my name. The CIA could learn a thing or two from the Bar Girl Intel Network.
This time they were particularly happy to see me cause I was practically the only game in town.
I had what they called in the PI, “pesonality,” at least for that night.
As the night progressed, I decided to take a load off and lay down on a long and wide leather sofa by the front door. After a while, one of the girls came over to join me, snuggling up to me. Followed by a second and then a third.
Before it was all over, there must have been me and about ten girls, all cuddling and well…just being friendly and hospitable.
Whenever I think about dying and going to heaven, for some strange reason that scene comes to mind.
Stayed on Magsaysay just long enough to get the free beer at Slim’s, then everyone on the boat would pile into jeepneys to Island Girls in Bo Barretto. Place was owned by a retired SK, and first night a boat came in, they drank free. Woe be unto the hapless skimmer puke or airedale who thought they’d make it “their” bar…
Yup, all those landlubber sand crabs did NOT know what they were missing by not partying in Subic Bay!
Here’re some more stories that shouldn’t be forgotten. I’ve exchanged a few emails with Emily and she has memories of experiences unique to the Donut Dollies.
http://www.donutdolly.com/
http://www.emilydd.com/dong_tam/Donut_Dollie_Hooch/donut_dollies.htm
My dad told us he was in Army during Korea. He never spoke of it ’till as adults my mother shared the few things he had saved. We researched his unit and what they did matching it with my dad’s records that I obtained.
He was in it up to his neck and he eventually came clean before his death. But it was old hack for him. He survived and responded as a memeber of the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade to the Nazi bombing of the North Strand in 1941. And his father was a “Squad” man and a SgtMaj in the Dublin Guard and held Kerry during during the Civil War.
My dad as the eldest, led his three younger brothers into the Army. Scores of other cousins and even uncles followed. Because word on the street was, if you are skilled and wishing citizenship, the US Army was the path for the Irish. After Korea and as a successful business man, more Irishman in NYC followed my father’s counsel … GO to Viet Nam … And they did. My dad welcomed home the dead, wounded and a MoH recipient to Woodside, NY.
My dear departed dad’s lil’ sister departs tomorrow. She was here visiting from her convent in Dublin … We placed a flag at my father’s grave with my son … Three Generations!
Sign of the Cross to you MCPO.
My mother’s side came to the states via Australia. My dad met her there during WWII. He was a Pharmacist’s Mate (later changed to Hospital Corpsman) on temporary duty. She was a teletype operator at McArthur’s HQ. They met at a bus stop and talked every day for several weeks. When he shipped out (assigned as an Independent Duty Corpsman with the Marines) they kept on writing. In 1947, he proposed and she came over t and the rest is history.
But on my dad’s side, we go back to the early 1600’s in North Carolina. Sometimes, when I talk about my heritage, I feel like Lt Dan. Someone in every generation has served, most recently my son in Afghanistan with the 173rd Airborne.
What I am most pleased with is that my mom & dad recorded several hours on interviews at Utah State University with their heritage program, so there’s that. Plus, I have over a hundred of his letters between him, his folks, and my mom from during the war. I’ve read most of them, but he made me promise not to publish anything until he’s past on. Mom died in 2001. dad’s still going strong at 95.
I should have added, from Cork to the states via Australia. they left Cork in the 1880’s.
Early today I was at St. Stephen’s Cemetary in Warwick, NY. It was the 2nd of three stops during the parade. There we honored men and women, who are buried there, from the Revolutionary War through Afghanistan.
My eight year old son was most interested in one. A Chaplain who worked for GEN Patton and rode out the Battle of the Buldge and died very recently … So he and the nun from Dublin spent a few long moments there. Don’t know yet what was said.
Master Chief? Maybe its best left unknown what was said ‘tween son and nun…
Its getting awfully dusty in here.
When I was about 5 years old I had a relative on my moms side who was mising the tips of his fingers. I asked him what happened and he told me that he fell asleep with his arm hanging off the edge of the bed and rats chewed the tips off of them. Much later on I learned he lost them to frostbite in Korea.
Thanks to everyone that commented. Thank you Jonn for the topic
We can learn from The Shoah Foundation. They have spent years collecting stories, information, and artifacts regarding the Holocaust.
Just like they do not want to lose the stories and the history, we should endeavor to do the same with our veterans.
Wonderful post!
I discovered the same thing when beginning my genealogy research. Oh, if I could only go back and ask my grandparents and their siblings all of my questions!
I found so many interesting things about my family after my grandparents were gone and it was too late to share with them. They would have loved it!
The Internet is a wonderful tool for family research. It used to be that you had to wait until retirement do to research so that you could drive to little libraries all over the country (world) looking for paper records. Now you can do so much from home, thanks to organizations like the Mormon church and Ancestry.com, etc.
It is never too late to start. Get those stories and papers and photos as soon as you can. Nothing makes history come alive like a personal story.