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BOOMER BUZZ MY AMERICAN HEROES
Many of us can say: “I never knew my grandfather.” I am one of those people. As a child, I remember watching the old black and white television with my mother. The news showed the excitement of a military parade. Hand held flags waved. Women reached to touch the sleeves of soldiers marching in unison. The jumpy, flickering quality of the newsreel dated what I saw. The camera swept over face after face of uniformed men. I noticed Mother’s eyes filled with tears. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “I think that was my father.” Through decades of war, children have lost parents. Their children have been denied knowing grandparents. My grandfather died when my mother was ten years old. Sudden loss of a parent at that age has been identified as a source of PTSD. I looked at the picture of my Grandfather in uniform. It was taken during the homecoming of the 32nd Division American Expeditionary Force in June 1919. He appeared the way I imagined a military man. He boasted a strong, square chin, lean waist, a mouth caught between a smile and military propriety. Although the picture is fuzzy and black and white like the old T.V., two rows of ribbons are identifiable on his chest. Grandfather had been in the National Guard, but resigned prior to WWI, when the war broke out, he enlisted as a private. Commissioned on the field of battle, he rose to the rank of Major. Ultimately he was Adjutant to General Pershing. My grandfather received the Croix de Guerre, the highest military honor awarded by France. American and French troops were pinned at the front without ammunition. Defying orders, he commandeered a truckload of ammunition and transported it to the front. How many lives he saved is unknown. Grandfather earned bars for three major battles. He died from exposure to mustard gas, and even after death, helped his fellow soldiers. My grandmother allowed the exhumation of his body to study the effects of the gas on humans. If I had known him, I wonder, would have been afraid of him? Would I have trembled in the shadow of a person so driven to bravery?
My father served in the Air Force. One time during the war, he knew he was scheduled to a secret location. When he went to his barber, Dad overheard a conversation about his “shipment,” a blatant breach in security. His deployment was cancelled and he never left the states. Dad taught Airplane Mechanics to enlisted men. He also trained crews for the B-29. He trained commissioned officers as a sergeant. Dad’s greatest service to his country occurred after the war while he was a graduate student in Ames, Iowa. He worked for the AEC and the Manhattan Project doing research experimenting with radioactive materials. To me he was always just “Dad” until recently, when it was brought to my family’s attention that Dad’s death may have been related to his work. Many forms of cancer have been linked to exposure, albeit controlled, to radioactive chemicals. I pulled out the faded hand-typed copy of his thesis and read it for the first time. I remembered the hundreds of times he patiently read the Little Golden Book version of The Wizard of Oz to me. I couldn’t put together the brilliance of his work with the gentle, handson father he was. While he didn’t battle on the front lines, he, like so many others, made what we now call the “ultimate sacrifice” for the security of his country. While Dad was in the Air Force, Mom supported the war driving government vehicles. She drove semis, 1 to ½ ton trucks, jeeps, staff cars and transported celebrities like Jimmie Stewart or GI prisoners My Dad didn’t live to see his granddaughter graduate from Annapolis and serve two tours overseas. My niece, Melanie, first went to Afghanistan, one of two women over there helping search the caves for the enemy. In the Afghan culture, strange men did not touch women and children. They were separated from the native men and searched by my niece and the other female assigned with her. Those of us who loved her wanted to believe she wasn’t under fire, but she was. In such a place, how could she not be? The books and care packages seemed paltry gestures to one so bravely putting her life at risk for our country. Many families heaved a cross-country collective sigh of relief and murmured a prayer of thanks when they were certain a family member had touched down safely on American soil. I know my American heroes are those who fought, drove, experimented, doctored, and served. Thank you all and Happy Fourth of July.