Field jacket, 1969 model
Happy Veteran’s Day
This one’s for my dad. And yet, I don’t know that I want him to read it. He never reads this site, so the only danger of it happening is that my mom will read it and tell him about it. Your choice, mom.
My dad’s a vet. He was in the Army, drafted and sent to boot camp a couple months before I was born in April, 1969. He was 18, maybe just turned 19—I don’t have all the exact dates down. But whenever he went, he went before I was born. He was back before I was 3. I don’t remember him ever being gone.
He was a medical specialist, stationed at Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri. This was during the height of Vietnam, but that wasn’t my dad’s destiny. His was to drive an ambulance and be a first responder on the base for his two-plus years in the service. Lucky guy, right?
I was war crazy when I was a kid. I loved reading about WWII, studied books about the airplanes and tanks and famous land, air and naval battles. Whenever I went to a museum all I cared about was seeing something from that war, or any war. The appeal of war to me was both magnetic and inexplicable, but like most kids I didn’t have an understanding of the war’s real impact. I thought if you managed not to die the war was just something you went through. Maybe even something glorious and exciting.
My maternal grandfather was in WWII, an airplane mechanic. He died in 1976. I remember looking through some of his old war pictures sometime after he died, and being disappointed. There were no fighter planes in these pictures, nothing even remotely exciting to me. It was a far cry from the action-packed photos I had seen in the World Book Encyclopedia. Just him in his mechanic get-up, a little grease on his hands, standing in a hanger. I was particularly unimpressed. Where was the danger? Yeah, he was in the war, but it’s not like he was in the war. He never fired his weapon, never dodged bullets.
As I grew older I had the same vague feeling about his army time. Yeah, he was in the Army. But it’s not like he was ever in Vietnam. He served in Missouri! Hell, I had been to Missouri. How tough could that have been? For a kid looking to feel worldly and dangerous through vicarious association with others, driving an ambulance in Missouri wasn’t much of either.
I grew up not caring about Veteran’s Day. I didn’t see the relevance to my life.
At some point I began to think more about what it was like for him to be drafted and taken away from his 17 year-old expecting girlfriend, soon to become his young bride and newborn son. And on top of that, to have all of that happen when he was 19. I didn’t fully appreciate what it meant to him and so many other people in the same situation, but I knew that I hadn’t given him anywhere near his due. It was a harder thing than I’ve ever had to do in my life, that’s for sure. Still, we didn’t talk about it. Ancient history, or so I thought.
A couple years ago, he started having various problems. Nightmares, some other stuff. He was diagnosed with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. This was all news to me, both the problems and the diagnosis. I remember thinking about PTSD, that it was unusual for him to have that since I thought that was mostly a combat-related problem. My dad never saw combat, and for that I am grateful. But what he saw was enough for him.
A part of his duty was treating guys coming back straight from Vietnam, a steady stream. I think that was pretty tough for him, but that’s not what got to him most. Military bases have a sort of frontier lawlessness to them, or at least they did in that era. There was lots of violence, lots of drinking and drugs, and very few had the traffic or social controls that exist in the real world. There were an inordinate amount of traffic accidents out on the large stretches of open road on the base, a sort of Midwestern Autobahn, and my dad was usually one of the first people on the scene. I guess a lot of times there wasn’t any need for medical aid to be given, just cleanup of the wreckage. He saw too much of that. And it wasn’t just soldiers in these accidents. It was their families, sometimes very young kids. After his PTSD diagnosis I learned he had seen something happen to a young child out on those roads that he wasn’t able to let go of, even after all the years. In fact, the years seem to have exacerbated it, bringing it from the back of his mind closer to the front.
As quickly as he was taken from his life in Topeka in 1969, he was plopped back down into in 1971 or 1972. Except now he had a young son. It was a hard adjustment for him, but I sure didn’t know anything about it. I was too young.
One day a year or so ago, my dad apologized for not being around when I was so young, like it was his fault. He didn’t need to apologize to me; I have never felt my childhood was lacking. But it was something he needed to say. I don’t think it lifted all the weight from his shoulders, but it was an important step for him.
You know what finally made me appreciate Veteran’s Day? Watching my kids grow up, and realizing that my dad didn’t get to see that. I couldn’t have understood him the way I do until I had kids of my own, and realized how it would hurt to be away from them. He worries about how his absence impacted me, and who can say? His being there probably would have been better for both of us, mom too, but that wasn’t to be our fate. I’ve always been happy, and I told him that. I ended up OK, and though he may not have been there for the first two years of my life, he’s always been there since. Whenever he’s had the choice to make, he’s chosen to be there. I know other people whose parents didn’t make the same choice.
His absence from my early years impacted him. It’s time that was stolen from him, plus he feels guilt for not being there. But I believe my kids might be helping to heal him. In just about every photo I have of him with Linus or Lily, he has this huge goofy grin. That in itself isn’t all that unusual, but he has a different look about him around his grandkids. I think he was afraid they wouldn’t respond to him, but they do, and that is a wonderful thing to watch. I think they give him some of what he missed with me.
I think about all the people away from their families today in support of what’s happening in Iraq, or Bosnia, or so many other places. There are a lot of people missing their families, missing their kids. I know now that war impacts so many more people than just the fighters. It impacts everybody in the service and at home, too. Military service takes time away that can never be given back. Of course, few of those people were drafted when they were 18. Most made a choice, at some level. My dad never had a choice, and neither did a whole lot of other people back then.
I used to think Veteran’s Day was just for the people who fought and died. It’s not. It’s for everybody who sacrificed a part of their lives for their country, parts of lives they’ll never get back. It’s for people wearing the uniform who saw things they never wanted to see, and can’t unsee them. It’s for families left behind, trying to do the best they can, and families trying to become whole again even when people come back changed.
Now that I think about it, mom, don’t have dad read this. Don’t tell him about it. I don’t want to bring up bad memories from back then. Just tell him I’m thinking about him today.
7:21:12 PM 
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