This is my response from October 23, 2023. I still think it is a good response to the prompt:
I knew a veteran of World War II who offered me some advice on pride. But before his advice, here is just a bit of clarity on who this gentleman was. He was a many times decorated former Navy Beachmaster. Don’t know what a Beachmaster is? He landed in the very first party of an amphibious assault and got it all organized amidst the shelling, machine guns, and assaults. His duty was to walk around the beachhead while the Japanese were trying hard to kill him specifically and get everything ordered for the attack. Many of his peers did not make it.
His family was eager to see any revelations as we progressed through several sittings. He hadn’t shared with them any of his wartime experiences. This was the first time they had heard of any of it. I was familiar with this situation. My father had been torpedoed twice, and my uncle had served in the Navy at D-Day. Little or nothing had been said about these things. There was no plumping up of incidents; rather, there was no telling of incidents at all. It was only at a family dinner after my father died that while shopping for dinner, I picked up a bag of frozen succotash and was told by my older sister that the reason it was never served in our house was that succotash was what the cook was serving the night dad had been torpedoed for the second time.
At the end of my third interviewing session, I asked why he’d never told his family about his experiences. I fully expected that he’d mention the trauma and horror of the incidents. Instead, he said that when he’d come home from the war, he’d been eager to do more with his life, not to be defined by the war, and to be proud of other achievements.
It’s good advice.
While he was still sitting in front of the camera, dressed in his Navy dress uniform, I stood and gave him a full regulation salute, the only one I had offered to any Naval officer in many years.
Discover more from Louis N. Carreras, Woodcarver
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I agree that it is good advice; and I carry it beyond military service, and to any big thing in one’s life. Don’t let it define you, as that is not only selling yourself short but is potentially an obstacle to the rest of your life. I am saddened to see people wrap their entire identity around a trauma, their two years on the varsity team in high school, that failed relationship back in their twenties that now seems like it was perfect, the years when they were a supervisor at the company… all these things are BIG, yes, but humans contain so much more. I would have respected your World War II Beachmaster. Certainly for the job he held, the bravery he managed, the wileyness and luck that kept him alive, but most of all that he came out of it and decided to live a full life. That must have been so challenging for him, and also for his family. I have deep respect for that journey.
and he did live an exceptional life as a father, grandfather, entrepreneur, and a person active in the local community. He was a great success, and a wonderful human being.
I learned a lot from those interviews.
This brought tears to my eyes. My Uncle Hank was in the Navy, a seaman. He’s been stationed in the South Pacific, on an island that was supplying Guadalcanal.
In 2010 Cody O’Dog and I drove to Montana via Colorado from San Diego. My uncle and Cody hit it off immediately AND Hank and I were close from the moment I was born. When it was time for us to go home, I loaded Cody O’Dog into the car (the Focus) and opened the garage door. Suddenly back door of my car opened and Hank said, “I want to say good-bye to my good buddy” and he gave Cody a huge hug. I told Hank goodbye again and pulled out of the garage. I heard the door close behind me. I figured Hank had gone inside but no. He stood at the door and I saw, in the rearview mirror, he gave us a full regulation salute.
It was the last time I saw him.
You got to me with this one, Martha. I teared up too.
Yep. love is a horrible wonderful thing. I miss him.