I wanted to get this out again, especially given that it’s Veterans’ Day, and in light of the recent events. I hope to God that sanity will eventually prevail in this country, but today I still mourn, in so many ways.
My 93-year-old mother died last month. A member of the Greatest Generation, she was the last of her family of 13 to pass. She was an elementary school teacher and she loved what she did. She married my dad, even though she had other choices, because she knew he would let her work, at a time when married women just didn’t do that.
She was always super organized. I remember many fights about my messy room, but by God the rest of the house was going to be just so. That was the way she was. So it didn’t surprise me when I found out that she had saved all the letters my father had written to her during WWII, over 200 of them. It was only last month when I realized the extent of the content of those letters.
Sure, she had suggested several times since my dad died in 2005 that my brother and I read them. All I knew about my dad’s war experience could be summed up in one short paragraph: the Army couldn’t decide if he should be 1A or 4F because he was missing half a lung, but he could speak German, so they put him in communications. Then he was shipped to Europe and traded a pack of cigarettes for an accordion. That’s the story I grew up with.
The letters, according to my mother, told a vastly enlarged story. He was in the thick of things in Germany, France, and Italy. At one time, he must have been in an anti-aircraft unit. He said that if he ever survived, he was never going to leave the country again. And he kept his promise. He wrote fully in mind of the Army censors, but what he could write detailed a vicious battle against a horrible dictator. My mother derived great pleasure in her later years reading those letters, which she kept in order and tied together with ribbons.
When she died, my brother and I wondered what we should do with those letters. Since neither one of us could bring ourselves to read them, we decided to put them in the casket with my mother. He hauled up the box of her personal stuff, and we went through everything to make sure we had them all. That’s when I really was surprised.
My mom had also saved other letters. She had two brothers who also served during the war, one in the Army and one in the Marines. The stack of letters from her Marine brother was about two inches thick. We read a few of those, and we decided to give those to my cousin Dee. Why?
My uncle was the baby of the family, two years younger than my mom. I always remember him as an affable and quiet man with a good sense of humor, but there always seemed to be a sadness to him. When I was older, I knew that he had served in Iwo Jima, but, as happens at family funerals, I found out more. When I called my cousin to tell her about Mom and tell her about the funeral details, we had a good long chat. She told me that he was in one of the early invasion waves, ordered to lay communications. Two Marines were shot dead on either side of him in short order. He was one of the “lucky” ones, the one out of 19 who survived. She also said that she couldn’t come to the funeral. She was still suffering from her father’s death 6 years ago.
My uncle had been in declining health and was living in assisted living. One day, he called my cousin to take him back to his house, which he hadn’t sold yet. He wanted to spend the night, and she could come by the next morning at 9. My cousin suggested that he stay a few days, because he didn’t often get a chance to be at home. No, he said, one night would be fine. She arrived the next morning at 9 to find that he had shot himself. I have no doubt that it was partly PTSD, after 60 years. My cousin is still dealing with the the guilt of knowing that she unknowingly aided him. So, that’s why we needed to give those letters to her. Perhaps it can help her to heal from that guilt.
There was one last letter, which, even though it was from my father, my mom had kept separate. On the envelope, she had written “Scotty’s death.” This one I read.
In a scrapbook my mom put together, there were pictures of my aunt Irma, my dad’s younger sister, at her wedding to Leonard Scott. On the next page was the obituary notice. He was killed at the age of 21. It’s funny, but everybody back then looked so much older for their age. TWENTY-ONE. Scotty was one of two sons of their mother, and ultimately she became a double Gold Star mother. My aunt remarried and had a daughter, and they both treated Mrs. Scott as family until she was reunited in death with her sons.
In this single letter, my dad was reacting to my mom’s letter telling him about Scotty’s death. My dad was sad that he never got to welcome Scotty into the family. He was sad about what the war was taking from everybody, but he realized the necessity of it. There was so much more that I don’t remember now, but that letter is now safely in my cousin Peggy’s hands.
There were no letters from my cousin Steve, although I remember that he wrote many. He was a Marine during the Viet Nam war. He made it out alive, but because of his exposure to Agent Orange, he decided to never have kids. His live was forever altered by a very questionable war.
So why the long history? You have to know history, or you are doomed to repeat it. We are in severe danger of repeating it with fascism in our own country, and then what would my dad and uncles have fought for? I know your husband is a former Marine, and that you have followed him around the world. I tried to tell you as diplomatically as I could that you should choose the next president based on how thoughtfully they would use the military. No one should WANT to go to war, yet that seems to be all that Donald Trump is about. His first response to the coup attempt in Turkey was to declare war. Against whom? Against what? The nature of the enemy has changed, but the concept remains the same. The enemy is US if we give in to the fear that was so aptly portrayed at the Republican convention this week.
Yes, your one word response, “Benghazi” shut me down, but not for the reason you may think. That response showed me that you have made up your mind. Case closed. If anything, you should have been more upset about the fact that George W. Bush started an unjust war that put your husband in harm’s way for no good reason, where thousands of servicemen died, than that four people died at an embassy bombing.
Ask yourself what kind of world you want to leave your children. When I was young, we were taught to vote for the person, not the party. Of course, that is inherently a liberal position, but it taught me to think for myself and look thoughtfully at both sides before deciding. Believe it or not, I have in the past voted for Republicans. But the Republican party today bears no resemblance whatsoever to what it was when I was young. I am old enough to see the arc of history, and I can honestly say that our country is facing a crossroad that, if we choose wrong, will be the downfall of the United States. I’m not trying to sound hyperbolic; this is the situation as I and many others see it, because we’ve seen it before.
I bear no ill will towards you for your position, as long as you bear no ill will towards me for mine. I doubt that you will ever come to fully see my position, and I doubt that you can see your way to voting for the Democratic nominee, but at the very least I would hope that for the sake of your children and the future of this country, you would NOT vote for Donald Trump in November. Just stay home please.
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