My Dad, Eugene Robert Seiler, would have been 90 years old today -- he died Dec. 7th, 2015. Here is the story my oldest brother Alan shared at his funeral.
We all know that my Dad was a war hero but, to me, he was also a peace hero. My brothers and I were blessed with a home life that was absolutely devoid of any form of racism or bigotry. Such things were not only not allowed but actively challenged.
The first time I saw Dad get really angry, furious even, was in Bellview Nebraska. We had recently moved there and I had just started 4th grade. He was talking to a neighbor in the kitchen when the neighbor said something that I didn't really understand but he used the N word.
Dad froze and then started literally stomping across the kitchen. As he moved he swelled up and the neighbor visibly shrank. I remember thinking it looked like one balloon taking the air from another. I was like 4th grade boys around the world, full of innocence and violence, but this was scary.
When Dad got over to the neighbor he raised his left arm and pointed with a rigid index finger at the door and said "If you're going to talk like that you can get the Hell out of my house!". The neighbor began apologizing profusely and said he would never say anything like that again. That calmed things down a bit and the neighbor finally went home.
As you can imagine Dad talked to me for a long time about what had happened. His first point was that the only one who could judge anybody was God and that judgment would be based only on the quality of the soul that was being judged. The way to have a high quality soul was to faithfully follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.
I also learned that day that it's not enough to learn what's right, you have to live it. That has been one the main foundations underpinning my whole life and, I am proud to say, both my brothers.
It was many years before I found out why he got so angry at that neighbor. In my mid 20's he told me some stories about his training in the Army that finally cleared up my questions.
Dad went into the Army as soon as he was old enough but that was late enough in the war that the Army had already begun to desegregate. I can't remember where but at one training company there was a small group of African Americans. The white guys were from big cities on the East coast and they drank hard liquor and gambled and constantly bragged about the women they were after.
The black guys were all from small farms, mainly in the deep South, but, just like him their lives consisted of 6 days working on the farm and 1 day in church studying the Bible. They were all modest hard working honest people and for my Dad absolute proof that everything he had learned from the Bible was true.
He may be gone but the values he stood for will live forever in all of us who were lucky enough to know him.
