My father is a veteran. He enlisted shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when he was 28 years old. The Army put him in the Signal Corp, taught him Morse Code, and sent him to fight for 39 months in the Pacific.
Like many World War II veterans he didn't talk much about his war experiences, only sharing a few details. He said he was afraid on the landing boats because his brother had drowned as a young man and that event left him with a fear of the water. He said the Signal Corp wasn't usually in the first boats to come ashore so that wasn't as bad as being part of the initial wave of Infantry.
His favorite story was about a portable outhouse that he built. It was a three-sided affair with hinges and a drop-down seat. It could be collapsed flat to stash in the back of a truck and unfolded to stand over a hole in the ground.
Of course it was during R & R in New Zealand that he met my mother, and they were married after the war. He didn't talk much about their courtship, either, but I have the letters my mother wrote to him, carefully saved through all those years.
My mother was a veteran, too. She claimed she was an anti-aircraft gunner in Auckland, New Zealand, part of the homeland defense. New Zealanders were very worried about the possibility of a Japanese invasion, and many young women were trained to defend against an invasion. I have her payroll books from her time in service.
My brother is a veteran. He joined the Army at 17 after dropping out of school. This was during the Viet Nam War, but he was sent to Korea. I'm not sure what he did there.
There are a lot of good poems for Veterans. I'm going to share two of my favorites, for veterans everywhere.
The first is actually song lyrics, translated from Spanish, I believe.
Tremo E T'Amo
I love you and I'm trembling
Said the woman
To her soldier
Who wouldn't be coming back.
Her plaintive voice
Was carried by the wind
Across the chilling snow
To where her soldier fought.
I'm trembling and I love you
She whispered as she cried
And in the darkness of the room
Somebody laughed
In conquest of the fear
That this love was about to end.
But sweet memories can betray you
The soldier doesn't feel anything anymore.
Too late, his enemy strikes
Suddenly
From behind
Who, strangely, was speaking
Of roses, of wine, of life's other joys
That were promised him in another life.
Oh, how many brides
Will war take away
From that first night's warm embrace?
I'm trembling and I'm cold
Said the soldier
To his enemy, a man, just like himself.
His voice hung motionless in the wind
Heard by the silent audience of those that fell before him.
The second is a poem by Louis Untermeyer. My father could play reveille on the trumpet.
Reveille
What sudden bugle calls us in the night
And wakes us from a dream that we had shaped;
Flinging us sharply up against a fight
We thought we had escaped?
It is no easy waking, and we win
No final peace; our victories are few.
But still imperative forces pull us in
And sweep us somehow through.
Summoned by a supreme and confident power
That wakes our sleeping courage like a blow,
We rise, half shaken, to the challenging hour,
And answer it -- and go.......
