I woke up "naturally" today, but shot up, because I always want to walk down the hill to see the Memorial Day Parade.
I tend to think about the soldiers in my family, and even wrote a poem about them called the "40th Anniversary of Two Soldiers", regarding my dad and my brother, on an earlier blog. Now, it would be the 45th Anniversary. The latter died in Viet Nam's TET Offensive, and my dad probably died of a broken heart, even though his death was attributed to cancer and other causes. My mom observed that veterans tended to die earlier, even after surviving the war.
But there was one meeting I had with my dad a couple years before he died, where I had the privilege of hearing about how he was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked.
As for my mom and her family of three boys before my time, they were preparing to head for Hawaii to join my dad. But she shrieked in horror when the radio announced that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.
Dad had dressed in white to preside over the Sunday Service, as chaplain, when he heard what he thought was target practice. He first thought it rather odd that the army was conducting target practice on a Sunday morning. He didn't have to wonder for long, as he found himself flat on the ground in the middle of a strafing. He was, after all, dressed up to be a good target.
After the attack was over, he was assigned, graves registration officer. There were, undoubtedly, others. One of his more noxious observations was the increasing odor that grew worse day by day. This is something the Cinema can never share in their war movies. He had to identify slain soldiers, sometimes, with only body parts. And some, shot down in planes, were pretty much returned to the dust, so they had to look for dog tags and other kinds of identification.
There was, consequently, a list of casualties. Mom was informed by someone that they had looked at the casualty list, and her "sweetheart was not on it".
I was eventually able to see a documentary of this event on television, and later, a movie. But the documentary hit me pretty personally, as it was so real. And if Dad hadn't survived it, neither would have I.
