Channeling My Father On Today's America
I am 75 years old and, as a reminder to those of my generation and a history lesson to those that have come after us “baby boomers,” I have a story to tell. Before long, we will be the only living link to the “Greatest Generation” and, in due time (less time than I like to think about), we will be gone as well and won’t be able to bear witness to this story. I am the son of a family with honorable military service to the United States. My father, born in 1918, served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945, most of that time in the European Theater of WWII. Along with many men and women at the time, he enlisted in the Navy immediately after Pearl Harbor. He was not accepted because of his vision and then enlisted in the Army before being rejected for the same reason. Of course, it wasn’t long before he was drafted into the Army (and, ironically, shortly after called up by the Navy) and he was off to basic training and three-plus years in Europe w...