The generation that raised my generation contained military veterans, to the degree that nearly every family in the United States could sensibly assume that all children growing up in the 60’s had fathers or uncles who had served in the armed forces. This was the case, of course, but pop culture for the times -- the 1960’s -- informed girls like me that all men were in the Army at some time in their lives.
I rarely thought of the other branches of the armed forces. Uncle Jack served in the Navy. The Army, for some reason, was the real deal, and men who flew planes or emptied big guns off ships were impressive men, but they weren’t in the Army! Kids make up standards like this in their heads and it can take a few knocks from life to correct us. I eventually learned, whether through school or through stories from men in the Navy or in the Marines, or later from men who had served in the Coast Guard, that ¨service¨ is the action, and where that service occurs is based more on luck than on choice. Wars start quickly, or so we think.
I knew that my maternal grandfather loved his uniform and was proud of his Sergeant’s rank when he left the Army in 1919. I have a photo of him fully decked out in his uniform and there is no more dashing figure I ever need to seek. Eddie Gildea was an extraordinarly handsome man.
He spoke to me a few times about ¨a friend¨ he knew from his army time who saw combat in Belgium, and came home without a foot. Eddie Gildea showed me a map, struggling some with his own spelling and reading, and pointed to Belgium. The map was very old. Grampa enjoyed maps. I was nine years old and I enjoyed him with his maps.
That map disappeared sometime in 1974. Just before it did, I noticed it crumpled in a packing box during one of my family moves. It was dated 1925. On it, Prussia still existed, and there was no Cold War to fight. I wish I had kept that map. Eddie Gildea had died 3 years earlier.
Now, Vietnam combat veterans are grandfathers. I do not know if they guide their grandchildren with the same expectation that some things need to be learned. (I wasn’t given the option of not learning something if the men in my life decided I needed to know it.) We can’t step into other people’s homes and lives and make them do stuff, but, think that a 12 year old kid needs to see a map of North and South Vietnam, circa 1967, and have someone explain why that information matters.
Uncle Jack never spoke about the Navy with me. If he told anyone else what happened during his service in the Pacific, I never heard those stories either. Men handle their pasts in whatever fashion is best for them. Jack remained ¨the funny one¨ in my life, constantly saying things under his breath in public to make me laugh too loud in front of other people. He would have my mother and sister holding their stomachs as he refused to let up on some critique of a bad t.v. character. I wondered often if his sense of humor -- fast as lightening, scathingly accurate -- was a way for him to not discuss painful things witnessed in the Pacific Theater. I heard some comment from his siblings that he served on a mine sweeper, had enlisted at the age of 17, and came home tight lipped. He had a very successful career with International Harvester, and lived in Chicago most of that career, which, to me, simply meant he was in the second coolest city on the planet.
I do not like single day holidays honoring veterans. I do not like some forms of ceremony. At times I am not fond of parades.
Veterans for me were better than those observed dates, because they were a 24/7 experience. They were three men who each had a piece of a calendar year -- Uncle Jack on his vacation visits, my father when he came home late from the office, Grampa when he wandered up the street to tend to some electrical problem at the house -- that occupied my time whether they wanted me tagging along or not. I was so obnoxious when I was a little girl. The three of them always seemed to have the same solution to my mouthiness and hyperactivity: A firm swat of fingers across the top of my head generally silenced me long enough to let one of them get a word in.
I was discussing grave markers with a cousin of my father today. My last living uncle at age 89 died recently and there has been a streak of time -- bureaucratic time -- required to iron out his finances and arrange the burial. He was a veteran. His life was troubled after he left the Army. He did not play a role in my upbringing. Discovering that he existed at all, played a role.
Which I will write about later.
It’s the kind of autumn night I favor. Very cool, but it was warm during the day. Fog tonight. Some people in my life are upsetting me, some are not. I always say that perception matters more than people want it to matter. What I saw and heard growing up is not what other members of my family saw and heard, and vice versa. Our relationships are either solid, and can withstand the most terrible of stresses, or they break apart easily because they are based on superficial bullshit. I feel that three men in my childhood steered me to expect certain things from men in general, and I do, and that’s a problem, often.
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