The War

Just finished watching the first installment of Ken Burn's "The War." Wow, what terrific footage. Matt and I were riveted to the TV. His father followed Patton around Europe. He was 25 when he enlisted, so old they made him a sergeant - and pulled out all his "Irish" teeth. He went to war with a set of brand new dentures. My mom, and her sister, and her two brothers all enlisted together. My grandmother had four stars in her window. I have one in my window right now. The girls became Army nurses, the boys became infantry soldiers. Billy fought in the Battle of the Bulge and Fred went island hopping in the Pacific. My mother had never crossed the Georgia state line prior to joining the Army. The Army sent my father to a language institute at Princeton Univ. where he learned to speak six languages in a year, including Arabic. He was in Army Intelligence and never saw combat. I think he was a spy. I was raised on all their war stories. I know that's why I wanted to be a history major in college. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and found most other courses meaningless. My mother and father were stationed in Munich just after Liberation and lived there for two years. My brothers learned German as a first language. They came home to the USA just in time to have me. My father was a NYC police lieutenant and stayed in the Army Reserve. He was the best shot in the country with a 45 caliber pistol for a while and we travelled around to various Army bases so he could shoot. We lived in tent cities and breathed in the DDT sprayed into the tents by a guy with a hose on a jeep driving through. I remembered latrines with long lines of toilets and no dividers, mess halls and reverie at dawn. It was all very cool at the time, and made me feel a part of the military without ever feeling any discomfort. My two boys joined the Army, entirely on their own with no encouragement from me - but when they did I was so very proud.