Post #25 Memorial Day and My Dad

A Baby Boomer's remembrance of his veteran Dad

Today is Memorial Day.

I would think that for most of us, that means having a three or four-day weekend, getting a little bit out of our groove. Maybe travelling, if you aren’t retired yet, and probably not travelling if you are. (Why travel when everyone else is? – you can travel anytime.)

If you aren’t travelling, then you may actually have time to reflect a bit. Memorial Day. We are supposed to think about the fallen men and women who have fought and died to protect America’s freedom. I have to admit, I haven’t done that on too many Memorial Days. But I should have. And today I also think about the other victims of war.

The families of those fallen and injured warriors.

We don’t have a big military history in our family. I didn’t lose any of my twelve cousins in the Vietnam war. My grandparents didn’t fight in World War Two. But there was one.

My Dad.

My Dad, Sidney, fought in the Korean War. He was in the army and on the front lines. He got wounded. There was shrapnel in his back that came awfully close to his spinal cord. It just missed.

Family legend has it that after being wounded he was transferred to Germany where my grandfather flew out and met him there. He didn’t talk much about that.

All I know is that my Dad, for some reason, left college and enlisted. He never went back to school. He wasn’t visibly disabled but did get a check for the rest of his life because of it.

That’s almost all I know because he never talked about it. But it must have meant something to him. He was a member of the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) his whole life and even the president of the local chapter for a while.

I was his only son and he never pulled me aside, put his arm around me, and told me about “the good old days.” Or the bad old days.

My mother told me once he did have nightmares about it. I wonder if he killed people. I wonder how much that experience changed him.

My gut says it did.

Looking back now, I think there was a good chance he had undiagnosed PTSD. He was hyperactive and a bit jittery, he couldn’t focus well and never settled into a good career.

He wasn’t an introspective man. When I was a teenager, he never sat me down and said, “let’s talk about your future.” He didn’t plan family vacations. He didn’t plan much in general.

A Man’s Man

He was a man of his generation. A man’s man. He was an extrovert and loved to smoke cigars at the club with his buddies and play cards and eat pastrami sandwiches. He liked to play golf and gamble on sports.

He never talked about being in the war. He never really talked about anything important. It seemed he was always running away from something.

Back in those days, few men went to a therapist to try and work it out. He tried to “tough” his way through it. He failed. I don’t know what they were, but he had demons, and my gut feeling is that the demons won.

I loved my Dad but wasn’t close to him. It’s sad, but I remember “writing him off” at age 13. I knew I couldn’t get what I needed from him. I was a curious kid and in the 60s’s and 70’s wondered about the world and my place in it. In my teens I explored religion and psychology and politics, along with pot and rock and roll. He didn’t seem to be interested in any of that. He worked hard trying to support his family whom he loved and find his place in life. I don’t think he really did. At least not to his satisfaction.

He was an excellent athlete in high school and made all-state in baseball and basketball. He played some hoops in college. He played minor league baseball. Another family legend has it that my grandfather never went to any of his games. He was always working. I felt sorry for my father for that.

I always felt that my father should have been a coach. He would have been great at it and enjoyed his life more. But he always wanted more. He wanted more money. He always said he was the “poorest guy at the country club.”

But he had lots of friends whom he was very loyal to and they to him. I fantasize that he was one of those guys who you could count on at the front lines and he never left his platoon and saved lives and his war buddies loved him forever for that.

He did find himself later in life – as a fundraiser. I had a severely mentally disabled little sister and Dad would raise funds for the local chapter of her group – putting on golf tournaments, tennis tournaments and walkathons. He would do anything for her. He was very good at that as he had a lot of energy, a lot of friends, and loved sports. But he was never satisfied.

I left home at 18 and never came back to live on the Jersey Shore where we grew up and he lived out his life. We talked perfunctorily every month, and I’d visit a few times a year. But we weren’t close. He didn’t give me what I wanted from a father and so I sought out other male role models.

I always believed the war took him from me. It took him from himself.

On this Memorial Day, I’m thinking back on the sacrifices our servicemen and women made to keep us all safe and keep our country free. And I thank them.

And I’m reflecting about my Dad, Sid, the sacrifices he made, and what the war took not only from him, but from our family and from me. War and service touch not just the ones who serve, but the rest of us, too.

Dean Solden is the founder and owner of Creative Senior Solutions (CSS), a management, development and consulting company specializing in senior living(www.creativeseniorsolutions.com). Subscribe to this blog at BabyBoomerBlog.substack.com which is all how Baby Boomers will be aging and navigating the senior living world

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