9:12 p.m. - 2003-11-11
A tribute to a Non-Veteran
Today was Veteran's Day. I always get a strange feeling around this day, with its tributes to all those brave soldiers, all that patriotism.
I get a strange feeling because the guy I really want to pay tribute to isn't a veteran at all, but not for lack of trying. That guy is my Dad.
My father was born with a cleft palette and hare lip. His shoulder was also broken somehow in the birth process. As if that weren't enough, he developed asthma at age three, so serious that most of his childhood memories involve lying quietly in bed.
Somehow he managed to get through school, graduating high school as the only boy in his class. The other boys had been called off to serve in World War II.
My father desperately wanted to serve as well. His family was from England, and he was stirred by the stories of bombs dropping on his homeland. He was also stirred by his older brother, my uncle Norman, who was in the 10th Mountain Division in Italy. My father would have done anything to follow his brother into the war, but with his precarious health, no branch of the armed forces would take him.
He tried four times to enlist in the Navy, each time arguing that he was good with numbers - they could put him behind a desk and he could at least push papers. Or they could make him some kind of delivery guy - driving wasn't very strenuous. Each time the Navy turned him away.
So he went to all the other branches. They all said no, too. They wished him well, but told him there was absolutely no way that they could ever take him.
Even today, when my father talks about the war, he gets very upset that he wasn't allowed to serve.
I think a lot of men in my Dad's position would have said "Screw it! Lucky me!!" and went on to college, or, as my Dad dreamed of doing, opened a business. But no, my Dad was determined to help. Instead of going his own way, he got a job in a shoe factory, making boots for the servicemen, and postponed going to business school and opening his store until the war was over.
So, although I know this is the day when we all salute the men and women who fought our wars, maybe we can all take just a few seconds to think about all the men and women who couldn't go, but did their part anyway. I bet all of you know a World War II Veteran - next time you see them, ask them if they had decent boots while in the war. If they say yes, ask them to give a little nod to my Dad, will you?
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