Anniversaries

[ksmith]

Yesterday was the Marine Corps Birthday. Today is Armistice Day (Dad never referred to it as "Veterans Day", always "Armistice Day").

He would have spent the past couple of days immersed in the History Channel.

Comments

[juliabk.livejournal.com]

Here's to our dads, Kris.

We were at my folks' today. My dad has never made a big deal over Veteran's Day, but then he rarely talks about his career in the Navy. He's a very 'in the present' kinda guy. At one point we were sitting in the living room just talking about stuff and my dad casually mentioned something funny that happened while he was in boot camp back in the 40s. I had just looked at my watch to calculate when the kid needed her next dose of Tylenol. It was 11:11 when he mentioned boot. I mentioned the time to him and he kinda grinned one of his more pleased grins and said, "That's kinda cool." :-)

He hates anyone making a fuss over him, but I'm glad I noticed today.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Dad talked about the off-duty stuff. Seabees clearing out areas for softball fields--Dad was a tail gunner in the South Pacific, and the Marines and Seabees worked together a lot--and the games being called due to sniper fire. I did hear about Boot. I heard a little about Shanghai after the war. The most I heard about actual combat was Dad commenting that as crew cleaned the planes after missions, they would sometimes have to hose out the gunner turret. I learned later that not many gunners made it through the war.

He hated fuss, too. Illinois has license plates available for vets that read "Armed Forced Veteran", and he didn't even like to see those. "Who are they trying to impress?" he'd day when he saw a car bearing one.

[juliabk.livejournal.com]

My dad used to talk about the carrier races in the South Pacific. Or having to trade ice cream (being the only ships with refrigeration at the time) to a destroyer for a downed pilot. He brought home some 8mm footage a time or two showing things like supply and personnel transfers at sea - string a line and sling the stuff (or people in harness) along it.

Oh, yeah, and how they'd take their mattresses out and sleep on deck in the summer when they were in hot climates.

Stealing pies. Can't forget stealing pies. Line up with your buddies and when you got to where they were serving out the pie, you casually set your tray down on one of the whole pies and after you get your piece you pick up the tray *and* whole pie and retire to your bunk with your buddies (who share the section with you). The only real rule was that you had to share it with your buddies. ;-)

As for combat, he never talks about it. I think the most I ever heard was about the guys who would knock themselves out during drills because they tried to go through the hatches too fast without ducking enough. And the one time one of the guys on deck was killed when the catch cable snapped as a plane landed.