Lessons From My Father
A True Patriot Taught Me About The Importance Of Democracy
My father was partially deafened in World War II when the remotely controlled naval canon beside him fired unexpectedly. He and his crew were on stand-down after a battle with enemy planes. He was a deck gunner aboard the intrepid and lethal destroyer USS Hudson, fighting in the Pacific against Imperial Japan. He was tough and resilient, but he said the exquisite pain of a blown eardrum dropped him. After medical attention and some time below decks, he returned topside to his job. His hearing improved, but never fully returned.
When I think of patriotism, I think of my dad.
I think of an uncle who barely survived the horrific 1942 Bataan Death March of POWs in the Philippines. My aunt said her brother seemed hollowed out and looked frail when he finally got home to Kansas. He had contracted malaria and his health always wavered.
And I think of my late brother-in-law, a Marine in Vietnam wounded in close-quarter fighting. I can still hear the tinkle of small metal pieces being dropped into a glass as my sister, a nurse, removed them from his arm with a disposable scalpel and tweezers. Fragments of the mortar shell that nearly killed him would migrate to places just under his skin.
They all swore to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. My father, who also raised a daughter, had been rejected by the Marines for having flat feet. Had he lived to see the day when a convicted felon, an inveterate liar, an adjudicated sexual predator, and a crook, was running for President—again—he would be heartbroken and outraged. He and his fellow veterans had already fought and died in a war against demigod dictators.
As far as I know, the last time my father went to church was when he married my mother, whom he loved and trusted for 56 years. He also had faith in this country. He went to war for this country and our democratic ideals. This country gave his father a chance against genocide. I’m part Armenian. It gave my mother’s grandparents a chance. I’m also part Irish. No one here has been pressed into service for a tyrant. Not yet. I have to ask, though, how Donald Trump can be trusted with the defense of democracy and justice, when he’s already shown that he wants to rule by decree?
Help turn the page on this damaged, venal man. I know there are lots of people like me, the sons and daughters of the Greatest Generation. Do we not owe it to the coming generations to preserve the American way of life we have enjoyed, and that our parents fought and died to preserve?
Post submitted by D.R. Darvishian, a volunteer with The Union
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Yes! I often think of my father and what he would ferl