The black-and-white picture of the B-24 on the front of the faded postcard caught my attention. I flipped it over to find my dad’s barely legible handwriting, smeared as it was by a browned water stain, postmarked on December 12, 1944, from San Marcos Army Air Field, San Marcos, TX.
“Dear Folks,” it began (“Folks” being the word Dad used to address his parents) “boy am I tired! We had a night/day mission last night…” He was in training as a navigator for the Air Force during World War II.
Dad was only 20 then. I’ve seen his military pictures: full face, rosy cheeks, bright eyes, chest thrust back, proud to be wearing his USAF uniform, anxious to serve his country, even more anxious to survive and put his arms around my mom. I was not even a glint in his eyes.
I would be born later, after Dad had returned from the Korean War to set up his dental practice in Altus, Ok, the town that would be his home for 58 years, where he and Mom raised our family, fulfilling their version of the American Dream.
Tom Brokaw appropriately coined the phrase “The Greatest Generation” to describe the men and women who emerged from the Depression, won the great victories of World War II, and made sacrifices to build their world — the fruits of which we enjoy today.
Not all the letters in Brokaw’s book, The Greatest Generation Speaks (1999), are from people on the front lines. Some are from those who did not see action but were nonetheless willing to serve wherever Uncle Sam asked.
Roger Newburger was one such man. He was with the Army Core of Engineers on Oahu and never made it to the front. “I would have tried to do whatever I was told to do, but I think the guys would have been safer without me.” Years later, after seeing the film Saving Private Ryan, Newburger went to his car and wept for 30 minutes, so affected was he “because of what the real warriors went through.”
My dad was a Roger Newburger — willing to serve wherever but grateful he didn’t have to face the enemy eye to eye, rifle to rifle. Thankfully, WWII came to a close before Dad was deployed, and he served as a dentist in a medical facility in Seoul, South Korea, during the Korean War.
My neighbor and childhood friend, Kim Parrish, had a picture of his dad — whom we called Big Jim among ourselves but Mr. Parrish in his presence — in his World War II army uniform. Big Jim—John Wayne, in my eyes—served in active combat among those who stormed the beaches of Salerno, Italy, in June 1943. Stone-faced in that picture, he stared intently straight ahead as if he knew danger was imminent. And it was. I admired him immensely and begged him to tell me war stories. He would decline despite my begging, and I was too young to understand why.
Even though Dad was not in combat, I was no less proud of him and appreciative of others like him who were willing to go to the front, even if they never had to.
And I am grateful for the generations who brought us freedom, especially those who didn’t make it home to embrace their families and pursue their dreams.
The pinch of Dad’s fingers gripping my arm still lingers after all these years. I was walking him down the hall of the retirement facility where he and Mom spent their shadow years. Step by step, we ambled, passing two residents chatting.
“You say you have a brother who is buried in the country?” one lady shouted to the other.
“Yes, yes, I do,” her friend responded, with matching volume. “He went to the war years ago…but he made it back.”
He made it back.
I’m glad he did.
And for others like him.
Especially the one whose arms I steadied that day—the father who had held my little hands as a child, helping me take my first steps, freeing me to claim my independence—all brought to me “courtesy of the red, white, and blue.”