The Old Man
aka: more than you ever wanted to know about my background
Dad turns 98 today. Still healthy … for a 98yo – still mobile, still not as dumb as I thought he was when I was 16, not in a nursing home. Hearing not so good … eyes not far behind. Still does yard work.
God willin’ and the crik don’t rise, I’ll see him on my trip back east come August.
A 1st Lt in the Army Field Artillery, a forward observer, Daddy played boom-boom games with the Chinese in Korea within an area known as “The Iron Triangle”. Never talked much about his time there; except one time he mentioned his camp was over-run by the Chinese – his dog was killed. Mentioned that just sort of as an aside. He didn’t talk about others but I can guess. I think he mentioned one time receiving a Purple Heart. Once. Long ago. Even now, he doesn’t answer questions.
Loved to watch MASH. Spent much of his Korea time in itty-bitty unarmed kites with propellers, or for a change, sometimes in forward observation posts.
Since he doesn’t talk about it, I search the history files. This one was interesting:
https://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/Korea/ForwardObserverArtillery
Apparently, he was one of the artillery participants in the Battles of White Horse and Pork Chop Hill. I never knew which battery he was assigned to but his brigade fired the last artillery shell of the war at the time he was there.
He was home in time for my first Christmas … barely.
A few years later, he got me hooked on trains – a lifelong addiction.
He won’t read this but Happy Birthday, Dad.
Forward observer was a pretty risky job.
My dad was 4 years younger than your dad and in 1952 he was over on that side of the planet too, in Japan, in the middle of a 4 year run in the Air Force as a mechanic.
He died from a heart attack in 1980 when he was 47 and I was 25. We weren’t getting along and that bothers me to this day. At 25, to me, 47 seemed old but still way too young to die. I had no idea.
But 47 wasn’t old and I blew right past it like it was standing still, and my own son is fast approaching it. When I was 47 my dad would have been as old as I am right now. And now, I’m 71, he would be 94. Hard to imagine what he would be like today.
I imagine our life lines would have eventually converged, where I grew up enough and he became more tolerant, to where we became friends. At least that’s the way I like to think of it.
The older I get the smarter my dad becomes. All in all, in the 25 years I knew him he taught me a lot of stuff, stuff I draw upon almost every day. I doubt my son can say that about me.
“I doubt my son can say that about me.”
I think you must be wrong about this, Ghost.
Looks like baby blue eyes.
yep. But me? I’m full of it up to my eyebrows 🙂
nuh uh…
I worked with a man that was a marine at Chosin Reservoir. He talked very little about the battle, but did say falling asleep would likely result in your death, whether by the Chinese, or you sergeant. It was brutally cold, and a brutal situation.
My father served on a destroyer, which patrolled the coast. Other than a few pot-shots by wheeled artillery cannons hidden in caves, he didn’t see action. He did ride out a typhoon in his destroyer. It had to be miserable to hang from bulkheads, tossed with whatever was expelled by those seasick, and wonder if the ship would go to the bottom
I did too. A marine at Chosin. My first professional mentor in the 80s. He didn’t mind too much mentioning that he was there … but all he said about it was it was cold beyond belief and nasty. And that too many didn’t come back and he sometimes wondered how he did. And nothing more.
Since we’re talking about our Dads today, here’s mine. This was taken at some now-unremembered lake in the Sierra Nevadas, probably in ’72, ’73 or ’74.
Dad spent most of his military career as a navigator on KC-135s, which meant that he was in the Strategic Air Command. Their role was to provide the gas for the bombers who were fulfilling one leg of America’s nuclear triad (the other 2 being the nuclear submarines and nuclear missiles).
The exception to his Tanker experience was the year that he spent in Thailand during the Vietnam War. He flew in the back seat of the OV-10 Bronco, where he ran the laser directed at targets for what were America’s first smart bombs.
As a teenager, I remember Dad going to the track on base a couple three times a week and putting it a couple of miles while wearing his flight boots. “Why don’t you just run in your tennis shoes, Dad?” It didn’t occur to me until much later that he was preparing himself for the day when he got shot down.
I’ve been having a weekend of reflecting on my own mortality. A former neighbor about my age….a doctor and really, super fit…. RFKjr fit …. said goodbye to his wife as she headed out the door for her morning walk with the dogs and he was getting ready for work. Sometime after she left, he tipped over, dead, right there in their bathroom. It is a completely unexplained death, so they’ll have to do an autopsy, but regardless of whatever they find for Kevin, I am reminded that Death can take any of us at any time. Terri now has the task of burying her husband sooner than anyone would have expected and then getting out of the house that she owns, but which is far too large for a single woman to take care of herself.
My money says it was an aneurism. They drop you right on the spot and there is no cure after the fact. Look up the actor John Ritter.
They have to be found by a sonogram. The Army inflicted me with Hep C in the 70’s and for the rest of my life I have to have 2 sonograms a year on my liver. A few years ago, while doing the sonogram, they discovered I have an aortic aneurism and now I have to have 2 more sonograms a year for monitoring that thing. I was told the main trunkline down to the femoral arteries, at about belly button level, is where my aneurism is.
You can seem completely normal and healthy and have an aneurism as there is no indication it exists. Then, BAM, it blows and you’re dead. Just like that. Nothing to play around with.
Terri can give the house to one of her kids and continue to live there. That way she has family close by, especially as she ages, help out taking care of the house and grand kids. Just an idea. One of the options on me and my wifes daily conversation rotation.
You’re assuming she doesn’t have one as well and doesn’t go first. From something. A guy driving down a canyon road at night. Doing 50mph or so. A 250lb boulder came down the hill and landed smack dab on top of the driver’s seat. A fraction of a second sooner or later, he’d have been OK. You never know … which I think is a good thing.
Knowing Kevin and how focused he was on his fitness and health, I’d be surprised if he hadn’t at least been checked for aneurysms*. Anything is possible though. My first thought was the Clot Shot.
They’ve got 2 kids, the daughter who is married with kids and here in the Phoenix area, and a son (married with kids too), but he’s down towards Tucson….he’s an agent in the Border Patrol. Terri’s problem is that they’ve got an acre and pretty lush landscaping. There’s no way she can do the work herself. She’ll have to hire a landscape crew and then she’s just a slave to the house. We had the same setup….an acre of orange trees surrounded by grass, vegetable and decorative gardens, pool, not to mention maintaining the inside of the house. Keeping up with that house and yard were big parts of our decision to move to our current place a couple years before I retired. It was taking me an hour and 45 minutes at least once a week to mow my yard on my riding mower. Never mind line trimming around the 45 trees, never mind tending the gardens, never mind brushing the pool…just mowing. We’re very glad that we downsized out of that. Terri will figure it out, but it’ll take a while…maybe a year.
* The lovely Mrs. azlib has a number of health challenges, and she’s been examined in all sorts of ways. One of those challenges is that she’s got a relatively small aneurysm in her brain that we’re watching. We know to watch her for the “Thunderclap Headache“.
I’ve heard it’s best to wait a year. Let emotions stabilize, focus returns, and better decisions can be made. Sounds like she’s in a good place financially so no pressure there. She’ll be OK.
When it’s time, it’s time. One of the women on our ambulance crew went grocery shopping. When she came back home, her husband help her unload the groceries. Set the bag down … and dropped to the floor dead. She was a nurse, right there at the time, and nothing she could do.
Sometime in 1950-51 I went to stay with my aunt in New Jersey. She was the manager of the Loft’s Candy store in downtown. One Saturday she hired a baby sitter for me for the whole day. A nice young sandy blonde haired girl (18 or 19) She took me to see several places. Most wonderful thing–she treated me like her equal–like a grown up! Nobody had ever done that before!
In the afternoon we went to a park where we sat on an cliff over looking the harbor. The statue of liberty was not too distant. But, most important was the ferry her boyfriend was coming in on. She could tell which ferry it was by the time of day. She was so happy about him. A really solid and responsible type of young lady, she was thrilled at the thought of him. She said he was in the army. I asked if he was going to war. She said, “oh no. The war is finished. He just has to go overseas for one year. There is a policing job they have to do overthere.There is no war there–it is on the other side of the world. When he comes home, we will get married, and buy a house and have a family!”
He was a nice young man. My heart knows now what we didn’t know then–he was going to Korea.
Why does the memory of that day stand out so clearly still in my mind?
Do you know if he made it back?