Veteran's Day

[pbray]

This past weekend I was in Connecticut. My stepmother, who's had a couple of recent health scares, had decided that she wanted to pass on some of my father's things to the family. What she gave me were family photos, including about two dozen from my father's time in the Air Force, and my father's service ribbons and patches.


My father was a veteran of the Korean War.

In 1951, after finishing his first year of college he realized that his grades weren't going to be good enough to qualify for a deferment, so he enlisted in the Air Force rather than waiting to be drafted by the Army. When I asked what he did in the war, he explained that he was a radio operator and a navigator. Through his unit patches I eventually learned that he was part of the Mosquito squadron, who performed forward air control. His Korean Service Medal has three campaign stars, so he was over there for more than a year.

He didn't often speak of his time in Korea, but would cheerfully talk about taking leave in Tokyo. He'd fallen in love with the country of Japan and always wanted to go back there. He was deeply proud of the Japanese phrases that he'd memorized, and would inflict them upon his children. When teaching me to drive he would sometimes mix things up by calling out "Left," "Right," "Straight," "Faster," or "Slower" in Japanese. To this day I occasionally find myself saying "Ah so deska" instead of "I see" or "I understand."

He liked the Australians that he met over in Korea, but would grumble about the British. Eventually he explained that in 1953, in honor of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, British troops were pulled off the front lines to celebrate, while my father and his buddies found themselves standing in trenches, holding rifles, doing their best to impersonate infantrymen. As you might imagine, it didn't go well, and I believe this was one of the times he was wounded.

He came out of the war with partial hearing loss in one ear and a screwed up toe on his right foot. That's what he admitted to.

He also confessed that when he came back to the states he couldn't stand to be around people. After a couple of days with his family, he went to the Connecticut shore and rented a shack. It wasn't winterized, so the local police stopped by one day to find out why he was there, and then wished him well when they found out he was a vet. He spent a couple months there, just walking on the beach, looking at the water, and "getting his head screwed back on straight" as he later described it.

If you woke my father up unexpectedly, you could expect him to jerk upright, yelling, and, occasionally, take a swing at you (he never connected.) "Never wake up someone who's been in a war," he would growl. We just put it down as one of his quirks, and if he fell asleep on the couch, would wake him up by poking him with a long object. Today we'd call that PTSD, back then it was no more or less odd than his habit of insisting on eating tomatoes even though they made him sneeze.

He never joined any veterans groups, or participated in reunions, but in later years he recalled his time in Korea with nostalgia. "It was miserable, but at least back then you knew who was shooting at you," he would say. "And you knew who was on your side."

When my brother wanted to enlist in the military, it caused deep family conflict. (My mother uttered the phrase "Never darken my doorstep" on more than one occasion.) West Point or ROTC would have been okay, but the idea of enlistment struck horror into the hearts of my parents who were wedded to the dream of upward mobility--their children would go to college and become firmly middle class. Nonetheless, in a bit of history repeating itself, after my brother's freshman year in college he enlisted in the Army Special Forces.

My mother was furious, but when Andrew returned home for his first leave, you could see how proud my father was of him. Their shared service created a connection between them, and gave each of them a new appreciation for the other.

Looking at the pictures of my Dad from his time in Korea, I'm struck by how young he was. He never considered his service anything special, or heroic, it was simply what one did. As kids, we lost interest when we realized that not everyone in the Air Force was a pilot, nor did he have any really cool scars to show for his experience. He wasn't John Wayne or even Radar O'Reilly--he was just a suburban dad, with a wife and three kids, who took the bus to work each day, whose idea of a good time was standing in a rail yard, watching the switching engines push the freight cars around.

I miss him.

Click pictures to enlarge
On the right: Anthony (Tony) Bray in Korea (air base K-47)


Second from the right: Tony Bray on leave in Tokyo, December 1952

Comments

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

What a great story, and what great pictures. *snif*

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

Yes. One of many great stories.

It is a pity he never joined any veterans' groups, though. He might have found a kindred spirit or three without having to wait for your brother to grow up.

In my 10 1/2 years working for the VA, I've noticed it's often that way -- the people like your father are quiet about what they did and don't expect anything in return.

Thanks for sharing. I feel like I got to know him a little, even though I never had the opportunity to meet him.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I think in his later years he would have joined a veteran's group, if his health had permitted and if he could have found one. Fifteen years ago, finding that there was an association of Mosquito Squadron veterans would have taken strenuous research or a great deal of luck. Today it took less than five minutes of Google searching.

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

Ever read Flags of Our Fathers? Not a great history, but a wonderful tribute to a father and his military service. Your post reminded me of that book a lot.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I haven't read it, but I'm sure that the experiencing of having had a father who was a veteran are very similar.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[jlawrenceperry.livejournal.com]

I wonder how many take the PTSD and instead of accepting it they seek the treatment and make it out to be worse than it really is? It's always fascinated me, the psychological effects. Has war really gotten worse? I tend not to think so. Some people just handle it better than others, I guess.

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

I am actually in a position to about this... yes, most people make it out to be worse than it really is, or claim they have it when they do not. It's really a very specific diagnosis. Generally, a bit of experience will teach you the real ones from the fake ones. The more someone talks (read "whines") about it, the more likely they are to be confabulating.

It's sad, because to takes away from the people who made real sacrifices and had terrible experiences by convincing the world at large that PTSD is not so bad...

[jlawrenceperry.livejournal.com]

It just seems to me that everyone has a certain amount of trauma from stress. I mean, it's an obvious byproduct. It's what contributes to growth. Now, I'll be the first to say war carries with it it's own horrors and stresses uncommon to most people. But I see a lot of living WWII veterans who handle it far differently than a lot of Gulf War veterans, or Iraq/Afghanistan 2003 veterans. Take Patricia's Dad out of the Korean War. Instead of treatment or therapy, it's "don't wake a man who's been in a war," and that's it.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't presume to comment on any other veteran's experience, but one of the things to keep in mind is the changes in society. In my father's time, a significant percentage of the men he knew as friends, neighbors and co-workers had served in either WWII or Korea. There was that sense that there were people around who knew what you had gone through, even if they didn't join veterans organizations or explicitly discuss their experiences.

Proportionally veterans of recent conflicts are a much smaller percent of the population, which may lead to a greater sense of isolation, which is in itself an additional stress factor.

On the flip side, it's interesting to read contemporary British novels written in the 1920s and 1930s. With so many having served in the Great War, their experiences were part of the collective fabric of society, and even when the book is seemingly about something else, there are often glimpses of the aftermath of the war.

In that vein I think of the Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novels, where the central character had lingering psychological issues from his experiences.

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

Part of it is the way different generations handle things.
There are many other factors that play into it, and this isn't really the place to go through all of that.

This is for Patricia's remembrance of her Dad. Who she didn't wake suddenly, but who was still a wonderful father to her.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing those stories.

Your dad had a great smile :)

[pbray.livejournal.com]

He also had the Bray physique--skinny as a rail for all of his life.

[dynastic-queen.livejournal.com]

We're family! :) My dad was there, too. (I'd have to check the dates.)

If you woke my father up unexpectedly, you could expect him to jerk upright, yelling, and, occasionally, take a swing at you (he never connected.) "Never wake up someone who's been in a war," he would growl. Ooooooh, yeah. Been there, done that.

Thanks so much for sharing his pictures and stories with us.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

>>We're family! :) My dad was there, too

How very cool!

[teshilaire.livejournal.com]

He came out of the war with partial hearing loss in one ear and a screwed up toe on his right foot. That's what he admitted to.

It is amazing how when something was truly horrifying, that it becomes the pink elephant in the room. My grandfather was WWII vet, and it was not until after his recent passing that i learned about some of the horrors he was witness to there. Walking along tanks with a rifle, a human shield against enemy fire intent on destroying the tread and slowing or stopping the tank he protected, the battle of the bulge and the hours upon hours of digging foxholes, bunkering down, digging again.. when all the while your own troops were firing upon you in a mistaken case of identity. But, like it was with my grandfather, these things aren't talked about when the veteran came home. Sometimes, a spouse, or close relative, in a moment of need, or a moment of appeasement would be told a few of these tales. But overall, they spared us their trauma and their pain as much as possible. Where these men of our fathers and grandfathers generation made of a different ilk? Was it too painful for them to share? Did they just try to forget as best they knew how? or is it like you said, that in those generations, most any man of serviceable age had been exposed to the horror of war. Possibly their silence was a part of their band of brothers pledge, a silent stoicism for one another that without words said, i was there, i understand.

I'm glad that you have come into possession of some of your father's greatest treasures in life. It is ok to miss him, it is more important to remember him (both his good traits and his faults) with fondness.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I think there must have been tremendous pressure to conform, and to put it all behind them.

And some men never made it all the way back, and lived on the fringes. I remember a friend's uncle, a former marine and survivor of the nightmarish battle at Chosin River. He was a kind man, and held down a job, but lived with family since he didn't do well on his own. Looking at these memories with adult eyes, I'm fairly certain he was an alcoholic.