Veteran's Day
Nov. 11th, 2008 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pbrayThis 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
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
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Date: 2008-11-11 04:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-11 09:57 pm (UTC)