In difficult times I like to look back at my fathers life and times to put my troubles in perspective of what others have had to endure and, more importantly, how they handled it with strength and determination to come through it stronger, smarter, and more capable.
Dad was born the youngest of 5 children in December of 1924 in Cyril, OK which was then a small farming community just east of the Texas Panhandle. Farms then for the most part had no electricity, running water, or indoor bathrooms. Children were born at home and complications from childbirth was a major killer of women and children. About half of farms were small tenant farms only marginally providing a living and the lifestyle was about the same as in pioneer days. Food demands in WWI drove up agricultural prices but they dropped excessively after and most farms were subsistence only with little or no cash crops. Life was hard work all day every day for everybody.
At 6 month’s of age Dad’s father died. There was no welfare or federal aid for widows and orphans and families were on their own to get by. As if life wasn’t hard enough, in 1929 the stock market crashed bringing on the great depression. 3.2% unemployment then would climb to about 25% by 1933. In 1933 drought and poor farming methods caused the Dust Bowl in the panhandle of Texas where Dad’s family had moved causing crops to fail. It was not uncommon for children to eat cornbread 3 times a day and resources were so scarce that women began to make children clothes out of flower sacks. Gold Medal Flour actually began to put flower prints on the sacks so girls wouldn’t have plain dresses. With little or no food children often went hungry. Dad, just a lad, was shipped for a time to live with his uncles on a farm in OK, separated from his siblings and mother. It was hard work but there was food on the table.
Back with his family in TX Dad worked at 10 cents an hour to help support the family (5 pounds of flour was 25 cents). In 1940, at 16 years old, Dad headed to Stockton, CA where he found work as an auto upholsterer. Dad wasn’t alone in migrating as many “Oakies” displaced from foreclosed farms and with little or no work in the area moved into CA where they were often treated poorly as outsiders and rural hicks. Many ended up migrant farm laborers and lived in shanty towns and small shacks or if lucky got a good job in a canning factory. Dad was faring better than most and coming on 18 life must have seemed good compared to the hard times of his youth. The Novel, “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck speaks to the story of Dad’s youth.
Dad was celebrating his 17th birthday just after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the beginning of WWII on December 7, 1941. By December 1942 Dad turned 18 and that same month the government stopped taking enlistments and went with 100% draftees so they could leave tradesmen in the factories. Thus government decided what you did and where you went. Dad was drafted and after training and a long boat ride to Australia he was assigned to F Co. 127th Infantry in the 32nd Red Arrow Brigade. He was wounded twice, as he put it “one of them I got myself blowed up” as he hit the dirt on an explosive device which threw him 30’ back down the hill. He suffered from Malaria all his life, first picked up during his service there.
He saw 2 years of action, often hand to hand combat, in the Papaun, New Guinea, Southern Philippine, and Luzon Campaigns. He had 2 Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Clusters and was with his unit right into Japan after the Japanese surrender. In 1945 he returned to California and got out of the Army. Unfortunately, like after WWI, the number of returning men outnumbered the available jobs and industry was ramping down and a recession occurred. With no jobs available Dad reenlisted in the US Army. He was 22 years old.
In 1950 a “police Action” broke out which we call the Korean War. Dad again saw war time service. By now Dad was in the Explosive Ordinance Division, taking bombs apart and rendering explosives safe. In 1952 Dad started his family. Overseas assignments were 3 years if you brought your family but 13 months if not. So every time Dad was assigned an overseas rotation he did so alone. He also attended training stateside across the country and was at some of the nuclear tests in Nevada where he was radiated to the point you “could see the bones in your hands”.
The Vietnam War started in 1955 and originally we only sent advisors. In 1961 Dad was sent to Vietnam and he often joked about his “military issue suits” that the government paid for so soldiers, as ordered, would stay out of uniform when not in the field so as to help hide the American presence there. He also did another stint in Korea before he finally retired in 1970 with 27 years in, actually retiring early to avoid being sent to Vietnam for a second tour there.
As a child growing up I knew that there were hard times in the past but really didn’t know the extent of the hard times our ancestors had to endure. Dad neither bragged of his exploits and awards nor did he complain of those hard times.
As a teenager the 1973 stock crash and recession followed by the oil crisis seemed big and scary to me. There were protests and riots in the streets over the Vietnam War and race relations. It seemed the entire world was in turmoil. I suppose to Dad it was just another crisis to ride out like the ones in his youth. Dad’s view was this crisis, as they all were, was just part of life. Deal with it as it comes and do the best you can and wait for better days which eventually will come. If you have your health, food, clothes, and shelter you have all the you need in life. He taught me about adversity by example, stay calm, life goes on.
I look into the face of this Corona Virus Pandemic with concern but I’m not overly worried. If we do the social distancing thing and wash our hands most won’t get it, and most of those who do get it will make it through. So we will most likely keep our health. And unlike 100 years ago where most had no electricity, running water, and available food distributions networks we have electricity, the internet, and social media to make this a little bit more comfortable. We have food, clothes, and shelter so our basic needs are met. Not to mention we have the best medical care in the world throughout time. Given the strength of our ancestors to deal with what they did, I think, we got this. That would be Dads advice.
Wonderful tribute to a great man!