(Everybody loves a good re-run once in a while. So I was thinking I’d embarrass my parents once again this year with this VD homage. (Um, that’s “VD” as in Veteran’s Day, and NOT that other far less amusing VD: Valentine’s Day.)

When I think of Veteran's Day, I mentally snap to 'ten-HUT for my mom and dad.

They're vets of "The Big One," World War II. My dad had left his Veedersburg, Ind., home in the summer of 1941 and enlisted, so he was already in uniform when America got involved, and he stayed in it throughout. (Well, he changed into clean uniforms once in while. I hope.)

While my dad was cultivating a taste for army food, my mom was helping in all the ways that a teenage schoolgirl in Indianapolis could. She assisted my grandpa with his duties as a block warden, she finished her compulsory education, she conserved and rationed. And prayed.

Dad spent almost two years on the island of New Caledonia in the South Pacific. (You might ask, “Is there an 'Old Caledonia?” And I might reply, "Send me $5 and a self-addressed stamped envelope and I'll tell you." Ho-ho, just kidding. Sort of.)

(The facts are: "Caledonia" is the name the ancient Romans gave to ancient Scotland, back in the days when the ancient Stuarts were running around in ancient kilts and playing golf almost as poorly as today's Stuarts.)

A couple years ago, I finally memorized the dates that dad was overseas. He reached New Caledonia April 21, 1942, the day after his 20th birthday. I figure the other end of the equation is one of the most important days of my life, even though it was 4,860 days before I was born: he headed home – all in one piece – April 1, 1944. I imagine he didn't fool around that April Fool's Day.

Something tells me that on the voyage home, he might not have foreseen a future that would bring him a degree from Wabash College (on the GI Bill), marriage to a DePauw University co-ed (60 years and counting), and long careers for both of them in elementary and high-school education - including their own “continuing education” at the hands of their five brilliant children.

Having mentioned dad's birthdate, some of you scholars out there might have noticed it's the same as Hitler's. Yes, THAT Hitler. But our family karma balances out with my mom's birthday - it's June 6. You don’t have to be a war historian to know the memorable wartime event that happened on that date: Actress Veronica Lake toured an aircraft factory and got her hair caught in some machinery. Of course, that's not the only thing June 6 is remembered for.

My siblings and I are all curious types, so we're always interested in mom and dad's memories of the war years. Their experiences and observations about those times could fill a book. I’d be glad to help them write it, but not until they overcome the serious modesty problem that's plagued them all their lives. In today's LOOKEE-AT-ME culture, their story - about two quiet, stalwart, salt-of-the-earth lives - lacks the necessary hyperbolically-hyped hype. But nobody can ever get 'em to brag. Except about their eight grandsons.

My parents love to read, and they have scores of books about WWII. I was very fond of one of them when I was a kid. It's called “Up Front.” It's a book of wartime cartoons by a guy named Bill Mauldin, who honored the fortitude of ordinary GI's through two foot soldiers named “Willie and Joe.”

Mauldin's drawings of Willie and Joe are wonderful - a couple of regular guys always balancing their weariness against their determination. They always need a shave, and a change of uniform. (And in spite of the fact that Willie and Joe won a Pulitzer Prize for Mauldin, I once read that General George Patton just HATED the way they looked.)

As a kid, I'd draw my own versions of Willie and Joe. They were about what you'd expect from a 10-year-old, although I did do a pretty nice job with their stubbly whiskers. Of course, I could observe and touch the occasionally unshaven face of a real-live vet.

Lucky me.

uuu

PS: Thanks, dad. Thanks mom. And thanks to every vet of the front lines or the home front.



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