He left us almost twenty years ago, as if sailing across
the ocean’s waves or in his mind, the English Channel
as part of the Sixth Beach Battalion,
sequestered on the USS Dorothea Dix, along with
war correspondent Ernest Hemingway.
She sailed towards Omaha Beach, Normandy with many
young soldiers and “sailors dressed liked soldiers”
as the Sixth Beach Battation was called. Perhaps meeting
Hemingway calmed them, as they met at the bow
for small talk, Hemingway holding his binoculars.
I rarely understood the depth of my father’s
service until I was older. He never talked much
about it before the ravages of Parkinson’s started to
take hold of his body like a foreign agent
sworn to secrecy, creeping in when no one noticed.
Different times he comes to my thoughts as if
to visit the adolescent girl I once was, trying to
get him to feel sorry for me in different predicaments,
complaining about the state of the world, the unfairness
of my life, why I couldn’t listen to the certain music.
He would look me straight in the eyes,
shake his head, and remind me in his soft voice,
“I marched through Belgium.” Just a few words
that I did not fully comprehend until later
in life, when graced with appreciation.
He survived Omaha Beach and the Battle of the Bulge,
experiencing first hand death and destruction. He
never wore it on his sleeve, never shared that the memories
visited him until he prepared for another journey, another
deployment, wading into the English Channel.
