Unlike the past few Mondays, I am only providing a short story today as part of the Thursday Doors Writing Challenge. Today is Memorial Day here in the U.S., and I have some photos specific to the subject of my story, so I am skipping Cee’s Fun Photo Challenge this week.
I do want to mention that Chris posted on Cee’s blog on Friday that Cee is in the hospital. Please join me in keeping Cee in your thoughts and prayers.
Today’s feature photo is my father during WWII in the Philippines.
Walking Through the War
William Barber was in Washington, D.C. on a business trip. He’d arranged to arrive a day early with the hope of visiting some of the memorials. He’d planned a hurried agenda. First stop, the National Mall where he’d see the World War II Memorial, the Korean War Memorial and the Vietnam War Memorial. Then a quick metro ride over to Arlington National Cemetery. Unbeknownst to him, his plans were going to change.
He arrived at the World War II Memorial shortly after an Honor Flight shuttle bus had delivered a group of veterans for their tour. Bill was walking toward the memorial from the Washington Monument. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular other than to stop at the pillar representing Nebraska. It seemed a little insincere to make a quick lap around the grounds, but he only had part of one day, and there was a lot to see. As he turned to begin his loop, he found himself behind a group of people, including a man in a wheelchair being pushed by a younger woman. Bill stepped back to try to get a picture of the entrance.
“Do you want me to get out of the way so you can take your picture son?”
“No, actually I’d be proud to have you in my picture. Are you from Alabama?”
“No, I’m just remembering a friend. My daughter is going to push me around seven states to honor some people I went to war with, and some I served with. I’m gonna tell her the stories I’ve told her a hundred times, but this might be the last time I get to tell them.”
All thoughts of a well-planned agenda evaporated from Bill’s mind.
“Would you mind if I walked along with you? I’d love to hear those stories. My father died at Pearl Harbor, and I don’t have any family connection to the rest of the war.”
“Where was your father from, son?”
“Nebraska.”
“Well, we’ll stop there, too. My name is Irving Tucker. You can call me Erv. What’s your name, son?”
“William Barber. You can call me Bill.” Bill looked over at the young woman. “Is this okay with you ma’am?”
“I’m Mary. Seeing him smile like that is the best thing I could hope for.”
“I’m surprised Pennsylvania is so close to the entrance. I’m not sure what order these pillars are in. I suppose it doesn’t matter; we’ll make the whole loop.”
“They’re in the order in which the states joined the union.”
“Even the ones that showed us their ass?”
Bill laughed. Mary shook her head.
“I’m afraid my father isn’t what people would call politically correct.”
“That’s okay.” Bill explained. “Yes, Erv, even the ones that tried to secede. They all sent men and women to this war.”
“I know. I was just kidding. They all left native sons in foreign graveyards, too.” He grabbed the wheels to stop his chair at Pennsylvania.
They all looked up at the granite pillar. The bronze wreath hung high was hard to ignore.”
“The first to die from my unit was a guy from Pennsylvania we called Gumchew. He was always chewing gum. He loved it so much, a bunch of us used to give him our rations. He died on Guadalcanal the second time the Japanese tried to take the island back. I’d heard about men dying, men like your dad, Bill, but I’d never seen a man die. Hell, I’d never seen a dead man outside of a funeral home. Gumchew sure didn’t lay there all fancy like.”
“I’m sorry you had to see that, Erv. Those are the things we don’t think about.”
“Once the bureaucrats start counting the dead, they stop being people. They’re just numbers at that point.”
They walked and rolled past other state pillars. They waited behind other veterans. Bill took over the task of pushing Erv’s wheelchair. Erv looked at the note he brought with him.
“Stop here.” He shouted at the same time as it got very quiet at the memorial.
“I didn’t mean to shout. Everybody got quiet but me. I just wanted to stop here.”
Bill laughed a little under his breath. “I don’t think it bothered anyone, Erv. Who was from South Carolina?”
“Thomas Mertan. He never let us call him Tom or Tommy. Said it made him feel like a kid. He looked like a kid, too. He never said, but I think he was like me, lied about his age and enlisted early. Barely needed to shave. The problem with war is the people died before you got to hear their whole story. Thomas died at Papua New Guinea. Miserable place. The bugs, the snakes and malaria were worse than the enemy.”
“What happened to Thomas?”
“He got shot. Lost a leg. Then, while he was recovering, he got malaria. We thought he was going home, but he didn’t make it. Buried on that goddamned island.”
“Dad, please, watch your language.”
“I’m sorry, Mary. It still makes me mad. The brass had us skipping over some islands, like Rabaul—I wish they had skipped New Guinea.” He handed the list of states to Bill. “Here, these are where I want to stop. This way I won’t have to yell.”
“Okay. It looks like Minnesota is next.”
“That’s where we live. Dad was born and raised there.”
“I guess you know a lot of people from your home state.”
“Five or six. Some I knew, some I heard about. Brothers, cousins and uncles of friends. Of course there’s Pete.”
Bill looked over at Mary.
“Pete was Dad’s older brother.”
“I’m sorry, Erv. Was your brother in the Pacific with you?”
“No. He died in Germany during the Bulge. The worst casualty from Minnesota was my mom.”
“I don’t understand. You mean losing a son?”
“Wasn’t just that. My father never fully recovered from being wounded in France in World War One. Of course, he never used the ‘one’ part. He didn’t live long enough to know there’d be a two. She raised us on her own, with family help. Mom was never happy. I suppose raisin’ two boys during the Depression and then the army takin them away and the war keeping one was too much for her. She died in forty-six.”
“Your family gave more than their share. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, son. We did what had to be done. Everybody did. This whole country went to war, not just those of us in uniform.”
They pushed on a little farther.
“Looks like you already had Nebraska on your list.”
“Yeah, I had a friend since elementary school. His family moved to Nebraska when we were in ninth grade. He died on D-Day. Buried in France. Was your father on a ship?”
“Yes, the USS West Virginia. The ship was recovered, repaired, and went on to fight another day, but my dad was killed during the attack.”
“He sailed with her. Mary don’t believe in stuff like that, but I do.”
“I’m sure the men on that ship carried the spirit of their crewmates into battle, Dad. I just don’t think…” She looked at Bill. “I’m sorry. This is an old argument, and I shouldn’t bring it up now.”
Bill shook his head. “Don’t worry. It’s been over sixty years. I didn’t know my father, but I sense his spirit sometimes. We all believe what we believe.”
Bill pushed Erv around to California.
“This is the next state on the list, Erv. Who was from California?”
“Whitey Palmer. He was in the Navy. I met him in California before we shipped out. I looked him up after the war. Turns out, he was on the Lexington at the Battle of Coral Sea. Went down with that ship. I never knew how he died. Ships carry their dead to the bottom. Don’t matter how they die.”
“Dad.” Mary admonished her father out of respect for Bill’s feelings.
“It’s okay, Mary. We never knew for sure how my father died, but I don’t think about that. I just focus on the fact that he was there when it started.”
“When the Navy pulled away from Guadalcanal and left us, we were all pissed. I mean they took a lot of our equipment with them. But by the time the war was over, everybody respected everybody. There was no safe place during the war, ‘cept maybe right here in Washington.”
Erv caught Bill laughing at that comment.
“You laugh, Bill, but these clowns barely got this monument built. They hemmed and hawed and debated design and location and whether or not it would block Lincoln’s statue’s view of the Washington Monument. Then one day they realized the people they was trying to honor were dying of old age. Mary signed me up for this flight before this thing was finished. Hell, I could still walk back then.”
“Dad, don’t get all worked up. You’re here. You made it, and we’d like to keep your blood pressure in a measurable zone.”
“And here we are at New York, Erv. Whose story do we have here?”
“A boy I met in basic training down at Paris Island. Fred Wimble. He had a real high voice. We called him Freda. I guess he’d heard it before, he didn’t seem to mind much. He almost made it home. Died on Okinawa near the end of June. The battle ended for the rest of us a few days later. They brought the dead home from Iwo Jima, but they created a nicer cemetery for most boys that died on Okinawa. Some bodies were moved, but Freda is still there, far as I know.”
“Next stop, Kentucky. This one has a question mark next to it, Erv. What’s up with that?”
Erv sighed. “I didn’t know who he was, Bill. I met him, so to speak, before I shipped out. I got in a fight in a bar in California. Two guys was wailin on me, and he jumped in. He beat the crap out of both of them. I bought him a few drinks afterwards. I asked him his name, but he said to call him ‘Tuck’ ‘cuz he was from Kentucky. I found out later his name was Junior Harris.”
“How did you find out, Erv?” Bill asked with a curious look on his face.
“He was actually in a documentary. Some old black and white government thing. They said his fellow soldiers called him ‘Tuck’. He died on Midway. I’m not sure it’s the same Tuck, looked the same, but that was a long time ago.”
They sat and rested for a while behind a large group taking pictures at the Pacific Monument. Bill studied the end of the list.
“Looks like we’re heading to New England, Erv. Rhode Island and Connecticut.”
“Yep, both guys were in my unit. Paul Harding and Richard Alessandro. Both are buried in the Philippines. One died there, and one was moved there from a temporary grave on Okinawa. We left our dead all over the Pacific.”
Bill wheeled Erv back around and took a picture of him and Mary in front of the Pacific Monument. He exchanged email addresses with Mary and promised to send her a copy.
“Thanks for being with us today, Bill. You made my father very happy.”
Erv added his thanks to the message. “It was good to tell these stories to a new set of ears, son.”
Bill laughed. “It’s good to here someone refer to me as if I’m young, Erv. I appreciate your service, and I am sorry for the loss you knew and the horrors you witnessed. I’m glad they got this memorial built in time for you to see it.
All five of my current books are now available in audio book form thanks to Amazon KDP’s Virtual Voice process. The voice is AI generated, but I can honestly say, it’s pretty darn good. The audio books are reasonably priced (all below $7 US) and, if you already own the Kindle version and want to add an audio version, you can do that for $1.99. There is a five-minute sample on the book page for each book. If you’re interested, click on any of the Dreamer’s Alliance book links below the image or on the link below for my latest book.
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