Didn’t Know Then
March 15, 2009
The older I have gotten the more I realize how fragile life is, how little control we have over the hand fate will deal us. Which is why I so often turn now to the back of a book I have just begun reading to make sure things are going to come to a satisfactory conclusion for the characters in whose lives I am about to invest some of my own. Silly, I know and I have fought this urge for many years, mostly successfully, but as I age I find myself turning more often to the end when I have only gotten a few pages into a story.
This began for me when I read about the sinking of the Titanic on her maiden voyage. I must have been about twelve or so which meant we were still living in Mesa. Dad was a regular subscriber to the Reader’s Digest which he enjoyed reading and was a fairly decent magazine for many years. I remember that he especially liked the page that tested one’s knowledge of words and their meanings. He also received many of their condensed books which, to be honest, I also read voraciously not realizing at the time how they butchered the writing style of the books so cleverly compacted. (I could be wrong about where I read it but the time frame is right.) I can remember the horror I felt at the vivid picture, which the author painted, of the fate of the people left on board the sinking vessel after many of the women and children were placed in life boats as the band stoically played “Nearer My God To Thee”. (To this day I have not seen the movie “Titanic”, which was wildly successful at the box office, and never intend to—I know how it ends!)
I guess the reason I got started on this line of thinking is Mother’s little black book with it’s quite eclectic content. As near as I can tell she began this collection around 1943 which would place it in the middle of World War II. From the safe distance of 60 years it is easy to shrug aside the effort needed to win this war, which at the time took all the faith and effort of ‘our greatest generation’ to bring about. How it would end was not known. Here is a little poem that touched her heart:
SON AT SEA
By M.R. Shank
O God, through tomorrow and the next day and the next,
Watch over the sea.
Let starlit nights prevail. I ask of Thee!
Be Master of the waves that toss the ship upon the deep;
And safely guard a little boy I used to rock to sleep.
The thought of all those windows with their gold star posted to show that from this home came one who gave his all in the defense of our nation brings tears to my eyes as I contemplate the effort it took to bring the world back from the abyss of tyranny. This sacrifice was not some abstract idea, as revisionist historians would have us think now as they busy themselves trying to impose today’s politically correct views over the hard cold reality of what was required to keep the dream of freedom alive for future generations . Here then is another poem that Mother found meaning in:
YOUR SON AND MINE
by G. Z. Pratt
When in the night you hear the planes go roaring overhead,
You’re thinking of your son. . . and I of mine . . .
They are both pilots somewhere over there—
Yet they are in our hearts day after day . . .
And in the night you wake and speak his name,
You pray that he is safe; I do the same . . .
Perhaps it has been long and prayer has been
A stranger to our lips . . . all that is different now—
So when the planes go roaring overhead at night
Our heads we humbly bow . . .
And when we see a group of sailors in the town,
Merry and rollicking in their brave attire,
We pause and wish to speak a few brief words—
For these are but a symbol of a million more
Who sail beyond the horizon to many a distant shore . . .
Among them are our sons . . .
Who somewhere on the seas perform their task
Nor fear to face whatever fate may bring—
And for these sons we crave safe harboring.
. . . I never see a sailor in the town, I do not pause and think
Of ships at sea . . . I pray they may return to us again
With their brave company . . .
MGH missed being drafted for service in World Ward II by a few months. He tells me he fully expected to be called up and was prepared to give his all as had so many others in his community. While he wasn’t drafted straight out of high school he did enroll in ROTC while working towards his bachelors degree at Utah State where he was named outstanding military graduate for 1953 which put him on the same par as some one graduating from West Point. His timing was right, or wrong, depending on how you look at it to miss the shooting wars although he did serve in Korea immediately after the cease fire was signed which was pretty scary as no one knew for sure if the peace would hold or not—still don’t for that matter, all these years later.
Sylvia’s GH Tom’s Dad was a foot soldier who served in Europe during all the horrific battles that took place across that continent including the Battle of the Bulge. Very few of those in his original group survived. He was one of the lucky ones. He tells his family that one of the sergeants he served under used to tell them that each day they survived was gravy and to be treasured so grim were their chances. But survive he did, returning home to marry his sweetheart and together raise a family of twelve children. What a privilege it is for Franklin, Tom and Sylvia’s youngest, to have these good men as his grandfathers.