War veterans I have known and loved

       My dad, Gordon Fossum – Dad would cajole us kids into scratching his back and would figuratively divide his back into a tic-tac-toe board of nine squares numbered across and then direct us to his itches. “Right in the middle of 2,” he’d say, or “Right on the line between 7 and 8.” I think his Purple Heart scar was in the lower right corner of square # 6. Many times I scratched it, fingered it, rubbed it, and had questions I couldn’t even find words for. Like so many, he didn’t talk about the war much. During one conversation I found out that it was flying shrapnel that had wounded him during a confrontation with the enemy in the Pacific arena of WW II. I sure wish I’d captured that conversation because I think he went into details, most of which I’ve forgotten. I was older by then, and I do remember us talking about the sheer terror he felt.

Years later, 1968, to be exact, in the middle of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, we had another war-related conversation, this time by phone. I was in the city, and he was ranting against Vietnam War protesters. When I told him I was one of them, he hung up on me. Upset and hungry for reconciliation, I took the next commuter train out to my hometown, to him. We did our best, but it wasn’t pretty.

I’ve always felt like Dad’s war experience killed something in his soul. I wonder how much it fueled his alcoholism. Maybe not that much, considering that his father was alcoholic, too. Of course, Grandpa Fossum fought in WW I...

My maternal grandfather, Kenneth Cristy – Grandpa Cristy and I never talked about his war experiences in France in WW I, but I have copies of letters that he wrote to Clara Nelson, his sweetheart back in Wisconsin.  He wrote something like, “Don’t forget me while I’m gone. If you find someone else, I’ll be in a hard place.” She didn’t. She became my Grandma Cristy.

John – I knew this delightful man in rural Chester County, Pennsylvania in the 1980s. I had moved there, and we went to church together. On a visit to his home on church business, he told me about being among the first troops to enter Nagasaki (or was it Hiroshima?) after the atomic bomb blast. Unimaginable. He shook his head a lot. I remember him talking about sitting safely in his nice home nearly 40 years later telling about such horror, incredulous that it ever could have happened.

A guy in the waiting room – Again in PA, another WW II vet. My toddler and I spent most of a morning with him while our cars were being worked on. He talked his head off about his war experiences. When the manager told him his car was ready, we said goodbye, but after paying, he came back to us and took my hand in his, tearfully thanking me for listening; he said h'ed never told anyone else those stories. He pressed a $10 bill in my hand and told me to go get some lunch for me and my baby.

Bob – Recently returned from combat duty in Vietnam. I can’t remember how we got connected, through a bulletin board notice, I think, but he gave me a ride from Waverly IA where I was in college, to home, Ringwood IL on a cold winter night in 1968. Side by side in his Jeep, we drove through the dark for hours. This was our first meeting, and yet, before long, detailed, sickening horrors of his time in Nam poured forth. I was strongly opposed to the war by this time, radicalized at Wartburg College, but did not fully admit to that. How I felt for him and admired him…and deeply regretted that his courage and service seemed to be spent  for a lost cause.

What veterans are special to you?