ProgressOhio

My late dad rarely talked about his experiences in the Army Air Corp. It is from old newspaper clippings that I know that he piloted 21 combat missions over Germany in an A-20. A few of those missions were nail-biters -- just barely landing at his base across the Rhine River after taking enemy flak to his fuel tank, for example.

I don't even have a point of reference to understand what real Nazi warfare must have been like for him. Video games? How pathetic.

Unfortunately, by the time I got around to asking my dad probing questions about his war experiences, he was suffering from Parkinsons disease and often delusional.

"Did you find the base OK?" he'd ask from his nursing home bed.

"Yes, Daddy, no problem." Was it the Parkinsons or the meds for the Parkinsons? I'm not sure, but this went on for 12 years. It is what it is.

In one of his more lucid moments he told me his most exciting wartime experience was coming home -- piloting a single-engine prop plane across the Atlantic with a stopover in Africa. It's funny that this peaceful mission was what he remembered most vividly.

Though he wasn't a military careerist type, my dad like the Army. Before he enlisted he graduated from Ohio State with a business degree. He was devastated to be rejected from fraternity membership there. Raised by a single parent, he did not have the social benefit of a dad with a fat bank account. The Army didn't care about that -- they took him at face value for the smart, capable guy that he was.

Part of my dad's legacy is that he disliked fraternities, country clubs and all things elitist, despite his personal success. Although he was a Republican, I think he would have appreciated that Barack Obama is neither a Skull-and-Boner nor a His father-his father-his father kind of guy.

My dad left behind a leather-bound photo album with shots of his army buddies, aerial fighter pilot scenes and French postcards (the boring kind, like the Eiffel Tower). There are also candid pictures of Hitler and Mussolini mixed in with his personal photos. I now realize that he probably purchased these photos post-war, but when I was a kid looking at this album, I took it for granted that my daddy was hopping around Europe, taking Polaroids of Der Fuhrer. Of course! All in a day's work for a quiet WWII war hero.