My father asks for nothing

Blogger Sippican Cottage posted a story on March 3. The beginning of the article mentions the year 2006, so it may be an older post – yet it is timeless. No comment needed from me, just read the post.

Noted that Ace has posted and the article was referenced at The Corner on NRO within the last couple of days.

Again, take the three minutes to read the full post.

ww2-veteran-bomber

Posted in

Steve McGough

Steve's a part-time conservative blogger. Steve grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Washington, D.C. and the Bahamas. He resides in Connecticut, where he’s comfortable six months of the year.

2 Comments

  1. Jim Vicevich on March 5, 2009 at 12:03 pm

    An amazing story. My father so looked forward to his USS Missouri (BB63) reunions on the west coast. Of all the things he did in life, it seemed to me serving was the thing he was most proud of. He loved that ship and its mates. We talked frequently about it. He would get a kick out of me asking him to use sailor talk … gangway, all hands on deck, battle stations (generally that meant work for us). But most of all, like this man, he rarely talked about the tough times on board. No mention of Okinawa or their time in the Pacific. Mostly the signing of the surrender on board. That he talked about.

    Years later an old man called me, long after my father had passed on, and asked me for the Lieutenant. We talked for about an hour. He was just a teenager at the time he said, but he remembered my Dad. He liked him very much. Said he was a sailor's officer and very cool under fire. The younger ones he said, thought of him as a father.

    I know the feeling. My Dad never asked either. This generation would not think of it.



  2. Dimsdale on March 5, 2009 at 6:00 pm

    As proud as I am to be born of that generation, I realize that that kind of quiet greatness remained with that generation and the ones before it.  Great responsiblities made, no, brought out, the inherent greatness in our fathers, grandfathers and uncles.  You could just feel it when you were around them, whether you saw it in the way they carried themselves in their daily activities, or comported themselves in public.  You could see it in the respect they were given by coworkers and friends.   Not the phony respect that people assume (or demand) comes with a promotion, a title or an election, but the kind that is earned, that comes from the unquestioned expectation that these men would never do you wrong, never sneak around behind your back, but rather, would face any challenge head on, with fairness and integrity, and expect the same from those around them, and get it.

    The most amazing part: you didn't have to look for these qualities in that generation.  It was just there, all around you.  Regardless of political party, regardless of origin.  Nobody was perfect and nobody claimed to be.  But you could sense an aura that said these men knew right from wrong, good from evil, and didn't dance around the fact. 

    The real test: you didn't have to parse their words to know what they meant when they said something.  You didn't have to dig for hidden meanings or look for alternative explanations.  They said what they meant, and meant what they said.  Try and find that today.  Yeah, it's there, but you really have to dig.  It seems that those that unreservedly fought for greater things than themselves demonstrated and honed an inner greatness that was always there.  Nowadays you see it in our volunteer army.

    My grandfather served in WWI, my uncle, in WWII, my father, the Korean War, others in Vietnam, friends in Iraq.  My Granddad and my Uncle are gone, but damn well not forgotten.  Thesea are the men that made America great.  It is a shame that America isn't making too many of them anymore.

    I think I am going to give my Dad a call….



The website's content and articles were migrated to a new framework in October 2023. You may see [shortcodes in brackets] that do not make any sense. Please ignore that stuff. We may fix it at some point, but we do not have the time now.

You'll also note comments migrated over may have misplaced question marks and missing spaces. All comments were migrated, but trackbacks may not show.

The site is not broken.