Ode to a Soldier

I never really knew my dad as a person. I never knew his dreams, his hopes, his thoughts. I never knew his favorite sport; what his favorite team might have been; or what music he liked best. I never knew what he wanted for his children, or how he saw himself.

I did, however, know him as a Soldier. As a little girl, I remember holding his hand – but only his left hand, so he could salute with his right - as we walked to “the Company”, to the motor pool, to the chow hall, or to some other place that Soldiers walk. I remember the day I stood proudly at attention alongside my dad, at the PX cafeteria in Paris, as Ballad of the Green Berets played on the jukebox. I was 9, and I just knew that I would be a Soldier one day, just like my dad.

Two years later, he was in Vietnam, and I became Walter Cronkite’s biggest fan. Night after night, my mother and I stayed glued to the TV set – she on the couch, and I on the floor, two feet from the screen, because I couldn’t see anything in focus from far
away. You see ... no one knew how fervently I believed that, if I watched the evening news hard enough, and didn’t see my dad on the TV, then he wouldn’t die. It made sense to an eleven year old.

After Dad returned, we crossed the ocean again, and he saw to it that I learned how to properly polish
his boots – they were black then, and had to be spit shined. He thought it was punishment for some silly transgression I always seemed to make. But I secretly looked forward to each night in the stairwell,
smelling the lovely odor of Kiwi wax as I tried and tried to get that spit shine with ... well ... with spit. No, it didn’t work very well, but I saw those exercises in futility as preparation for when I would have to polish my own boots, when I became a Soldier!

Life went on, and before we knew it, Dad had to go back to Vietnam. By that time, I was 13 and 14, and thought I had life all figured out. It was a tumultuous time in our country and, once again, we spent evenings with Walter Cronkite – only this time, I was afraid to watch, because at 14 and already all grown up, I learned that war seriously, and without prejudice, kills everyone we know. Therefore, if I didn’t watch the news, then he wouldn’t die. It made sense to a 14 year old.

Dad never communicated much with us kids his first time in Vietnam – but the second time, we kept getting those little reel-to-reel tapes and the occasional MARS call – I remember I felt so stupid saying “over” after every sentence. Dad eventually came home quietly, with no fanfare, and I expected that life would go on as before. But it didn’t. He had changed. Vietnam changed him. An important piece of him was gone - his ability to put anything in its proper perspective.

Sometimes, when no one else was around I would ask him about Vietnam, and he would tell me stories from his time in the Korean War, instead. Not until several years later, after I had become an Army ROTC cadet in college, and occasionally came home all cammoed up from a field exercise, did my dad begin to share glimmers of his experiences in Vietnam. Just glimmers .... never anything real.

I eventually gave up asking and soon left home to start my own life. I never looked back. But my respect for my dad, the Soldier, never wavered. In fact, it became the foundation for the lessons I taught my own children, as they grew up spending every weekend at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington DC.

It wasn’t until 2005, when I got assigned to Korea, that my dad and I began to mend fences, section by section. Always at the center of our conversations was the theme of sacrifice and service to one’s
country. This was the part of him that I already knew well; perhaps it was the only part of him that HE knew would create the path, which allow him to reconnect with me.

Over these last 5 years, I finally did get answers to all those questions I used to ask him - the ones he never answered. He shared many things with me; things that made me realize how deeply his experiences
affected him, and how lost he had become. After my return from Iraq and most recently from
Afghanistan, we wrote each other about things that we never shared with anyone else. Weaving through our collective emails was a shared experience of war – the sights, the sounds, the smells, the thoughts, the questions.

Being a Soldier was what Dad did best, and when he had to stop, he was lost. He wrote to me once: “...
every year the same question comes to mind, "how did I make it back twice when so many didn't?".
Over there, where ever 'over there' was for each of us depends on when it was, there was always so
much to do and get done. Then coming back here, life seems so meaningless, even more so during the
evening news. Then when one gets to be my age and told go find a rocking chair one really feels useless.”

Had he recognized his symptoms as being classic of Post Traumatic Stress; had the military environment been a safe conduit to diagnosis and treatment, back then; had he been able to get the help he needed, as a Soldier fresh from war ... I truly believe his life would not have been so hard for him. But none of that ocurred and, true to his beliefs and true to his training, he soldiered on, in spite of it all.

I have accepted that the man, who was Dad, was lost a long time ago; and can proudly say that the Soldier who was Dad, lives in each of his children today. John served in the Navy; Gary served in both the Navy and the Army National Guard; Stephen volunteered as an IDF soldier and is my haven when I come back from deployments; my son Bryce became a Marine; my daughter Karina was in ROTC (like her Mama); and I serve our Soldiers today in the Red Cross. Dad’s legacy to us all is his patriotism, his call to duty, and his belief that the simple things in life are the most important - his plants, his dogs, and the quiet country life.

SSG Scott Hilligoss once wrote a poem that pretty much epitomizes how I knew my Dad.

The soldiers life is not for all
A soldier must be willing to give his all
He is overworked and underpaid
A truer patriot was never made
Ready to go at any time
Wherever there is trouble or the first sign
His courage and honor are unsurpassed
Ready and willing to complete the task
Traveling to lands both near and far
He stands his post and looks at the stars
Wondering what he might have done
If he had not chosen to carry a gun
Remember the next time that you are driving by
And see the flag flying proud and high
That somewhere out there a soldier stands
Weary and cold in a foreign land
Protecting our country from our foes
Standing tall and proud come rain or snow.

Dad, you instilled in me a love of my country; a belief that service in uniform holds the highest honor; and that we as a Nation have an obligation to collectively care for our veterans forever.

And Dad .... I'm not a Soldier, but I still spit shine my shoes!!