My favorite veteran would have turned 100 this past May. He never saw his 60th birthday … and I remember him with great fondness.
That is him in the picture. He is the sailor standing at the door, guarding it with a British Royal Marine. I should tell you that the room on the other side of the door contained the Allied naval commander in the Mediterranean and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
My favorite veteran, of course, is my dad Pete Kanelis.
Dad imbued in me a love of country. He was a true-blue patriot. It was his country, right or wrong. He went to war for the nation that welcomed his parents to its shores at the turn of the 20th century. My grandparents came to America not knowing a word of English; they spoke Greek in the home. Dad didn’t learn English until he went to school in Pittsburgh, Pa.; he told me his first day ended when he ran home crying because he couldn’t understand what anyone was saying.
He learned the language.
On Dec. 7, 1941, Dad was sitting at home in Portland, Ore., listening on the radio to reports of what happened that morning in Hawaii. He was a 20-year-old college student. Dad left the house, took a bus downtown and went to the armed forces recruiting station intending to enlist in the Marine Corps; the USMC office was closed. He walked across the hall to join the Navy … on the very day we were attacked by Japanese forces.
My favorite veteran reported for duty several weeks later as the nation mobilized to fight the tyrants in Europe and Asia. He went to Navy boot camp for three weeks and then shipped out to England.
Dad saw combat in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. He swam for his life after an Italian dive bomber sank his ship in the Med. Dad participated in the invasions of Sicily and Italy, landing at Salerno in 1943.
His Navy career ended in the Philippines, where he was staging for an invasion of Japan. President Truman then decided to drop The Bomb on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. The war ended. Dad came home. He married my mother. He welcome me into the world in late 1949; the first of my two sisters came along in March 1951, while the youngest of us arrived in April 1957.
He didn’t volunteer much about what he did during The War. However, he would talk about it when someone asked.
He was part of what they call The Greatest Generation. He answered the call to duty, he did his duty, then he came home and got on with the rest of his life. If only it hadn’t ended so early.
He is my favorite veteran and I honor his service to the nation he loved beyond measure … while honoring as well all of those who wore the nation’s uniform.