For far longer than I can remember, I have possessed a headgear item that once sat atop the noggin of a young man who — if given the chance — would have killed my dad.

My father brought it home from World War II, where he served for more than three years in the U.S. Navy. He saw the bulk of his combat in the Mediterranean Theater. The headgear, of course, belonged to a German Nazi soldier who was among other enemy fighters who surrendered to American troops in the Med. I don’t recall how Dad actually acquired this helmet. It’s not dented or pocked with any bullet strikes. I guess the guy who wore it knew enough to keep his head down.

Dad died in 1980. My memory of what he told about those days have faded quite a bit in the decades since we lost him. I do recall him telling me that the Germans who were captured generally acted like gentlemen even as they were interrogated by Allied troops. Not so with the Italians, who were still in the fight until 1943, when they surrendered to the Allied onslaught on Sicily and the Italian mainland. They behaved “like animals,” Dad told me. Whatever, back to the helmet.

I wrestled for a time with what to do with this piece of history. Do I get it appraised and sell it? Do I donate it to a museum?

After giving it some thought — but not too much of it — I have decided to keep it. I might even hang it on a wall in my man cave. I have some pictures and other framed documents from Dad’s Navy service hanging on a wall in my home office. I could buy some nail anchors that are heavy enough to hold this piece of metal headgear. So, that’s what I think I’ll do.

I want to display it as a testament to Dad’s courage in enduring the constant aerial bombardment that fell on him and his fellow sailors. I want it to be my tribute to his love of country when, at age 20, he enlisted in the Navy on the very day the Japanese hit us at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

I also want it to be a lasting tribute to the sense of patriotism he imbued in me as I have come of age and am now enjoying my elderly years in this great nation of ours.