Of all the lessons my dear ol’ Dad taught me before he died tragically in 1980, the one that stands out is to love one’s country and be ready to fight to the death for it.
I am thinking of Dad today as the nation remembers the event that exploded over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on this date in 1941. Dad was a 20-year-old sophomore at the University of Portland when the Japanese attacked our military forces that day. Dad was the oldest of seven siblings born to my grandparents, who were living in Portland when the attack occurred.
I didn’t learn until much later — after Dad had been gone for nearly 40 years — about what he did on that day. The youngest of his two brothers told my wife and me that on the afternoon of the “Day of Infamy,” the kids were gathered around a radio in my grandparents’ house listening to the events of that tragic day. Dad got up, walked out of the house and made his way downtown to the armed forces recruiting station. He intended in that moment to enlist in the Marine Corps; the USMC office was closed that Sunday morning. Across the hall, Dad noticed the Navy office was open so, he joined the Navy at that moment.
He wanted to get into the fight against the tyrants who sought to conquer the world.
And, oh brother, did he ever.
He never boasted about the decision to enlist on the very day our nation went to war. Indeed, he never even mentioned it to me. My uncle Tino, though, remembered that moment vividly. “I was 9 years old and I remember it to this day,” Tino told us.
Therein is the lesson my favorite veteran taught me. Even without saying so out loud, Dad imbued in me the belief that if falls on each of us to do what we can do individually to protect our nation against forces that seek to destroy it.