My Father, My Hero Jun 15 '05 (Updated Jan 02 '09)    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet The Bottom Line How does a son tell his father he loves him? He's now 85 and in poor health. He's suffering from emphysema, the result of 47 years of smoking (from the time he was 13 until he was 60) and even though he quit 25 years ago, the disease did finally catch up with him. As I watch him suffer and waste away, it makes me realize how fragile we all really are and how truly glad I am that I hated smoking at a young age and was NOT tempted to take up the habit. I didn't always like my Dad, even though I knew I loved him. You see, he wasn't the easiest guy to get along with or be around. He drank a lot, too and that often led to complications and more than enough embarrassing situations. I cringe, even now, when I think of some of them. But as I got older and lived much of my own life (and became somewhat more introspective), I realized that many of the slights were not intentional. I came to realize and appreciate that my father, like so many men from "the greatest generation" really were men of their times. My dad was no different. Like so many millions, my Dad lived through the Depression, but didn't suffer to the same extent that millions of others did. His dad always had a job and his family (he was an only child) never longed for food or a roof over their heads). After finishing high school and lacking a real direction, my dad joined the Fighting '69th, the famous infantry regiment of the NY National Guard. Made famous in the Civil War and noticed by the public after the 1940 movie of the same name that starred James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, George Brent and Alan Hale, my dad discovered that he liked soldiering. After almost two years, he joined the Regular Army and as luck would have it, found himself assigned to Schofield Barracks, Territory of Hawaii. And it was at Schofield Barracks, while still a private first class that he first came face-to-face with war, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hickam Field, Bellows and Wheeler Fields, Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station and Schofield Barracks on December 7, 1941. By the spring of 1942, my dad was back stateside, at a hospital at Ft. Knox, KY. He had contracted yellow jaundice, many now think as the result of faulty yellow fever vaccine. He was so ill (as were so many other soldiers at the time) that he didn't eat solid food for three months. Doctors at the army hospital signed his death certificate three times in anticipation of his demise. But it wasn't his time and he eventually recovered. Upon his release from the hospital, the army offered to medically discharge my dad with a 50% disability. He declined. He told the hospital commander that he was a soldier, a regular and didn't want to be sent home to sit out the war with all the other 4-Fs. He waived his rights and stayed in. It was a decision that would have significant impact on his life and those of other soldiers he served with. After my dad stayed in, he was marked as a soldier who cared. He rose quickly through the enlisted ranks and fought in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. In late 1943, by then a First Sergeant, he was transferred to England to train troops for the invasion of Normandy. On June 6, 1944, he went ashore with the First Infantry Division on Omaha Beach in the first infantry wave to assault Fortress Europe. None of the officers in his company made it out of the landing craft. Realizing this, my dad rallied the remnants of his company, got them out of the water and up on to the beach. Again organizing his men, he led them off the beach immediately behind the Rangers who took Pointe du Hoc. He continued to lead his company and carry out his assigned missions for another 10 days before the Army was able to assign a new company commander and platoon leaders who arrived with replacements. Sometime later, he received the first of several Silver Star medals that he would receive. As the war in France continued, my dad continued to serve as his company's first sergeant, looking out for and shepherding the enlisted men who did the fighting, bleeding and dying. He also helped train the new replacements and the officers who came and went. Many years after the war, when I myself served in the 82nd Airborne Division, he told me that his company had had 6 captains commanding it between D-Day and December 16, 1944 (the first day of the Battle of the Bulge). During that same time, his company had lost more than 18 second lieutenants. They had lost 13 first lieutenants, five of whom had at one time served as the company's second in command or XO (for executive officer). By the fall of 1944, at the age of 25, my dad was the oldest man in his rifle company. He told me later that he never expected to survive to see home again, but he continued to soldier on, hoping to bring as many of his men through as he could. On the icy cold and foggy morning of December 16, 1944, Adolph Hitler unleashed his still formidable Wehrmacht against thin American lines on a 75 mile front in the Ardennes forest in Belgium. By the end of that first day, as thousands of American GIs were sent reeling backward in fear and panic at the massed German panzer formations, my dad looked around his company's positions and realized that once again, he was in command. His company commander, the XO and the three platoon leaders had all been killed that day. My dad's company held a small hill that provided excellent visibility for artillery spotting. Knowing this, German panzergrenadiers repeatedly assaulted the hill. My dad's company, filled and re-filled with individual replacements from D-Day onward, was a part of a regular army regiment. But by 1944, the pre-war regulars had either been killed, wounded or levied to other units to serve as cadres for the war-time build-up. My dad had only a handful of experienced non-commissioned officers to provide the backbone of leadership that would prevent his company from folding and breaking like so many other units did in the face of massed German armored formations. My dad's battalion commander called him on the radio and implored him to hold while other American units retreated to regroup. My dad promised to do so. And hold he and his company did and by doing so, they bought time for other American troops to retreat across a vital bridge. My dad's company then destroyed it (minutes before German panzers could cross it). The next day, my dad was called to his regiment's headquarters where he received his battlefield commission as a second lieutenant. His colonel also informed him that he had recommended him for the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second highest award for combat valor. Due to the shortage of experienced officers, my dad was left in command of his company (and stayed there through the end of the war). By the time the Battle of the Bulge ended (late January 1945), my dad had been promoted to First Lieutenant. By war's end, he was a Captain. After entering Germany, he visited several of the concentration camps (Dachau, Flossenburg, Bergen-Belsen, to name a few) and finally knew why the U.S. had to be involved. It was also then that he decided to make the Army a career. By 1948, my dad had been overseas for six consecutive years. He hadn't seen his mother or father in that same period of time and requested leave to do so. Because he was a reserve officer without a college degree, he was told that if he went home, he would have to separate from the Army. He told his boss that he felt the need to see his parents and went home. He was separated from active duty and like millions of GIs before him, tried to start a new life as a civilian. He was 29 years old. In June 25, 1950, the North Korean Army crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea. Under UN flag, the USA and many of her WW II allies sent forces to the Korean peninsula to repel the communist armies from South Korea. But in 1950, my dad had met my mom, they had become engaged and planned to marry. They did so in September of that year. In November, my dad received a telegram from the Department of the Army recalling him to active duty as a Captain. Ordered to report to Ft. Meade, Maryland, he did so and then moved on to Ft. Benning, Georgia for a refresher course in infantry tactics. He knew that he was headed back to the sound of the guns and his hunch proved right. He received his orders for Korea. The Army was not so insensitive to people's individual needs as people might think and the personnel officers knew that they had recalled officers and NCOs who had significant combat time in WW II. They actually provided many of these WW II veterans with loopholes by which they could avoid seeing combat service for a second time in five years. My dad was offered an out, but again he refused to take it. He told me later that he thought he had an obligation as an officer to bring as many men home as possible. Along with thousands of others, he boarded a troop ship for his second war, this time on the Asian mainland. After arriving in South Korea, he returned to the job he knew best, that of a rifle company commander. He led his company for two more years of combat and twice more he bled for the United States. In late 1952, he came home to my mom. He had been offered a Regular Army commission (quite an achievement even then, as he lacked a college degree) and wanted to discuss it with her. My mom, being the great person she is, understood that being a soldier is who my dad was and agreed to go with him wherever the Army sent him. My dad stayed on in the Army and like military families throughout America, we moved around a lot. When my mom was offered a job on Long Island as an industrial engineer, he agreed and we moved there. I guess it didn't hurt that he had been assigned as an advisor to the nascent Army of the Republic of Vietnam after the last French troops left from Saigon in 1956. It would be the first of several tours my dad would serve in Indo-China. My dad continued to serve and be promoted and by the mid-1960s, was a Lt Col and battalion commander. As I grew up, I knew that I would follow his lead and become a soldier. Even when America's involvement in Vietnam divided the country, my dad remained steadfast and continued to be my role model. He also did whatever he could to ensure that his men and the others he led and trained had the best possible chances of returning home to their loved ones. But officers know that bringing all of their troops home is not always possible and my dad was no different. He lost men, good men, who should have had longer, fuller lives. Before his third war ended, he was drinking heavily and it made things at home difficult. But his officer performance ratings were good and he made Colonel. Not bad for a former private who never finished college. By the early 1970s, as America's involvement in Vietnam wound down to its inevitable outcome, my dad knew that he would probably not see a brigadier general's star and he began to plan for a life after the army. When he retired, he did what so many others before him did, he went to work for a defense contractor. Despite being a lifelong infantry soldier and officer, he had a flair for logistics and earned a new reputation as a can-do guy. He also finally had some time for his two sons. When I graduated from college, my dad knew I was headed for the army. He tried to dissuade me from the infantry and he almost succeeded. I was supposed to be commissioned as an armor officer and head off to helicopter flight training, but a certain event took place that killed those plans. I wound up where my dad had started, as a private soldier and assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg, NC. My dad was furious at me and told me not to come home until I was either an NCO or an officer. I left home with lead where my heart was. Knowing that service as an army officer was now out of the question, I decided to be the best airborne infantryman I could. In less than a year, I was promoted from private to Sergeant and I also made up my mind that I would NOT remain in the Army. When my time was up, I kept my pledge to myself and left the service. I set out to start my civilian career. I worked in the aerospace industry in various procurement positions until I realized that I missed the camraderie that only exists in the military. I decided to try the military again, albeit on a part-time basis. By then, my relationship with my dad had healed and I asked him what he thought of the idea. To my surprise, he encouraged me but not in the direction you might think. My dad, having been a grunt for the better part of his adult life suggested that I not return to the Army National Guard or Army reserve. He told me to look at the Air National Guard or Air Force Reserve. After giving it much thought, I did just that and it is in the Air National Guard where I continue to serve today. Perhaps the biggest irony is that I have spent more time back on active duty as an Air National Guardsman than I ever did when I was in the Regular Army. When I was injured during the first Gulf War, my dad journeyed (with my mom) to Ramstein Air Force hospital in Germany to be at my bedside. He remained there for the entire time I was hospitalized. As I got ready to go to war again after the United States launched offensive operations against Iraq, my dad called me on the phone. In his now much quieter voice he told me that he loved me and that he was proud of me. He told me to be careful and always "watch my six." He also told me that he'd be here waiting and would always be available to listen. I tried to hold onto that in some really bad times and I now realize that his words helped me more than I knew. I'm home again temporarily, but knowing that I face a return engagement to the desert. Knowing what his medical condition now is, I fear that he may not be here the next time I come home and that realization is one I find rather disturbing. My dad is 85 years old and is more frail than I have ever seen him. It took me too many years to forgive him for the harsh and gruff way he treated my brother and me. But I also now look back on all of those events and experiences and know that in his own way, he did what he did because he loved us. He may have had a strange way of showing it, but I now know that my dad always loved us. In the grand scheme of things, that's all that matters and it was my dad's love, guidance, trust and leadership that made me the man I am today. So thank you, dad, from the bottom of my heart. I love you, too. your son, Paul

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