I was shooting pool in this VFW Post in Southwest Philadelphia last night and this is what the walls looked like inside. Proud men and headlines about a war well won. It was thrilling to see these headlines framed forever from a time when newspapers broke the news with headlines bigger than your head. It was my father's war, World War II, and I imagined my dad as part of the heroic American army celebrated by these headlines.
But my dad's war ended in a weird way, for me at least. He was on a ship off the coast of Japan awaiting the invasion when we dropped the atomic bombs that saved his life and my life and my children and his grandchildren and my grandchildren and before you know it, God's involved.
I had never taken the atomic bomb personally until I realized that my father's life was. or may have been, saved by the decision to use it. I would never have been born, yadda-yadda-yadda, the usual philosophical discussion that ends with the question, "Would I rather have lived or not." Count me in on that one.
Last night the few remaining veterans from more recent wars, but as gray and grizzled as we imagine our fathers generation, celebrated the Marine Corps birthday with a shout, "Ten November 1775. Tun Tavern. Philadelphia. Ooo-Rah." Because even today every Marine was born the same day as the Corps. November tenth. Seventeen-seventy-five. In a bar called Tun Tavern. In a city called Philadelphia. Ooo-RAH!
Today is Veterans Day and I'm getting all verklemft. From Gettysburg to Fort Hood it seems like such a waste of us. I know we must and why. But it seems so personal when I accept the connection between my father's survival and my own. I tend to get gooey on this subject but it's more an intellectual recognition than an emotional discovery.
In my mind it goes like this: If we hadn't dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, my granddaughter Lucy wouldn't be alive today. This is inconceiveable! (a video I can't wait to watch with Lucy just so I can play Mandy Potamkin: "My name is Iniego Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.")
No biggee. Just dad.
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