{"id":1434,"date":"2021-06-02T23:29:48","date_gmt":"2021-06-03T06:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1434"},"modified":"2021-06-02T23:29:48","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T06:29:48","slug":"memorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1434","title":{"rendered":"Memorial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wars kill, and somehow that death in battle is more hallowed than another. Service should be honored. The ones who live through a war might have lost something vital too. As we remember the wartime fallen this Memorial Day, let us also remember the harm we cause when we pursue mortal conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My father was no flag waving patriot, though he was a Republican. World War II found him nearing the end of his college time at Oregon State. He paid for his tuition bussing tables at a frat house and spinning ropes to entertain dudes in Sun Valley. He enlisted because he knew otherwise, he\u2019d be drafted, and maybe through enlistment he could become an officer. Their pay was better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he wouldn\u2019t tell me about it. I was a third grader, drawing pictures of tanks and bombers, reading American Heritage books about every war I could. I even asked him about the medals I heard he\u2019d gotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDad, what\u2019s a Purple Heart for?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pulled on his Pall Mall and shook his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow did you get yours?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He looked away and held a long pause. \u201cShrapnel in my butt. Million-dollar wound they called it.\u201d I had seen the divot in his buttock when he got out of the bath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow about the Bronze Star? What was that for?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here he shook his head even stronger and looked up and away. \u201cThey gave those to everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tried many times to ask him about war, fighting, getting shot at or shooting at others. He would tell me nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I just didn\u2019t know how to ask my old man in a way he could relate to. Maybe it was my distance from him he felt, his only son. Maybe he was born with too much shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His birth was in a tent out by the creek because his dad\u2019s family wouldn\u2019t allow the woman\/girl his father married six months before his birth into their respectable house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or maybe the war had damaged him, and he just couldn\u2019t share that pain. I will never know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it was the shame I felt, when the teacher asked, \u201cWhat does your father do?\u201d and I answered as I had been told, \u201cHe\u2019s self-employed.\u201d Because I couldn\u2019t say he played poker for money and didn\u2019t pay taxes on his winnings. He didn\u2019t know anything about Libertarians, but Republican was as close as he could get fifty years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grew into my teen age years and my disrespect grew. Mark Twain talked about how the teenage son sees his father for a fool<\/a>. Twain says the son marvels that the old man can learn so much as the son matures. But it was much later I grew to respect him; too late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was arguing with a friend about inherited intelligence. \u201cLook at our family. My two sisters were valedictorians in high school classes for 400+, and I was salutatorian in a class of 500+, and my parents were pretty average.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He smirked. \u201cAre you sure?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dad was very complex, even though he was a Republican.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it was when he beat me time and again in Scrabble that I saw him differently. Maybe it was when he was so tender with my daughters, and I didn\u2019t remember that tenderness that my sight changed. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His drinking faded. His business failures did not burden me though I believe he carried them. And the war experience might have explained how we had to be so careful waking him up. Mom would say, \u201cDinners ready, go wake your dad.\u201d And I, the youngest would have to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDad!\u201d I would call from the doorway. If I had to touch him, I knew to step back because he would lash out violently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wars kill. Wars main. Wars harm. Let us remember.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wars kill, and somehow that death in battle is more hallowed than another. Service should be honored. The ones who live through a war might have lost something vital too. As we remember the wartime fallen this Memorial Day, let … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1436,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434\/revisions\/1436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}