This unusual column is my tribute to my father, to his generation, and to all veterans.

My dad was a member of Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation.” He told me that he pestered my grandmother constantly during silent movies by asking, “What did they say?” because he couldn’t read yet.

Dad remembered the Great Depression very well. He was six years old when it began. All through school, there was no extra money for luxuries. Dad never went hungry, although you would guess he almost starved by his photographs back then.

He was 18 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He wanted to enlist immediately, but my grandfather wouldn’t let him. He finally won that argument in late 1942. In June 1944, he landed on Saipan with the Marines and later on nearby Tinian. On Guam a Japanese sniper barely missed him.

Finally, he landed on Iwo Jima with his Marines two days after the initial landings and spent about four weeks dodging Japanese mortars. He witnessed the raising of the Stars and Stripes from the foot of Mt. Suribachi.

On Aug. 6, 1945, he was due to rotate back to the States when he saw a newspaper with the headline, “Atomic bomb dropped on Japan.” Nobody knew what an atomic bomb was. His ship arrived in San Francisco harbor the day after Japan signed the surrender. A very large sign “Well Done!” was in the hills overlooking Oakland. Things in San Francisco were wild and very fuzzy that night. The next morning, he traveled to Niles. My mom and dad became engaged and married on 15 September 1945 and honeymooned at Barron Lake.

I told Dad he went from Iwo Jima to his honeymoon in six months. What a change!

I appeared nine months later to the day. My brother arrived 30 months after that. Mom and dad settled down to do what millions of other members of the Greatest Generation did: he went back to work and bought a house. Except for a ten month period of active duty during the Korean War, when my dad did his service at Corpus Christi Naval Air Station in Texas, he lived in Niles ever since WWII.

He worked at Simplicity until 1983. In the ‘60s, he was the only pressman at Simplicity who could operate the new and very large Rotogravure printing press so he became, first the foreman, and later general foreman over several departments. Simplicity’s days were numbered by 1983 so my dad’s job was eliminated; he served as a vacation fill-in foreman for months afterwards until he resigned. During this time, he got his private pilot’s license. He and mom traveled all over Europe and Africa until mom’s health worsened.

My dad taught me many things. I remember him telling me once, “If you’re not sure whether you should do something or not, just imagine me looking over your shoulder. Would you still do it?” I asked him about Trudy the day before I proposed.

I took his advice the next day.

In the last four months of his life, my dad taught me something even more important. He showed me how to die. He was in good spirits until the very end. He never complained. I remember him saying he was sorry that he caused so much trouble for us. But that was the hallmark of the “Greatest Generation.” They didn’t blame anybody for their troubles. They overcame and left the world a better place.

He’ll be looking over my shoulder until I die.

 

Michael Waldron is a retired lieutenant colonel, U.S. Army, who was born and raised in Niles. He previously served on the Niles Community School Board of Education. He can be reached at ml.waldron@sbcglobal.net.