Lasting Memories of My Army Vet Dad
Saluting My Dad
My dad passed away a month and 15 years ago. It will be another Memorial Day, Father’s Day and his birthday, without him.
Here’s Dad, at age 66, getting his Masters of Public Health at UCLA after decades of private practice as an M.D. He gave me this photo, and on the back, he wrote, “Nov. ’87. To my darling first-born. I love you, Dood” (my pet name for him.)
It was the late ‘80s, so he worked on the AIDS Project as part of his Degree. Arriving home from a National Conference on AIDS in San Francisco, he repeated one name with a little grin, and the highest admiration. He said, “Fauci.”
He was so impressed with the work Dr. Fauci was doing on treating the AIDS epidemic. If he were here, he’d be saying the same name, with the same admiration.
Serving His Country
Dad went into the Army as a Captain, because he was a physician in 1943. He was 22, right after he married Mom. He came back from Okinawa after a bout of polio, on a stretcher, weighing 85 pounds, as Mom recalled.
He got strong again, and walked with a slight limp because of his withered leg, (a kindergarten classmate first pointed out his limp to me. I said, “that’s how Daddys walk”). My father had a happy life and a successful career as a physician.
Hope to Be Like My Dad
Dad hated all wars after WWII, but he was proud of his service in that one. Stationed in Okinawa, he learned Japanese, and “loved the Japanese people” as he put it. He was never resentful that he got sick there.
In fact, resentment, regret and guilt are emotions I rarely saw in Dad. My siblings and I marveled at his great passion and zest for life well into his 80s, despite his quintuple heart bypass surgery, pacemaker, and walker, then wheelchair.
We often stated, “hope we get old like Dad.” My dad carried in his wallet, all his life, a quote that he laminated. It said, “Happiness isn’t having what you want. It’s wanting what you have.” I think of him lovingly on this day, as I do every day, and I am proud of his service to the great country I was born into.
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