The Last of the World War II Vets

Growing up, a lot of my friends had dads who'd served in World War II.

I was fascinated by the notion that my tough guy dad, perpetually digging under the hood of his truck, or sawing away in his wood shop, had actually gone to fight Hitler.

I'd grown up hearing the stories about what the Nazis did to the Jews and felt proud that my father had tried to do something about it.

But getting him to talk about the war was like pulling teeth.

He'd joined the Navy at 17, "to get away from my sister," he joked.

Dad wasn't sent to Germany to fight the Nazis but to the Philippines to fight the Japanese.

I tried to get him to go to a Japanese restaurant one day, and he shook his head. He said he was sorry, but he couldn't forget what had happened during the war.

No matter how much I prodded, all I could drag out of him was, "I saw a gun back up and kill a buddy of mine."

When he was 85, Dad gave me his honorable discharge papers. He'd entered the war in 1944 and been stationed on the USS Oklahoma City. He was honorably discharged two years later.

He'd entered barely more than a boy just out of high school; he'd left a 19-year-old man who didn't like to talk about his feelings.

On the bottom of his discharge papers were the medals he'd won:
The American Theatre Medal
The Asiatic Pacific Medal 2 stars
The Philippine Liberation Ribbon
The Victory Medal

"Dad! Why didn't you tell me you won all those medals?!"

"It wasn't a big deal. We bombed the hell out of the Japanese. They were giving those medals to everyone on our ship!"

My father's father was a cobbler and he taught my dad the trade. In between being a volunteer sheriff and then a schoolteacher for 35 years, Dad always kept an immaculate shoe kit, to clean and shine his leather shoes.

"The ship's captain was a short man. I built a pair of lifts into his shoes to make him a few inches taller. He kept me out of harm's way after that."

That was all he was willing to say.

My dad passed away this April a few months short of his 90th birthday. I used those honorable discharge papers to get him a military honors funeral.

When we entered the chapel, his pine casket was draped with an American flag.

The rabbi asked us all to sit. I was in the front row staring at the flag draped over my father as the mournful, haunting sound of a lone bugler playing taps filled the funeral home.

A naval officer stood in perfect salute while it played. Then he and another officer carefully lifted the flag off Dad's coffin and meticulously folded it into a triangle. The saluting officer handed it to me.

"On behalf of a grateful nation," he said.

He'd been too proud to brag about his time in the war and possibly too damaged by whatever had happened to talk about it.

The sound of taps was spinning in my head as I glanced behind me. The funeral director had been right when he'd said, "There won't be a dry eye in the house."

As I sat there cradling my dad's flag, I realized that not only was I saying goodbye to my father, but also to the last living World War II vet I knew. Somewhere along the way, all the World War II vets had passed on.

My girlfriend's father who was the same age as my dad, also in the Navy, passed a few years earlier. He never met my father, but they served at the same time, on different ships. Whenever I saw him, he'd say, "Say hello to your father for me!"

I framed the flag in museum quality glass to protect it from fading in the light. I know it's going to be in our family for a long, time. But for now, it's just mine, my perfectly folded triangular American flag, the last honor to a sailor gone to rest at long last.

On behalf of a grateful nation and a daughter who finally found her way back to you, Dad, just before the finish line, thank you for your service.