Veteran's Heart Georgia Blog

I was a war baby. My father enlisted shortly after Pearl Harbor, as did all of his friends and family.  My parents were married in May of 1942, a small home wedding, with my father in his uniform, my mother in a blue suit. I was conceived about 18 months later, probably in Cambridge, MA, where my father had been sent to teach something in the War College at Harvard.

From what I can gather my parents were rarely separated during the war , except of course during his basic training experience at Ft. Polk, which he referred to politely as the armpit of the world. They were subsequently stationed at Ft. Bliss in El Paso. My mother boarded the train back to Ga. when she was 6 months pregnant with me, as they did not consider  the medical care at the base adequate.

My father never “went overseas”, as deployment was referred to then. He fell down a flight of stairs on base, which resulted in a ruptured lumbar disc that plagued him for the rest of his life. . My mother and I returned to El Paso and remained there with my father until the end of the war. My father’s younger brother, who had been stationed in Seattle with his wife, drove down to Texas and all 5 of us came back to Georgia.

The only stories I ever heard were the funny things, the close relationships formed, and a sense of adventure. There was never any mention of any anxiety around living in a country  impacted by war. My parents came home, bought a house, my father entered professional life and everything was just fine.

One of my uncles was a Seabee and served in the Pacific, but I have no idea if his experiences resulted in the alcoholism that  framed the life of my cousins. I was 16 when he died, and it was only then that I learned he was alcoholic. A family secret. I would like to explore this with my cousin, but…a difficult conversation, to say the least. Silence.

Another uncle was a Navy pilot during WWII, and a younger one a pilot in Korea during that “conflict”. I remember how the family worried about him while he was there, and my sense as a young child about how horrible war is. I am not sure what the effects of war were on these two uncles.

I am just now beginning to look into family history through the lens of the influences of war. I know that there was an ancestor who fought in the Reveloutionary War, others who fought in the War Between the States. Details are sparse, just factual. I have no idea who these people were or how their lives have influenced mine.

This is a beginning exploration, just an inquiry. I hope to engage other members of the family in this inquiry so that we can enrich our lives with deeper understanding of those who came before us.