During the first summer of COVID, I had plenty of time at home, just like everyone else. I took advantage of that to go through the boxes in our garage that had come from my parents’ house in San Jose. I’d had them for almost 10 years and it was time to sort them all out.

My mother had saved a lot. She’d tell me, “This was Aunt Edna’s glove box, and here’s Aunt Wanda’s china dish that she always kept on her dresser. You’ll want to keep these.”

Do I still have some of those things my mother treasured? Yes. Do I have my first Barbie? No. It was hard to imagine saving too much from my past when there were so many other things I was told to keep. But that’s another story.

The story I have to tell today is about something else my mother kept: the dozens of  letters she received from my father as he served in WWII.

I brought 114 letters into the house where I sorted and transcribed them into individual Word documents. I felt a duty to do this, so I could learn more about him and his service, and to make them accessible to his two grandchildren, my son and daughter.

I’ll share some excerpts from those letters with you this afternoon.

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. . . The sun went down in the West as it always does—turning the sky into a blaze of colors—lovely indeed. . .  Here then is the time to remember . . . the sweetest girl in all the world . . . I know you were close because the same moon was shining on the two of us. It’s at times like these that I realize how very much you mean to me, how a smile from you is as heaven and earth, and how pointless everything would be without the knowledge that you’re waiting for me.

The white house with the green shutters on the avenue and all that you and I know it stands for—that’s the goal that I’m shooting for. Because when we have that we’re self-sufficient—nothing matters then but the two of us.

That was from a letter written aboard ship on September 22, 1942 on route to the South Pacific. And who was the man sending this love letter?

Born in 1918 in Laramie, Wyoming, my father was the youngest of three children of Scandinavian immigrants, he was a smart boy who graduated high school early and entered the University of Wyoming just as he turned 17. He majored in engineering and he enrolled in ROTC. After graduation in 1939, he joined the Army Corps of Engineers. His work took him to Nebraska where we was reacquainted with my mother, whom he’d met at the university. And that was it for them. They kept up the relationship as he entered active duty on December 11, 1941, and they married at Ft. Lewis, Washington in July of 1942. After a very short time together, he was sent in September of 1942 to Hawaii and she returned home to her family in Nebraska.

From Hawaii, he went to the Pacific, arriving at Guadalcanal in January of 1943. From there he wrote frequently to my mother, sometimes more than once a day. To read any of these letters make it sound like a picnic on the beach.

This is from January 7, 1943:

A very tired Lt.—not me—going to bed late, a la nude as is the custom here, didn’t get up with the sun. Now that was a mistake, because the sun shone brightly on portions of his little body not usually exposed to the sun. Life holds no joys for him at the present—he’s rather bitter! Details of his plight are left to the imagination.

And from January 22, 1943:

. . .the big event of the last few days has been the removal of my moustache. Quite by mistake, too. I forgot that I was growing one and while shaving snipped off the other half. Not wanting to appear lop-sided I had to remove the other half and now all the remains if the goatee which is pretty snitzy.

In another letter he wrote:

Things are quiet as hell around here—the most serious happening of the last day or so has been the slight injury of a man by a falling coconut. Moral: Don’t stand under palm trees.

Except things weren’t quiet as hell around there. He was the Platoon Commander of Company “D” in the 161^st Infantry. Here’s a representation of what was really going on, taken from an Army report written after the battle was over.

On January 10th the attack was preceded by artillery and aerial bombardments . . . five battalions of the field artillery began laying exceedingly heavy fire on the "Water- Hole" and the forelegs of the "Galloping Horse" . . . All units were ordered to . . .  prepare an all-round defense . . . the attack knocked out enemy machine guns and points of resistance. Direct fire support of 6lmm mortars successfully reduced the enemy resistance . . . January 13th was spent in patrol activities and the consolidation of all positions.

And here he was writing about soldiers getting sunburns and being knocked on the head by falling coconuts.

His letters continued until the last part of February. Then they stopped coming.

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At last my mother received a letter, dated April 9. It reads, in part:

. . .  I’m beginning to feel quite strong and ambitious, and a letter to you seemed very important. I didn’t know quite what was going on for some time, and when I finally did I was a little tired.  . . . But I’m getting better every day and am continuing my cruise of the South Seas . . .

Now my mother and his parents got some idea of had happened. Like so many other soldiers at Guadalcanal, my father had contracted malaria. His decline began in March of 1943. Soon  dysentery, jaundice, and pneumonia were added to his list of illnesses and he was evacuated.

As to where he was, his official military records simply state: “Unknown South Pacific Hospitals”. He was moved from one hospital to another for more than two months. The letter my mother received from one of the attending doctors revealed how uncertain his recovery had been. His strong will to live and get home overcame everything else and he survived.

After he recovered, he was sent in later 1943 to train officers in California and Georgia. My mother went to join him on these assignments that lasted from August 1943 to July 1945. Now a captain, he was given a new assignment and he went to train officers in Europe and my mother returned to her family.

The war in Europe was over by the time he got there and he was out of danger. One of his jobs was to inspect and orient units that were going to the Pacific. He also served on Courts and Boards which handled courts martial. His letters were filled with descriptions of the places he visited: Paris, Brussels, and Luxembourg. London, Oxford, Bournemouth, and Edinburgh. He sent lavish descriptions of the people and places he saw:

He went to see a film in a partially bombed-out Paris movie theatre and watched a riot break out when a woman wouldn’t remove her large hat. He went to a March of Dimes Ball in Paris and saw Marlene Dietrich pushed off the stage to make room for the president of France. Various drunk and misbehaving officers needed a bit of rescuing—he claims he was never in need of this himself.

Now he had more time to think about what it all meant.

On August 8, 1945 he wrote to my mother from Paris:

The big news of the day is the atomic bomb used against Japan . . . The very thought of such power being packed into such a small parcel is enough to make your stomach sink to your toes. If the power source is properly used, life will change to Buck Rogers-ish extremes in a few years. Maybe we’d better wait awhile before we build that dream house.

On October 28, 1945 he wrote to my mother from England:

. . . a few people like Sen. Johnson of Colorado, Rep. Miller of Nebraska, etc. are cumulatively making me unhappy . . . someday I’ll write a lecture for you on “why I’m glad I’m in America,” “American Power”, “American Foreign Policy”, etc. . . . I hope they have compulsory military training for a while at least. Not because of a future war—but to very firmly guide the world into a good peace. I’m just beginning to realize the unbelievable power of America both nationally and socially. It its haste—as demonstrated by such as Johnson, (and) Miller, etc.—to return to the old way of luxurious, carefree life, America is leaving the impression that it's forfeiting that stake of blood and money it invested in a so-called lasting peace, and leaving a starved and upturned (mildly stated) world to itself. It’s a long story! I’ll put it down in words one of these days, hon.—then maybe I’ll understand my views, too. . . . I’ll say that this . . . trip abroad has given me a better understanding of world affairs and America’s responsibility.

And in January 1946, he took another look at their love and their future:

I want to tell you that being married to you is so wonderfully nice that I seem dazed a times . . . I’m thrilled to think of the life in the near future that we’re going to have. Yes, darling, things look good now and forever. The war has interrupted us, but this is the last time—a life that we can plan and control is soon coming our way.

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After the war my father pursued a career in engineering education. He became dean of the Engineering School at San Jose State College and after leaving that position, created a multi-disciplinary graduate program at San Jose that received national and international attention. He continued to have health challenges for the rest of his life. He was incapacitated by a massive stroke in 1991, and died in 1996 after a second stroke.

So what does all this mean to me. It means he loved my mother very much. He loved his country. He willingly went to war to preserve a way of life he held dear. In this he was no more extraordinary than the 16.5 million American men and women who served in WWII. My father recognized that our country is not immune to forces that would derail its founders’ ideals.

While he remained in the Army reserves from 1946 through 1961, he never talked about the war. I have only anecdotes that show how dangerous and miserable some parts of his service were, and how he wanted to put it in the past:

• The first one is that when our son was about eight, and was running around my parents’ back yard with his wooden rifle. Greg invited his grandfather to “play war” with him. My father said—OK. First dig a trench that’s four feet deep and two feet wide. Then fill it with water, and get it. Then we’ll play war.
• Then once when my husband asked about his experiences at Guadalcanal, my father reflected on being on the beach and seeing American ships on the horizon. And watching them blown up one by one by Japanese bombers.
• And there was a veteran’s hall very near our house in San Jose. I have no memories of his ever going there.

I am glad my father and mother are not here to see the state of the country today. I’ll leave it at that.

When it was revealed after the election how many people didn’t vote, I couldn’t believe it. I read a comment from a veteran that he posted in a newspaper’s comment section. He said, in essence: I went to war to fight for my country. The least you can do is vote.

I’ll finish by saying I’d never gone to a protest until recently. Now I’ve been to two. I didn’t have a sign for the first one, but for the second one this past Thursday, I did. My sign: “My father fought fascism in World War II. The least I can do is be here and carry this sign.”