The Only War Story He Ever Told, From The Long View From 1964

Pete Hegseth. Incompetent Cow Dung.

I am going to keep this short. I had a father I loved, a father I felt I never lived up to his expectations, but he never made me feel like it. That was my issue. I never felt like he was disappointed in me, I just never felt like he was proud of me. But then again, that is my issue. I didn’t hit my stride until after he died.

I was one of the first baby boomers, born in 1946, and my father had just returned from the Pacific Theater. Dad never talked about the Army, but he was a soldier. He loved it. Obviously I was too young to understand him going off to Korea, Army Corps of Engineers. And then coming home for a short time before heading off to Germany.

We, the family, Mom, my brother three years older, and I, went to Germany and spent three years there as an officer’s family and enjoyed all the benefits. I have great memories. The problem with a mind that works like a VCR without an erase feature.

If you have read my series “The Long View From 1964” you will have read stories about Germany, and Dachau, Switzerland, and zooming around in our red Ford Convertible and then a 1955 Red Austin Healey.

But to the point of Cow Dung. When we returned from Germany, we spent a year in Monterey, California, where my father was the East Garrison Commander of Fort Ord, where I later did my basic training.

Now you would think, growing up in this environment, I would and could regale you with war stories and blood baths that would put Rambo to shame. But the only real story I recall was him saying some was SOB threw some batteries in a fire on the way home and it almost blinded him. To go through the damn war, get hit by a Japanese hand grenade and flame thrower, not have a scar, and almost get blinded by a damn battery. Crap.

That was it. That was the extent of the war stories.

After he passed away, going through everything, laying out the Colonel’s uniform, coming across the Bronze Star, the Purple Hearts, the commendations, having died from being Army Intelligence and White Sands Testing. It leaves me thankful.

I am thankful that he didn’t live to see our country led by such an incompetent pair of buffoons.