Today is Memorial Day, and in honor of that holiday I am featuring photographs of my father, Nelson Hoyt (top photo), my Uncle, Jack Spillard (middle photo), and the two of them together in (I think) the Philippines during World War II. My father was an Army dentist on Okinawa, and visited my Uncle, who was in the Air Force, in the Philippines during a leave. He also wanted to get information on his (and my) cousin Adam, who it turns out survived the Baton Death March only to die when the Japanese prison ship he was on was torpedoed by an American submarine. In any case, my father was well into his thirties when he was drafted, and not too happy about it. My Uncle Jack, on the other hand, was rejected when he tried to enlist and actually got a hernia operation so they would take him. While my father endured typhoons and snipers on Okinawa, my Uncle Jack slogged through the Philippines and New Guinea, and soon learned that war is not a very pleasant thing. He contracted malaria while in New Guinea, and as a result his health was poor for the rest of his life. Let's hope that with increased globalization war might eventually become a thing of the past. Dream on, David...
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