Happy Veteran's Day

Today is Veteran's Day, and in honor of that I am posting a photograph of my father Nelson (on the left in the photo on the left) and My Uncle Jack, my mother Mary's brother, taken during World War II in the Philippines.  My father was drafted when he was in his 30s - which was a great surprise to him - and wound up serving as a dentist on Okinawa.  He was visiting my Uncle Jack, who was in the Air Force and served in New Guinea, the Philippines, and throughout the South Pacific, when this photo was taken.  My uncle was originally rejected when he tried to enlist after Pearl Harbor, and underwent a hernia operation so that he would be accepted into the Air Force. It was not an easy time for him - he contracted malaria and his health suffered until the end of his life.

My father, on the other hand, was sent to Okinawa, and stayed there until after the war.  The big enemy for him was typhoons.  One would come along and blow away everybody's possessions, and then when things started to get back to normal, another one would come along.  When the television show MASH came along, my father just loved it.  He told me that show was very similar to what life was like back on Okinawa.  My father never did enjoy being a dentist, and my mother says she thinks he secretly enjoyed being there, getting way from his daily routine.  A brief respite from a hated job until he could retire to Stuart, Florida, where he lived happily until the end of his life.  My father, by the way, is in the middle row on the far right, in the photograph on the right.