Remembering those who have served, including Dad

I always think of my father on Veterans Day. He was a sophomore at the University of Wyoming when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, having graduated from Riverton High School in 1940. He was allowed to earn his journalism degree in three years, then enlisted in the U.S. Army.

Dad commanded a mortar platoon in the 84^th Infantry Division, known as the Railsplitters. After training, the 84^th landed on Omaha Beach in November of 1944. Though five months after D-Day, coming ashore was still a dangerous business due to shifting shoals, and as the story goes, my father stepped off the landing craft into what he thought was shallow water and went in over his head, loaded with gear.

Fortunately, his sergeant plunged over the side of the craft and pulled my father up by his pack – or I wouldn’t be here today. The 84^th fought through the Battle of the Bulge, then pushed east to the Elbe River, where German soldiers were surrendering to the Americans in droves, fearful of retaliation by Soviet forces coming from the east.

Though he hated the Nazis and the SS, my father expressed respect for the regular German soldiers, and he earned the Silver Star “for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action against the enemy” after defeating a German soldier in hand-to-hand combat and forcing him to row my father to shore in a boat.

He met my mother, serving with the Red Cross, in Paris after VE Day, and as a record holder at Riverton High School, he helped organize a track and field event to keep soldiers in Europe occupied as plans were made for many to deploy to the Pacific Theater. The two atomic bombs ended that, and Dad got to go home and marry his sweetheart in 1946.

After working for the University of Wyoming, Dad returned to Riverton and operated the Riverton Times with brother Bob, and both remained in the Army Reserves. When the Korean War broke out, the Army said a newspaper was an essential service for the community, so one of the brothers could stay, but one of the two would need to serve again. Since Bob already had a son, Dad volunteered to go, but fortunately, he was assigned to a propaganda unit in Europe – I know, rich for a journalist, right? – writing leaflets and performing broadcasts to Communist countries with the 301^st Radio Broadcasting and Leaflets Group.

As I grew up in Riverton, Dad was a frequent speaker at various programs like the Memorial Day or Veterans Day services. He had tremendous pride in his country, and he served in the Wyoming House of Representatives and the Wyoming Senate, also running for Congress in 1966 and governor in 1974.

Unlike some veterans, Dad didn’t clam up about his military service, though he only told lighthearted stories to his kids, like the time he called in a mortar strike to the squad back on the other side of a hill and blew up his own Jeep. (I wonder about that story.)

And trying to raise his son right, he told me about firing the mortar, “I always hoped I didn’t hit anyone,” a white lie if there ever was one.

I hold tremendous respect for veterans, who with their families sacrifice so much. When I moved to Lovell, for instance, I spent a lot of time visiting with Bill Powell, hearing stories of his time as a photo reconnaissance pilot flying P-38s in World War II and looking at his amazing photographs. And it’s amazing how our communities honor veterans with memorials and services. So many have served from our neck of the woods.

Having played Taps at local veteran funerals for 42 years, I can tell you what honoring veterans means to families. The quiet dignity of an American flag presented to a grieving widow is a profound moment at each service.

And so I will be surely thinking of my dad – and many others – on Veterans Day next week. Let us all say thank you when encountering a veteran who has served to maintain the freedoms we enjoy.