I promised to connect, this afternoon, my parents, and how they lived and died, with the parents of Stanley Ann Dunham, Obama's mother. Simple connection: they were all in the Greatest Generation. But, of course, I want to go into some detail and compare the two couples, and their children, such as myself and Stanley Ann.
So, come into the Grieving Room, where we talk about the dead; and we also talk about ourselves and each other, those of us, still alive, who remember so many things about the dead.
But I really know very little about the dramatic event mentioned in the title of this diary. Why did my father walk away from his post? Was it mainly fear, or mainly disgust, or, my pet theory, large doses of both? Maybe some of you can give me your educated guesses. But first, I must tell you what I know. I must tell you what my father told me, as best I can recall.
Before I tell you what my father told me about what happened in 1944, when he was put in prison on Terminal Island, I want to back up just a few years. I want to start with 1941.
The reason 1941 is important to me is that my father told me that he filled out his papers and did whatever he needed to do in order to join the Navy, before he actually turned 17 years old, the earliest they would take him. He told me the only reason he physically entered the Navy on December 9th, 1941, is because that was his 17th birthday. He did not sign up because of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. He had already made up his mind before that date.
I do not recall that my father told me exactly why, before turning 17, he developed a powerful desire to blow up German submarines. To get some ideas, I checked two websites. This one is spread out to make it easy to read, with pictures, maps, and tables. This one has more categories, and simply more information. Neither one is Wikipedia, in case you wonder. I have edited some of Wikipedia myself, fixing a mistake about the Pony Express, and accidentally putting in another. Go see if you can find it.
I recall my father saying something about the Merchant Marines. That makes me think he decided to join the Navy because he heard on the radio or read in a newspaper, the following, from the second website:
A German U-boat torpedoes the U.S. destroyer Kearney off Iceland October 17; a U-boat sinks the U.S. destroyer Reuben James in the North Atlantic October 31 with a loss of 100 lives. Congress amends the Neutrality Act of 1939 November 17 by permitting merchant vessels to arm themselves and carry cargoes to belligerent ports.
There were other sea battles in the months before December. Plenty of battles to make young men eager to sign up and join the fight. Click and read, if you like.
But now, let us look at those who were not inspired to go out and kill, to go out and get the USA entangled in another world war.
Isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh draws widespread criticism by giving a speech at Des Moines September 11 in which he accuses the British, the Jews, and the Roosevelt administration of trying to drag America into the European war: "The leaders of both the British and Jewish races,...for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war..."
It occurs to me that the average American admires Gandhi and Dr. King, yet holds pure reverence, with no wavering of doubt, when talking about the justness, the rightness, of our Revolutionary War, our Civil War, and our involvement in WWI and WWII. No wavering of doubt.
As I was typing that last sentence, the TV behind me ran a promotional ad for a Q & A program on C-SPAN. It is an interview of a man who has written two books critical of Abraham Lincoln, such as "Lincoln Unmasked." The snippet has the author saying that other countries, and many northern states in the USA, ended slavery without war. I have recently been thinking, why is Lincoln regarded as our best President, when he was the only one who ordered thousands of Americans to slaughter, without mercy, their fellow Americans? Brother against brother. Without mercy.
I think I have made my point. Rather than blindly rallying around the flag, and saying, 'my country, right or wrong,' especially here at Daily Kos, we might revisit every act of violence, at any time in history. And question it. Question the wisdom.
So, for well over two years, my father went all around the world. He and the rest of the crew indeed blew up German submarines. My father, on at least one occasion, saw the pieces of bodies floating in the water. Skipping over the prostitutes of Shanghai, and the British my father worked with, let us go to the event that caused my father to 'jump ship.'
He was towing targets in Pugeot Sound, day after day. One night, in the middle of the night, the ship he was on was accidentally rammed by another US Navy ship. In the words of my father, his ship was "nearly cut half in two." He and his fellow sailors came flying out of their bunks. No one was killed.
My father told me that story a few times over the years; and my father told the story of spending nine months in prison on Terminal Island, a few times over the years. However, it was not until after he died that I connected the two. By the way, Pugeot sound is in Washington state, and Terminal island is off the coastline of Los Angeles. I would suppose he took a train to Los Angeles. I recall him telling me he found a job painting houses in Los Angeles. He also told me he really liked the book, "My Shadow Ran Fast," by Bill Sands. This book was written in the sixties, if I recall. It is the autobiography of Bill Sands, an ex-con who became a very prominent citizen. It was not until after my father died that I made the connection. My father was an ex-con.
Keep in mind, my father was a conservative Republican, but I mention that to emphasize his lifestyle of work hard and do what is right. He was a little bit progressive, but he did not see himself that way, I think. He pointed out that in many other countries, gay men are not shy about walking down the street holding hands. And, when he was in for the night, and no company was in the house, he liked to practice nudism. But he was not a counter-culture, prisoner's rights activist. He had no tattoos. So I never saw him as an ex-con.
My father was never a member of any veteran's organization. He never had a veteran's license tag on his car. He was never very sick, until just twenty days before he died, so he never stepped foot in a veteran's hospital, or veteran's clinic. My father died in a Catholic hospital. I was in the hospital room when my father died. He died of cancer. He went into the hospital with a swollen knee, and they found cancer. They started running tests to see where the cancer had spread, and when they found the cancer in his liver, they stopped testing. There was nothing more they could do. I was in the room when his lungs filled up with fluid so that he could not get enough oxygen, and his heart stopped. His breathing had been labored, then it simply stopped. I walked up to the nurse's station, and told the nurses. I later saw him carried away in a black body bag.
Off topic: there is a very loud hailstorm outside, pounding away, as I type these words. Now it is getting even louder. I hope it does not completely destroy our neighborhood tomato plants. It is letting up now.
By the way, my father was, in my view, an atheist. Whenever he was asked if he believed in god, he said he believed in Abou Ben Adhem.
Abou Ben Adhem
by James Henry Leigh Hunt
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw - within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich and like a lily in bloom-
An angel, writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
'What writest thou?'-The vision raised its head,
And, with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, 'The names of those who love the Lord.'
'And is mine one?' Said Abou. 'Nay, not so,'
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said, 'I pray thee then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men.'
The angel wrote and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
Stanley Ann's father, Stanley Dunham, from El Dorado, Kansas, was in the Army in WWII. Her mother, who is still alive, from Augusta, Kansas, played the role of Rosie the Riveter, building bombers here in Wichita, Kansas. My mother, during those war years, was a schoolteacher in Urbana, Missouri. I have my mother's diary, with entries from August of 1945. She wrote about the first atomic bomb, dropped on Japan. She wrote about the second atomic bomb, dropped on Japan. A few days later, she wrote about the surrender of Japan. The diary is still packed from my recent move, so I do not have an exact quote. But I read it many times. She wrote of how incredibly happy people were, to hear that the war was over. But she immediately wrote about those who, for them, the war had ended some time before, when the men they had loved were killed in the war.
By the way, my mother's brother, my uncle Bob, was in the Army, and he was assigned to the security team at a certain laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The place where they built the first atomic bomb.
That is a brief comparison and connection between the parents of Stanley Ann Dunham and my parents. Now, I want to compare myself with Stanley Ann.
Stanley Ann Dunham was born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1942, during the war. I was born in Independence, Missouri, in 1955, ten years after the end of the war. She went to high school at Mercer Island, in Washington state. I went to high school in Salina, Kansas. She became an atheist around that time, and either there, or in Hawaii. I became an atheist in my mid forties, in 1999, in Houston, Texas. That is similar, in the sense of going far away from original stomping grounds, and thereby, perhaps, gaining a widening scope of ideas.
As an atheist, I am glad to hold up Stanley Ann as an example of an atheist declared to be a positive influence on her son.
In a new preface to the re-release of Dreams From My Father in 2004, Obama called her "the single constant in my life. I know that she was the kindest, most generous spirit I have ever known, and that what is best in me I owe to her," he wrote.
As an atheist, I do not believe in good people or bad people, and, of course, trying to be humble is a trap, because you find yourself feeling proud of your humility. The way out of that trap is simple reality. No one is evil or noble, because no one has free will. But if Obama likes the person his mother was, it is what it is. And if my disabled wife adored me for 30 years as I worked diligently to care for her, it is what it is. And if any of you like the me you are getting to know from my diaries and comments, once again, it is what it is. So, maybe I am a little bit like Stanley Ann Dunham.
To round out my diary, here within the Grieving Room, I must mention, for those who do not know, my wife passed away on March 11th of this year. It was a Tuesday morning, about 10am. The doctor took the breathing tube out of her lungs. They put a bi-pap machine on her, but her oxygen saturation went way down, her heart stopped, and that was it. I had nervous stomach diarrhea for two days. I took about ten generic immodium pills the following day. But, since I had been through a brutal six years of my wife starting to die, and then getting stronger, so many times, I also felt a great sense of relief. For six years, starting in 2002, I had been dreading her death, but finally having it done is a great relief.
I wrote a diary recently about my new girlfriend. I met her on Tuesday, the 13th of this month. If things go as I hope, she is sitting beside me as I publish this diary and respond to your comments. On Friday, the 23rd, the day before writing this, I got a chance to see my new girlfriend before going to work that day. I usually see her only on my days off, even though she lives very close by, in the same apartment complex. After a hug and a small kiss, she said, "Have a good day at work." I cried a little, part sorrow, part joy. For thirty years, that is what my wife said, as I left to go to work. That made me cry. Just a little.
Have a great Memorial day evening.