Tag: Veterans Day

They Fought So Hard

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Albert, Louise, and their three adult children–Thelma, Violet, and Walter–led ordinary lives.

In the fall of 1944, they were a big-hearted, hard-working, working-class family–living in a flat on Labadie Avenue on the north side of St. Louis.

To be precise, Thelma and Walter lived with their parents. Violet and her husband Harry lived nearby.

At any rate, they were a close family with strong opinions, loud voices, and a propensity to gather around the radio for FDR’s inspiring Fireside Chats.

Like all patriotic American families of that era, they planted a Victory Garden to grow their own vegetables, rationed household supplies, and bought war bonds to support American troops fighting overseas in Europe and the Pacific.

They did it all for the sake of protecting and maintaining freedom in a war-torn world.

Walter, Albert, Thelma, Louise, and Violet in late 1944.

When Walter was drafted and deployed to Europe (Harry, too) you might say the family had extra skin in the game of war.

He left New York Harbor–aboard the Queen Mary ship with hundreds of other soldiers–on New Year’s Eve 1944.

Five days later, he landed at the Firth of Clyde in Scotland … and, in short order, he found himself on the front lines scurrying from foxhole to foxhole in the Battle of the Bulge in the forested Ardenne region of France.

As the war in Europe wound down in 1945, he marched with the first group of US army personnel who met with the Russian army on the Elbe River on the eastern front of the war.

Walter survived the ordeal–in part because of the regular flow of love letters and encouragement he received from his sisters and parents.

Walter returned to the US on the U.S.S. Monticello in July 1945 … for a thirty-day leave prior to going to fight in the Pacific.

He was supposed to depart in mid-August, but on August 6, the US dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan and the war ended shortly thereafter.

Walter’s fighting days were over. He was discharged from the service on October 11, 1945.

A few years later–sometime after he met his future wife Helen in January 1948 at Westminster Ballroom in St. Louis–he confided that the Russian soldiers were some of the roughest, battle-hardened men.

At any rate, despite the “shellshock”, nightmares, and frozen feet Walter brought home with him, he (and Harry) came home in one piece.

***

I’ve thought a lot about Walter and Helen (my dad and mom), Thelma and Violet (my aunts), Albert and Louise (my grandparents) … the Johnson family … since the election last week.

All of them have been gone a long time, but in a sense–today–I feel I am grieving my own loss of freedom, as well as their legacy. The one they fought so hard to uphold.

I’m not giving up, but that is how I feel on Veterans Day 2024.

Early this afternoon, I pulled out Dad’s World War II army trunk.

It contains pieces of his uniform–including the wool hat and golden medallion he wore eighty years ago as he was preparing to preserve freedom on behalf of his country.

Finding it there with his few remaining possessions gave me strength.

In the coming days, weeks, months, and years, I’m going to do my best to draw from the resiliency in my family’s DNA to find specific ways to uphold democracy in my Arizona community.

You can be sure I also will continue to exercise my voice–through prose and poetry–and influence others in a positive fashion as we head into an uncertain and potentially ominous period in our country’s history.

For All the Soldiers on the Hill

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Every year at this time thoughts of my father resurface. Mostly because Veterans Day is drawing near. Dad served during World War II in the Battle of the Bulge. But also because he died in the eleventh month of the year. A second heart attack took him on November 26, 1993. It was the day after Thanksgiving nearly twenty-six years ago.

Now that I live in Arizona, it’s less convenient for me to visit Walter Johnson’s grave at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery south of St. Louis. But I have no difficulty summoning vivid recollections of him from afar.

I remember a tender moment between us sometime in the 1980s when he asked me if I liked the idea of him one day being buried in a national cemetery alongside other soldiers who’d served during the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. (Unfortunately, the list goes on.) I told him I thought it would be the perfect, peaceful resting place for him. A proud patriot. A man who loved his country. A citizen who served it to the best of his ability.

Over the years, I’ve been inspired to tell Dad’s story. This unfulfilled poet of good intentions–this complicated, compassionate and troubled comrade, deeply affected by the horrors of war and bipolar disorder–appears in all three of my books in various forms.

Recently, I came across a poem in a file of prose I’ve written over the past thirty years. At the time I penned this one in 1996, my grief for Walter Johnson was fresh. I had just visited his grave. I was searching for answers. Still reeling from my failed first marriage. Doing my best to raise two young sons. Finally coming out of the closet. Beginning to connect the disparate strands of my emerging life.

As it turns out, the passage of time (along with greater understanding, acceptance and forgiveness) helped me heal my wounds, find my path, and build an integrated life. I’m thankful for that eventual transformation. Walter wouldn’t have understood all of it, but he would have kissed me on the forehead and loved me anyway. He would have cheered me on during these late-in-life writing years I’ve been fortunate to find.

I’m grateful for the poetic propensity that came from this one particular soldier. Yes, he is long gone. His physical remains rest under the shade of a large tree not far from the banks of the Mississippi River. But his imperfect imprint will always appear in my writing. This is for him.

***

The Soldier on the Hill

I talked with the soldier on the hill today,

We sat, we cried, we laughed, we prayed.

The bells rang true, the trees stood free,

A breeze swept past to welcome me.

 

Shadows filled the landscape then,

Tempers rose without his pen.

Snowflakes fell, the grass turned green,

All without a change of scene.

 

Now the soldier rests with them,

Hand in hand—all blessed again.

They greet another trailing soul,

Who makes the journey past the knoll.

 

August 27, 1996

***

More broadly, I’m thankful for all of the soldiers on the hill. Many of them lost their lives in battle and had little or no time to discover a path or realize their dreams. We must always honor their service and sacrifices, past and present.

A Salute to Walter and All Veterans

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My father, Walter Albert Johnson, was an Army sergeant in the 23rd Infantry Regiment and veteran of World War II. Dad was proud of his service to his country. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge, the last great conflict of the European phase of the war.

When the war in Europe ended and Walter returned home on board the U.S.S. Monticello in July 1945, he was scheduled for a thirty-day leave prior to reassignment in the Pacific Theater of the military operation. But on August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan. World War II ended  shortly thereafter. Walter’s fighting days were over. He received his honorable discharge from the Army on October 11, 1945.

Walter didn’t talk much about his experience as a soldier. But I know he endured foxhole fright and frozen feet alongside hundreds of other soldiers who faced a similar plight. Years later, he suffered horrible nightmares. Even so, in the early 1960s when he huddled with my sister and me along parade routes that wound down St. Louis streets,  I remember how Dad jumped to attention to salute the American flag as it passed. I admired his sense of patriotism. It was one of his finest qualities.

Though Walter has been gone nearly twenty-five years, I think of him often. Snippets of him and his lasting impressions on my life appear in all three of my books. In honor of Veterans Day and the sacrifices made by all military veterans living and deceased, the purchase price of the Kindle version of my latest book, An Unobstructed View, will be reduced to ninety-nine cents on Amazon from November 9 through 15.