RSSHonoring those men and women who have shown us the way to go….
Carolyn Hileman | November 11, 2009
Honoring those men and women who have shown us the way to go….
Carolyn Hileman
Up before dawn to feed the livestock, pump the water and bring in wood, light the fire and get ready for school, walk to school in freezing cold or heat as hot as hell carrying your lunch bucket which held if you were lucky one biscuit and a small bit of butter. No, this was not child abuse, this was just the way it was and what made these people so strong and so great. Favorite past times included skipping rocks, throwing knives and spin the bottle, some of these men would stay forever on the farm but some were destined for more. One such person was my Daddy who fought in WWII, Army Air Force as a medic he was the epitome of bravery and sacrifice.
While I did not know many of these brave men I knew one and he was a great one, raised five kids on one income, of course he had my Mom to help with that and we never went without. This was a man with a never say die attitude rough around the edges but a heart that would melt if his little girl was hurt. He never made any claims of being a hero but we all knew he was, I guess that is what makes a true hero, the fact that they honestly believe that all they were doing was their job. He never spoke much of the war, he showed us pictures once from his old Brownie camera, but the only times we would get a glimpse of what it was like was on stormy nights when thunder shook the house or the Fourth of July and New Years when he was sleeping.
That is when the demons of war would come back to haunt him and we would have to take the shot gun from his hands and assure him it was only a dream. Other times were not so obvious, little things like he could not eat anything that had blood left in it, he would do without if there was the slightest hint of blood showing, he covered all of his food with salt, pepper and ketchup, trying to get him to taste it first was useless. He would critique war movies every single one except those with John Wayne, when life was hard, when he would be laid off, you never heard him complain, you heard him plan. Ride a bike from Lufkin to Houston, no problem, carrying construction tools because you only got the good jobs if you had tools, a basket on the handle bars and he was off.
Perhaps it was those early mornings that prepared him for the war, perhaps it was the war that prepared him for life, or perhaps he was just made that way, who knows. We could use a lot more like him today, the kind that will always be working no matter what the economy does or the news says. The kind that would give his last dollar to the homeless and still find a way to feed five kids and take care of a sick wife, the kind that teaches their children that every person is equal, that every person deserves respect until they prove otherwise. He was never a big CEO, didn’t own two houses, worked like a dog and never complained, he was my Daddy, there were a lot more just like him and today they are the ones we are honoring those men and women who have shown us the way to go….
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