Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Special Treat – Peggy Ann Doak

September 20, 2007

WWII Vets Through the love of a Childs Eyes

Peggy Ann Doak

  While the young men in America were headed for Viet Nam, the generation of vets before them, WWII (and also the Korean War but I never heard anyone talk about that) soldiers from the European Theatre and the Japanese front were everywhere, or seemed to be when I was growing up.  Unlike the Viet Nam Vets who barely talked about their experiences, the WWII vets that I knew and I knew a lot of them, loved to hash over the 'good' times.  I loved the American Legion where Betty Boop and Sad Sac were painted on the walls.  The energy, a bit surreal and unfocused, had the same appeal to me as when I would sit on the lawn at night with the fog rolling in, feeling tiny tingles of cold on my arms and legs, while my imagination took me from scary places to exotic scenes.  I would read comic books created during the war and found them quite funny.

      At home, in City Point, outside of Belfast, Maine it didn't matter what day of the week it was, but usually Friday night, the kitchen would be bursting with friends who had survived the big one.  Sometimes there would be some heavy arguing, but nothing ever broke out into violence.  Not then and there anyway.  My stepfather John, and friends of both him and my biological dad, would come by.  My stepfather had been a sergeant in the European domain.  Another John was in the Japanese theatre and in fact spent quite some time in a Japanese prison camp.  I had read a book I'd found that was a fictional but fact account of those prisons.  Hideous.  To the boys from Maine, meeting the Japs face to face must have been frightening due to the difference in appearance to anyone they'd ever seen.  Norman, my Uncle, lost a leg in the tropics, so I will assume he was also fighting Japanese.  In fact, the last time his Commanding Officer had seen Norman was when my Uncle as laying down in a small boat, as they were under fire, and a grenade went off on top of Norman.  So a letter of the fatality of my Uncle was on it's way to my Grandmother, who was one of the proudest, most reverent mother I have ever known.  Her family was all there was and she took damn good care of them.  Fortunately, before the letter reached the Doak Farm, my Uncle came in on one leg and crutches along with his brother Uncle Jim who was also in the war.  My father could not serve due to a murmer in his heart.  Oh but he tried.  He even went to Canada to sign up with them, but they found the murmer unacceptable too. Funny, I have the same murmer and it turned out to be nothing to worry about.  They didn't know that then. 

      This was a time when to be an American was to be proud.  I know, after many years of living and study that America had it's usual closet atrocities, but as a kid, and being around men who believed in themselves, it was a thrill.  

       Roland was another man present.  And a few others who I don't remember the name of because those faces changed from week to week.   Now the women always went to another house to be with each other or at least in another room, but us kids were tolerated if not accepted as 'the ones who were to follow in their footsteps.'  I don't know why they let us girls in there.  In fact there were more girls than boys.  Actually I don't remember boys hanging in every word like me and my friends.  We loved the stories, the more gruesome the better.  And we learned the importance of remembering a password.  At least on the computer one does not get shot because he doesn't remember his password.

           I would hear about officers fresh out of officer school who met sudden deaths from friendly grenades.  And I was savvy as to why.  I walked down tropical rivers with bloated bodies floating by.  I smelled the stench. I learned every stage of a bodies deterioration, and I watched Men cry when talking about their buddies sitting a foot away, who suddenly lost themselves in a spray of blood and pieces.  As the Vets got drunker, things got stranger.  Flashbacks would happen.  John who was  a Japanese prisoner would suddenly be back in the prison camp.  He usually had to be held until he quieted down, if he could.  My uncle Norman would decide it was time to go home.  He wasn't the type to argue.  Being drunk with a wooden leg was a trick for the circus tent.  Norman could bounce from wall to wall until he hit the front door.  No one ever got up to help him.  In fact for a bunch of 'buddie' they were horribly self centered when drunk.

          Us girls would get outside and place bets on whether Norman would make it off the front steps.  And out he would come, swinging on the screen door, out and over the front stoop.  If he caught himself and didn't lose hold of the door, he had a pretty good chance of not spending the night in the shrubbery next to steps.  From there he would literally fly/weave/ fall down somewhere between the house and his car.  Often we would bet if he'd get back up again.  Usually he did.  But getting to the car was torturous for him as he would swing his wooden leg out sideways to act as a brace and then sorta lurch forward with his good leg, hoping to find the ground before he fell over again.  An average of three times would get him to the car.  He'd get his keys out which called for another fall, and then he would be up and attempting to pull the car door open.  Often his hand would slip.  By now, either his mind was clearing a bit, or hitting into the abyss.  If it was the latter, he would stumble backward, too far to try again, and sleep the night under the big elm tree.  This was normal wit Norman.

        Inside the debates would be rambling.  Damning the Democrats.  Hippies and other fools.
Then after a point, I don't think that they were speaking a language from planet earth.  One night at a different house in the neighborhood, but same actors, it had come down to just two men left.  Face to face over the kitchen table they had been like that for over twenty four hours.  Any sense of sense was long gone.  Me, my friend Jean and Debby had come into the house for water.  We didn't hang around for this foolishness.  However, suddenly the two men became stock still.  Us girls slid down to the floor leaning against the refrigerator, holding our knees.  We were maybe eight years old. 

        Debby's father Roland and another WWII vet Ernie, just sat and stared at each other.  From experience we knew it was it was gonna be a hum dinger.  Actually Ernie kept talking until he noticed the silence.  Then he stopped and returned the eagle eye stare.  After maybe two minutes, Roland burst out, "Jesus Ernie you need to see a Dentist!"  More silence.  Then Ernie replied.  "I know, Roland, I know."  And back to the senseless prattle they went.  We were rolling on the floor laughing until Illie, Deb's mom shooed us outside.

        Why do I write about this?  I don't remember.  Maybe it was a bunch of redneck Vietnam vets arguing on a political point here on gather.com.  It took me back.  Those days, alot of them, were precious for us kids.  We lived in a different world than many children.  Worst than many, but better than alot also, especially because us kids had each other.  I love Veterans.  I was married to a red neck Viet Nam Vet.  I do not judge the soldier.  I have problems with the greed that puts him there by the hands of others who will never see or experience what veterans do.  Man or woman.  And I feel it degrades the soldier to send them into war that has nothing to do with truth.  However this is one woman who grew up with and married amongst soldiers.

Peggy Ann Doak

pdoak333@peoplepc.com