So here's the short of it,
Today, Veteran's Day, 11-11-11, I honor Dad.
And here's the long.
Dad, Gene Howard, was a high school kid. His Dad had died in a coal mining accident. He went to school and worked to help his Mom provide for his four little sisters. On December 7, 1941, Dad was in the woods hunting to help supplement the food for his family's table. When he came off the mountain and back into town, he heard the news about the attack on Pearl Harbor. In January he turned 18, and at the end of the school term he joined the army.
Dad finished his basic and advanced training and found himself in England with the responsibility to help load the ships that would be filled with supplies for the impending invasion. When he got a really bad case of tonsillitis and was hospitalized a couple of days before D-Day, the doctor told him he would not be able to move out with his unit. Rather than not be there with his squad, he snuck out of the hospital and rejoined them in time to load onto the ship headed for Normandy. He used to laugh and say they were probably still looking for him!
That "escape" from the hospital took him onto that ship bound for Normandy - to Utah Beach where he and his squad unloaded men, tanks, gas, food, everything that the forces needed for the assault on the beaches. All around him men were dying; a ship next to one they were unloading was bombed and sunk. It was a place to run away from, but they stood their ground and unloaded supplies to support the men fighting their way from the beaches up to the villages as the liberation of Europe began.
Not too long after D-Day, Dad volunteered for a new assignment and became a replacement in the 17th Airborne where he became a member of an anti-tank gun squad. This assignment would take him into Belgium for the Battle of the Bulge, across France in pursuit of the Nazi army and finally in a Waco glider across the
Rhine in Operation Varsity.
Te defeat of Germany brought about an occupation force and then training for the invasion of Japan. He's pictured here having earned his paratrooper wings. There's that one awful story about the jump when his chute didn't entirely open, and then the emergency chute got tangled in his primary chute. Somehow he landed in a newly plowed field which he always credited with saving his life. Dad was always very proud of his service with the 17th Airborne.
Dad came home after the war and finished up high school. He married his sweetheart Emily, and built a great life. And he continued to serve his country in the Army Reserves until he retired.
Many years later he returned to Europe with Emily where they visited some of the places he had first seen over the sights of a gun or from a foxhole.
Then a few years later, he returned to Belgium at the invitation of the King. He and Pete, his squad leader from those horrible months of intense front line combat, were honored by the citizens of Belgium. He really seemed to take in the gratitude of the Belgian people and their embracing of the American servicemen who they credit with saving them from the horrors they were experiencing under Nazi occupation.
Dad was amazing in so many ways beyond those years that he served in the war. He was, according to my Mom, an amazing partner. He was a wonderful father for me and my brothers. He had an incredible work ethic and taught me a love for the written word and gardening. His faith was just unshakable and he was a role model for so many. And within all of those life achievements, you could always see that those years in World War II had informed the way he lived the rest of his life.
My heart is full tonight with love and admiration for all of our veterans, but most especially for Dad.
