My father, who turned 90 last November, left high school early for the U.S. Army, six months before Pearl Harbor.
None of them were born in this country, but four of the seven Galloway brothers would scatter themselves across the globe during World War II. Dad was the youngest, and the only one to carry a sketch book.
He's the only one left, and fading.
As an Air Corps mechanic, he started in north Africa, then moved on to India for flights across the Hump into China.
The cartoonist Bill Mauldin was something of a hero. Lined notebook paper would do in a pinch. Above is a rescued drawing from Dad’s return trip in ‘45. That lump in the background is the Rock of Gibraltar.
In the upper right hand corner are traces of a laundry list written on the other side — a brief catalog of one young warrior’s requirements for conquering the world: Four undershirts, four shorts, two handkerchiefs, two dress shirts, four pairs of socks, and two coveralls.
He was an amateur photographer, too. We found the above shot of his compadres under his bed not long ago, a timeless portrait of friends brandishing their new weaponry at a California training base. It is the kind of posing that young men engage in before the shooting starts -- but never afterwards.
Dad seldom talked about his adventure. But he once told me that he had a vague memory of, shortly after he finally docked at home, running up and down the hall of a hotel in the wee hours -- drunk, liberated, and screaming "God damn the colonel!" at the top of his lungs. This from a future elder of the Red Oak, Ga., Christian Church.
If I were a betting man, I would name Nov. 25, 1945 as the date of that celebration. That was the day of his discharge, and the day before his birthday. He had spent four years, five months and 14 days in uniform, traveled half-way around the world and back, and hadn’t turned 22.
Yet the imprint remains. We moved Dad to California a few years ago, to a place just east of Los Angeles. Shortly after his arrival, he pointed my sister to the distant shaded hills. The Atlas Mountains, Dad declared.
But it is the San Gabriel range that skirts the City of Angels. The Atlas Mountains stretch across the top of northwest Africa -- spanning Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. They stand opposite the Rock of Gibraltar.
Have a thoughtful Memorial Day.
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