Having lied about his age and getting in the Marines as a member of Dog Company, Dad was promptly captured by the Koreans, escaped, captured again and then shot when escaping again. He was left for dead but wasn't and made his way back to his platoon and was promptly sent home. He never said anything about having a good time.Decades later when America remembered we had been in Korea at all, Memorials were unveiled. The one in Savannah has the names of each member of Dog Company. The survivors names are in one color and the ones who didn't make it home names are in another color. Dad cried like a baby as he rubbed his fingers over the names of the dead.
He proudly served his country but didn't give a goddamn about the war ... any of them.
"I think its a crying shame," he once told me over beers in the Shipwatch Lounge, "that a lot of guys think the highlight of their life is a damn war. There are more important things than that."
His attitudes about war had a big influence on me.
Of course I grew up in the 60s when the anti-Vietnam War movement was at its zenith so I was indoctrinated in "Make Love Not War" philosophy. And I confess I try to live this way, making love with Sarah every single chance I get and never declaring war on anybody. Every time I think about declaring war on anybody, we make love and I forget all about it.
So I got to thinking.
Memorial Day should certainly be about remembering those who have sacrificed anything or everything to keep America free.
But, wouldn't it be great if we also remembered all of the love that they made?
They made love before they made war and, if they were lucky enough, they went back to making more love.
That's how David, Angi and I got here. Dad concentrated on making love when he got back from the war.
And when he did look back on it, touching the names of his friends who had died, he sobbed like a baby and walked away from it.
Then he went and kept making love ... right up until he died.
