Memorial Day

I've been thinking about my dad for the past few days. More than usual, I guess, due to the holiday. He was proud to be a Marine ... as opposed to, say, a sailor or a pilot ... but not proud to have been a soldier. He never talked about his experiences in World War II until the last few years of his life. And even then I could tell he was horrified by those experiences, still, after all those years. As kids, my sister and I were never allowed to watch television shows that portrayed war as even slightly humorous ... Hogan's Heroes was strictly forbidden. He was a good man who was profoundly affected by his wartime experiences and 'man's inhumanity to man.'