Memorial Day: The damage done

On this Memorial Day, my thoughts turn to my late father, a veteran of World War II and a member in good standing of the Greatest Generation, now dead these 25 years.

This day, created as a way for us to honor the men who marched off to fight in this nation’s wars and never returned, is not designed exactly for him. He survived his trials by combat and came home – undamaged on the onside, but changed forever on the inside.

Nonetheless, I think of him today. And of his life after he came home in the closing months of 1945. There would be no quick return for him – no tickertape parades or crowds at the train station welcoming the boys back from overseas. When the Japanese surrendered, Dad found to his bitter dismay that he didn’t have sufficient “points” to be mustered out immediately.

How such a thing could  be bewildered the battle-tested U.S. Army sergeant. After all, he was drafted only months after Pearl Harbor, had walked ashore during the first invasion of Japanese-held islands in the Aleutians and miraculously emerged unscathed from the bloody horrors of Okinawa, the last ground campaign of the war. Since points were rewarded based on length of service, time spent overseas and duration of combat, how could he possibly be short?

A paper-pusher’s mistake no doubt, a typo in the blizzard of paper forms that governed men’s lives, then and now. But Dad never questioned the unfairness of it all. He shouldered his disappointment and headed to Korea for several months of occupation duty.

And then he came home to Texas, a farm boy back from the first and only big adventure of his life, a survivor of one of the greatest tragedies of mankind and one of the men and women who risked all to protect their country and the ones they loved, and in the course of things saved the world from an unimaginable evil.

The first thing he did was to tackle some unfinished business, the courtship of my mother that the war had interrupted. He climbed into his Ford sedan and drove to my mother’s farm. Perhaps he brought along the photo of her he had carried across the Pacific in a sweat-stained and battered pocket album. He proposed and she accepted.

And that brings me to the photograph.

It was taken on their wedding day, a mere weeks after my father’s return. The young couple – he was 28 and she a mere 20 – look directly into the camera. A nervous and somewhat uncertain smile hesitates on her pale, thin face. The years directly before and during the war have been hard on her. Before meeting my father, she was married and quickly divorced from an Army officer who swept her off her feet and then broke her heart when he deserted her and the Army. She has waited for my father to return for more than three years, wondering no doubt if the relationship would withstand the separation.

As for my father, his steady expression is unfathomable. In some ways, he looks older than his 28 years. He has seen and experienced terrible things, things he will never share with his family. Does a slightly haunted look linger in his eyes or is it just my imagination?

He bears no scars of his ordeal. At least no scars that anyone can see. He came home with a bad case of trench foot that lasted for months, but otherwise he’s in excellent health. Like many wives of returning servicemen, my mother is reluctant to ask too many questions about the war of her new husband. And he is reluctant to offer much in return, other than amusing tales of life in Schofield Barracks in Hawaii before his unit shipped out for the Aleutians.

There is one thing she notices. For months after he returns, he stubbornly refuses to go into a store alone. She must accompany him or he sits sullenly in the car. She has no explanation for such a weird quirk, and he offers none. But she wonders, is this a psychological twitch caused by something that happened to him during the war? An unconscious reaction to a trauma he keeps locked deep inside? Eventually, the reluctance fades and then disappears. She is thankful but wonders all her life, what did it all mean?

On this Memorial Day, I think of my father’s service and how those three eventful years colored the rest of his life. I know he thought about those experiences. And I suspect a compulsion near the end of his life to talk about them with people who would understand was the reason he joined the VFW, after a lifetime of distaining servicemen’s organizations.

I’ve been an avid student of World War II all my life, a passion fueled, no doubt, by father’s own history. As I think about it now, I’m certain it was an effort to understand the stoic, deeply reserved man he was, to learn the stories he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – tell, to come to grips with the sacrifices made and the costs paid.

Like my mother, I struggle with the question: What did it all mean?

2014 Southlake Carroll Dragons: A work in progress

The 2014 season of Southlake Carroll Dragon Football officially opened Wednesday with the annual Green & White Game, the culmination of spring football.

It was an opportunity for the Dragon faithful to get their first glimpse of what’s in store in the fall, when Southlake’s gridiron warriors dip their toes into one of the toughest districts in the state. But more on that later.

For most of us, it was a somewhat confusing affair, as these glorified practices always are. Unless you’re a coach on the field or a heavily involved parent in the stands, it’s hard to tell what the hell is going on.

The knowledgeable fans with whom I was sitting provided somber assessments of the action on the field. There is, they agreed, much work to be done.

Most viewed the Dragon defense with deep suspicion, not an entirely unexpected assessment at this early stage. There was general agreement that the Dragon offense, helmed by returning quarterback Ryan Agnew, is a potentially lethal weapon, if and only if a presently questionable O-line can keep the senior superstar “vertical.”

“The Big Guys can get better,” one football analyst opined. “The question is how much better? This season isn’t going to be another March through Georgia, now is it?”

The reference is to the easy time Southlake Carroll has had the last two years in a creampuff district that included the sad sacks of Keller ISD and the only marginally better schools of Birdville ISD. Many observers – including yours truly – referred to the district race in 4-5A as the “Cupcake Parade,” a label no one bothered to challenge, even the cupcakes.

But the 2014 season will be different. Oh, brother, will it be different. District 7-6A includes football powerhouses Euless Trinity and Coppell, along with the up and coming L.D. Bell. The foregone conclusion of the recent past that the Dragons will glide to a district championship disappeared when the UIL unexpectedly placed Southlake in a district with two of its biggest rivals.

The smart money is on a dogfight for district between the Dragons, the Trinity Trojans and the Coppell Cowboys. Regardless of the outcome of that brawl, Southlake probably still makes the playoffs. But make no mistake, a failure to win district will be a big disappointment to Dragon fans, who have become spoiled to the point they consider the district trophy as part of their birthright.

Meanwhile, Southlake Carroll has its work cut out for it in pre-district matchups, too. It faces Oklahoma juggernaut Tulsa Union in Cowboys Stadium on Sept. 5 and meets the always dangerous Abilene High Eagles at home on Sept. 26.

Which brings us to the season opener in Dragon Stadium on Aug. 29. That’s when the Austin Westlake Chaparrals arrive in Dragon Stadium with their brand-new head coach, Todd Dodge.

That’s  right. The same Todd Dodge who led the Dragons to state 5A championships in 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006. The same Todd Dodge who coached Southlake to a 79-1 record before departing for UNT, where he met defeat and disaster.

Dodge is back in the high school ranks, where he has demonstrated an ability to motivate kids, nurture quarterbacks and devise crushing offenses. After leaving college coaching, he spent a couple of undistinguished years at Marble Falls, where the talent pool was lacking. At Westlake, he inherits a powerful and storied program, with a winning tradition and a fan base much like Southlake, which is to say privileged and demanding, with a low tolerance for failure.

The pressure will be on Dodge to prove his detractors wrong. Many point out that Dodge has an unexceptional record as a coach, except for his phenomenal tenure at Southlake. Here, his string of championships – which include a last-minute defeat in the 2003 state title game against Katy – still is referred to reverently as “The Run.” Without exaggeration, I can attest that it was a magnificent, magical time that those of us who lived through it will never, ever forget.

And that’s why Dodge and his Westlake boys no doubt will receive a prolonged standing ovation when they appear at Dragon Stadium, and why some of us – in the deep recesses of our hearts and souls – will not be extravagantly disappointed if they emerge from the game victorious.

That’s not likely to happen since Westlake is immersed in a down cycle – the reason Dodge was hired, of course – but as you’ve heard me say before, this is Texas football and anything can happen.

Scenes from a life

My daughter graduated from the University of North Texas on Saturday. As I sat in the cramped seats of the Coliseum, the affectionately nicknamed “Super Pit,” I passed the time waiting for her to walk across the stage by viewing a slideshow in my head of scenes from my daughter and my life together.

Here are a few of the slides:

• Moments after she is thrust into my arms by nurses in the delivery room at Baylor Grapevine hospital, I look down at my daughter. To my shock, I see in that tiny scrunched-up face vestiges of my father, who died three years earlier. It is a joyous reminder of the continuity of life, the majesty of family and, perhaps, the power of imagination.

• After a dispute with her mother, my daughter, then 3, finds me and crawls into my lap, resting her head on my chest. Looking up, she says, “Oh, Dad!” It is a routine repeated many times over the years with only slight alterations and with the same result: She gets what she wants.

• In a routine that spans all her preschool years, I deliver my daughter to her various daycare centers. She lets me hold her hand as I walk her to her classroom and deliver her to her teachers. And each time, I wait, hoping as she walks away that she will give me a backward glance, an ever-so-brief acknowledgment of my role in her life. Most times, she does, and each time, it almost takes my breath away.

• Our nightly routine since she was very young is a story from Dad at bedtime. Desperate for a respite from the vapid plots of the Sweet Valley Twins series, I suggest to my second grader that perhaps we could try the current bestselling phenomenon known as Harry Potter. My daughter looks at me with an expression I’ll come to know well over the years and which implies that I am perhaps the dumbest person alive. “Dad,” she says firmly, “that’s a BOY’S book.”  I persist, and convince her to listen to the first chapter. If she doesn’t like it, we’ll find something else. The next night, I read the first chapter of “The Sorcerer’s Stone.” I close the book and look at the skeptical critic. “Well?” I say. She replies, “You know, I could listen to some more.” I will read the rest of the series to her, all except the last book, by which time she is convinced she is too old for bedtime stories and which she reads herself. I am secretly heartbroken.

• By age 12, it is clear that my daughter has my high-strung personality and shy, reticent nature. She is eager to please, fearful of rejection and loves to create. She is an inventive writer with a fertile imagination and a command of language. She is beautiful and, thankfully, does not look like me. But she is my daughter. More than once, my wife has walked in on a conversation between the two of us. She will listen for a while and then interject, with more than a hint of irritation, “You two are a strange couple of ducks, you know that?” My daughter’s typical, unruffled response: “Don’t worry Mom, Dad and I understand each other.”

• After some deliberation, my daughter joins the Southlake Carroll High marching band as a freshman. She’s not sure she will like it, but I am delighted at her decision. In a clique-obsessed high school like Carroll, marching band will give her a place in the school hierarchy and a group with which to identify. She will be surrounded by good kids and creatively inspired classmates. And lots of hard work to keep her busy and, perhaps, out of trouble. In her freshman year, she marches all the way to the State Football Championship in San Antonio. Over the years, she will learn to endure her father checking up on her, via binoculars, in the stands during football games and during the band’s intricate routines on the field.

• During her junior year in college, my daughter, now an English major, is home for the weekend. She wants to know if I have read a certain book she is currently studying. It turns out I have, and we have a long conversation about the book, its theme, our favorite characters and the like. That turns into a general conversation about literature, and I find, satisfyingly, that she is well-read, thoughtful and insightful. As she describes parts in her favorite books, her face lights up and her gestures become expansive. It occurs to me, for the first time, that she will be a great teacher.