“Did you know that your Dad once went AWOL?”
I looked at Uncle Donny, expecting a witty punchline. He was serious.
The unexpected question was, of course, totally ridiculous. Totally. My Dad’s military record had been exemplary. He had always been a law-abiding citizen. The idea of him going “absent without leave” was unacceptable.
Yet, as the hostess of this small evening gathering, me calling the 92-year old relative a liar would not be considered good manners.
My cousins looked across the table and laughed. “She doesn’t look like she’s heard that story. But you’ve seen the picture, haven’t you?” One of them took out her cellphone and found the photo.
THE PHOTO
Yes, I’d seen the photograph of Uncle Donny and Dad, side by side, in their military uniforms. In fact, I had a copy of it…somewhere…maybe in the large tote of pictures…or in the craft room…or in one of Dad’s boxes of war memorabilia…
Uncle Donny launched into the story of that infraction long ago, when Dad had gone AWOL from his Air Force base and the Lind sons had “hung out” together for a couple of days. Between refilling soup bowls and serving the apple pie, I listened and chuckled. That was not the stern, upstanding Dad I remembered, but it made for a good “family history” story to pass on. If I remembered it.
THE SILENT PEACE
Growing up, my siblings and I knew that Dad—Kenneth H. Lind—had served in the Air Force, first in Europe during World War II, then again in Korea. But for most of our lives, that’s where his military career resume began and ended. Like many soldiers during that era, he seldom spoke of it. That seemed normal to us, so we rarely asked.
Occasionally, Dad showed us pictures of Okinawa or some rifle range. Mom sometimes explained how they sent long letters back and forth overseas. Clandestinely, us kids now and then tugged the heavy chest from the back of their bedroom closet and looked at Dad’s military uniform, pressed, folded and wrapped in a clear vinyl bag for long-term storage.
And together, Mom and Dad would tell us kids the family story of how Mom bought a new car at Dad’s direction and sent photos of it to Dad while he was in Japan. The photos, however, were only close ups of the vehicle—never the whole car—which gave Dad nightmares that she had already dented it and wasn’t going to tell him until he got home.
Only a handful of times did Dad tell us how his leg had been wounded by shrapnel. He let us hold his Purple Heart medal, which he kept in the closet in a cigar box of miscellaneous mementos. It weighed heavy in our hands as we admired it and proudly ran our fingers over the raised words on the back, “FOR MILITARY MERIT.”
SOLDIER OF THE SOIL
But really, to us kids he was just Dad, the big, balding dairy farmer who, together with Mom, bought a farm in central Minnesota after he was discharged from the military. He worked hard, read voraciously, and thought profound thoughts about patriotism, politics and agriculture.
Since Mom often worked in town to supplement their income, Dad was the parent who was always around for us. He could cook meals, change diapers, and hold our hands when we were sick and had to puke. He even took us out to the fields while he did some of his fieldwork, not believing for one moment that our angelic little faces weren’t capable of creating mischief if left alone.
Over three decades passed, one season at a time, until my parents retired and moved to town. In all those years, we only took a few, weekend vacations. Dad joked that he had already seen all the world he needed to see. But that short-coming aside, I remember my childhood as being glorious—not perfect—but the wonderful product of a mother and a father who loved us very much.
THE AWOL FACTS
Later, after Uncle Donny and the other family members had gone to bed, I sat in the dimness and reflected on Uncle Donny’s tale, trying to fit it into the image I held of my father. My cousin had forwarded the photo to me, and I stared at my phone, trying to wrap my mind around the idea that I may not know my Dad as well as I thought. Was there more to the story than Uncle Donny told us?
And more urgently, if the story was true, would anyone remember it in a few more years?
The next morning at the breakfast table, I sat down with a pen and paper and asked Uncle Donny to tell me the story again.
AUGUST 1945
It happened in August 1945. Air Force Tech Sergeant Kenneth Lind, 23 years old, had just returned from a two-year stint on Corsica Island, where he completed 52 missions over Europe as a gunner on an A-26 bomber plane bombing the Axis forces. Donald Lind, an 18-year old Army T5 (technical corporal) was days away from deployment to North Africa, where he would spend the next two years.
In the span of four years, the two brothers had only this one opportunity to meet.
“Your Dad was stationed at—let me think—Colorado, I believe,” Uncle Donny remembered. “I was at Fort Riley, Kansas. Kenny sent me a letter saying he was coming by bus. We met in Topeka.”
“He knew what I was feeling. He came to be with his little brother for moral support,” Uncle Donny explained. “We hung out. We went to a photographer and got our picture taken. Occasionally we’d see MPs, but they never asked us for our IDs. I think they knew what us soldiers were going through.”
“—Wait a minute,” I interrupted, putting the pieces together, “You were AWOL, too!”
Uncle Donny smiled, not looking up from the study of his hot coffee. Finally, he said, “I guess so.”
We all laughed—with the dread of those years now decades behind us, it was safe to laugh.
THE BATTLE AFTER THE WAR
For Uncle Donny, his two-year stint in North Africa concluded his active military career. For my Dad, however, another “Conflict” a few years later sent him to Korea, where he flew another 50 missions.
“I think it affected him a little,” Uncle Donny admitted. “For a long time after that he’d ask me, ‘Do you remember how I got home?’ He could never remember his return trip from there.”
As a child I figured that Dad’s silence was because—well, because the wars had ended. All was back to normal. What was left to tell?
Not until much, much later—when a grandson came to live with them—did Dad open up about those years, telling Emil stories the rest of us had never heard. Maybe, finally, after enough years had slipped by, Dad was able to face his darker memories. He spent the last years of his life writing his memoires about various missions, identifying people and places in old photos and making a shadow box that displayed some of his many medals—including a second Purple Heart.
In fact, Uncle Donny said that Kenneth Lind was, at one time, the most decorated airman in Minnesota. No military records remain to prove it since many military personnel files were lost in a warehouse fire two decades later.
So, I concede. Perhaps there will always be some things we don’t know about our parents.
As a decorated airman, Kenneth Lind may have spent an unauthorized weekend with his little brother.
But as a father, Dad never went AWOL.
TO DO LIST:
- The “Greatest Generation” is all too quickly vanishing. If you know someone from that cohort, ask them to tell you their stories—not only their military stories, but their day-to-day life stories that reflect an era we’ll never see again.
- WRITE DOWN THEIR STORIES, as simple as they seem, before the finer details are forgotten forever.
- Journal your own stories, too. Like it or not, someday we won’t be around to tell our tales, robbing the next generation of our experiences.
- Encourage a young person in your life to start a diary or journal. That is, after all, one of the best ways we can keep our family histories alive through the generations.
- Finally, write a note to someone currently in the service to let them know they’re appreciated. Several websites offer a portal for emails or class projects, including Operation Gratitude.