Zona

Veteran's Day

This is my father. He was drafted at the tail end of WWII and just after his swearing in a man burst into the room and announced that the war in Europe was over. So he went to basic and was later placed on a boat for Europe. He was stationed in Cologne, Germany as a military policeman.

He told me how all of the guys in his unit were given their own jeeps. Trouble is he didn't know how to drive. "The sargeant pointed to a big field and told me to go learn". He said it looked like bumper cars at a carnival but he and the others were soon driving through the city and surrounding countryside.

My father did not consider himself to be a "real" veteran because he did not fight in the war. He was never afraid of the German prisoners he guarded but he did worry about the American prisoners who were accused of commiting serious crimes during and after the war.

My father would years later tell my baby sister that he and the other MP's would let the German prisoners go to their houses at night. The prisoners were always back before role call in the morning. My father and the others risked court martial for their actions but the reason they knew the prisoners would come back was simple. The Germans were taking portions of their meals home to their families. Families that otherwise faced certain starvation in war devastated Germany.

My father did not consider himself to be a real veteran but we did and we saw that there was an American flag on his casket before we laid him to rest.