My dad was an immigrant. He came to the United States at the age of 6 with his family in August of 1929. His parents had been in the USA in the teens - my Aunt Helen was born in the States in 1919 making her a citizen, but the rest of the family (my grandparents Paulina and Carol, and a younger Aunt Sophie) were not. My paternal grandparents moved back to Poland as soon as their independence war with Russia subsided.
My dad was a combat veteran of the Army Air Corps (there was no Air Force yet). He flew 26 missions as the tail gunner on a B-17 for this country. He tried not to talk about it much - I was born in 1965 and this was already 2 decades past for him. As I grew older he tried to focus on the little bit of fun/mischievous behavior he participated in, and the acts of valor of his comrades. He particularly talked in reverence of his pilot (Fred H***), but everyone in the crew was a hero to my dad.
He never said he was a hero to them.
Some of my dad's tales were treated as exaggeration, but at his wake meeting a crew member who lived close enough to Inverness FL to pay his respects to Tony we found out that the only exaggeration my dad did was minimize his importance is one of the most unlikely in air rescues of one of their crew. 'Nuff said.
IMO, while he was alive, Veterans Day was the day the to thank him for his service — after all, he was a veteran. Now that he has passed (it was 21 years ago, so I’m adding some rhetorical flourish) Memorial Day is more appropriate to remember his service. Dad was a “Republican”, but he was most proud of me going into the sciences/engineering, and was dumbfounded how the company I worked for could sell our business unit (an environmental lab) —“any manufacturing company needs a lab!” he screamed. Were he alive today he'd be horrified where his party has trended.
Pops was a mechanic for an electrical utility, his only job, one he held for (I believe) 44 years. Long before many people understood the needs for being environmentally friendly, he collected scrap material (copper was his favorite and made for a lucrative hobby), was concerned about waste management before it was even considered an engineering specialty, and encouraged us to compost our food and yard wastes to help our several gardens. This was in the early 1970’s. My Boy Scout troop held paper recycling drives back then to raise money for us to take a trip to Disney World, and my dad was all over that — creating the standard way for folks to bundle the newspapers, always getting people to stare in awe at the towers of old newsprint that we would pull out of the back of our station wagon. I still use those knot skills around the yard/house...
When my mom and dad moved from NY to Florida in 1992, he had about 4 tons of scrap copper in the garage segregated by different quality/grades, all neatly stored and sorted in 55 gallon drums. Yeah, there might be some OCD there. IN reality I feel it was more likely a release from the PTSD I suspect he suffered from after his combat experience. In the past he had not had a problem finding someone to come up with a truck and scale to pick up what any scrap guy would consider a "mother lode", but this time he struggled to find someone willing. Finally he found someone who believed that there was this much material ready to be just loaded up, and my dad got about $8K of pin money for the trip down to Florida. I remember dad grousing that he got just under a $1 a pound, which was his benchmark for a great deal.
I miss my dad, but it’s the way of life that kids should bury their parents. My mom has had to do it the other way twice, I guess it is one of the potential curses of living to an old age (she’s 91). My dad passed at about 74, when I was only 31. I think of the things he didn’t see that would have pleased him – new coin designs, the rapid advance of computers, advances in automotive design (he was so pleased with engineering of the 1994 Toyota Camry my mom still has).
By no means he was perfect, but I have to be happy that he raised me to be curious and thoughtful, courteous and kind. He never went to college but knew more about history than most of the teachers of the subject I had in high school and college. I recognize several traits in him that I don't want to have, and work hard to avoid those behaviors; he was a product of his time and harbored some deep prejudices and vices. But none of us represent perfection; Tony A was a solid role model in a lot of ways.
Today y’all got me thinking of his service. I know he was proud of it, but never boastful. He just considered it something that needed to be done at the time.
And he was an immigrant, brought over from Poland by his parents at the age of 6, in August of 1929.