Another Kind of Veteran

          I have never served in the military, but others in my family have. My brother Phil fought in Vietnam in the late 60s, and two of my sons were career officers in the Navy.

The first family member to serve was my uncle Emile who enlisted in the Army in 1917.  He wanted to go to Europe with America’s Expeditionary Force in WWI, but he was diagnosed with tuberculosis during basic training at Ft. Devens and was sent home. His youngest brother, my uncle Vic, served as an Army chaplain in Burma and India during WWII. I remember the souvenirs he brought back, including an ebony elephant, a gong, and a tiger skin with a head that had marbles for eyes but real teeth.  My dad is another story.

          In 1943 Dad tried to enlist in the Navy, but was turned down because he was too old and the father of two children with a third on the way. Instead he went to work for a Goodyear plant in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, that had been recruited to do secret work for the Army. Before the war Goodyear made sneakers in that plant. Then someone came up with the idea of making inflatable rubber decoys—planes, trucks, tanks, landing craft---and deploying them in England across the English Channel from Calais to fool the Germans into thinking that the allies would invade there instead of Normandy. I believe General George Patton was temporarily assigned to this fake army to convince Germans it was real. History tells us that the plan worked when the Germans concentrated much of their defenses around Calais. 
          In this odd way my Dad did his part in WWII.  Unfortunately, when the war ended, so did the need for Goodyear’s rubber tanks. Dad, in fact, told me he had been the last one to lose his job. He literally closed the door of the plant on its last day of operations. 
          It wasn’t until 1956 that he returned to government service with the State Department in Vietnam. Even after he retired in 1975 he retained a soft spot for the military. I was sitting next to him in 1985 when my son David was admitted to the Naval Academy. I turned to look at him during the induction ceremony. He had tears of pride rolling down his cheeks.