Most of my memoir clients seem to prefer talking about their parents and grandparents than to talking about their own accomplishments. This desire to remember those who went before us—instead of bragging about our own stories—is especially keen on days like today, Veterans’ Day in the USA.
My father, David F. Bull, died in 2008, but I still remember him telling about serving during World War II. Dad was attached to an anti-tank company in the US Army during the push through France and into Germany in late 1944 and 1945. Born in 1925, Dad was just old enough to be drafted before war’s end.
His unit was active during the Battle of the Bulge. They were stationed about 20 miles from “The Bulge” itself—a counterattack by German divisions that almost punctured the Allied push. Dad used to say that he was “damn lucky” his unit had not been at the Bulge itself, “because our anti-tank guns wouldn’t have stopped a single Panzer tank. Our shells would have bounced right off their armor, and they would have rolled over us.”
Dad was not injured during wartime, but afterward a truck carrying his company rolled over and two of his buddies were killed. He was left with a cranky back for the rest of his life, after waking up with the truck effectively on top of him.
About two weeks before Dad died, and the day before he was transferred to hospice care, he was lying in a hospital bed in Connecticut while I edited his obituary. Finally, I was satisfied and I asked him if I might read it to him. “Sure,” he said. So I did.
As I was reading, I noticed his eyes closing, and I began to think he had fallen asleep.
“Dad?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he asked back.
“You OK, Dad? This isn’t bothering you, is it?”
“No,” he said with a smile. “I kinda like it.”
When I finished, I said that there was one thing I had left out, because I didn’t know enough details: his war service. I suggested that he tell me some details so that I could include it in his obituary.
He paused, then said, “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think you need to put anything in about that. We all served in the war. That’s just what we did. There was nothing special about my service.”
I respected his wishes, but now at least I have rectified things somewhat. My generation still finds it amazing that our fathers served almost to a man, without questioning, certainly with fear and trembling, but confident all along that this was “just what we did.”
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