Going home
7:00 am November 11, 2010, by Jim Galloway
Dad, who will turn 87 this month, left high school early for the U.S. Army, five months before Pearl Harbor.
Though none of them were born in this country, four of the seven Galloway brothers would scatter themselves across the globe during World War II. Dad was the youngest, and the only one to carry a sketch book.
He?s the only one left.
As an Air Corps mechanic, he started in north Africa, then moved on to India for flights across the Hump into China.
The cartoonist Bill Mauldin was something of a hero. Lined notebook paper would do in a pinch. Above is a rescued drawing from Dad?s return trip in ?45. That lump in the background is the Rock of Gibraltar.
In the upper right hand corner are traces of a laundry list written on the other side ? a brief catalog of one young warrior?s requirements for conquering the world: Four undershirts, four shorts, two handkerchiefs, two dress shirts, four pairs of socks, and two coveralls.
Dad seldom talked about his adventure. But he once told me that he had a vague memory of, shortly after he finally docked at home, running up and down the hall of a New York City hotel in the wee hours ? drunk, liberated, and screaming ?God damn the Colonel!? at the top of his lungs. This from a church-going man who rarely cussed.
He was no more than 22 ? probably 21 ? when he came back after five years of war. Yet the imprint remains. We moved Dad to California this summer, to a place not far from Los Angeles.
A few weeks ago, he pointed my sister to the distant shaded hills. The Atlas Mountains, Dad declared.
But it is the San Gabriel range that sits just past Los Angeles. The Atlas Mountains stretch across the top of northwest Africa ? spanning Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. They stand opposite the Rock of Gibraltar.
Have a thoughtful Veterans Day.
http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2010/11/11/going-home-4/#
