Shell Shocked

Joe was an artist. He drew, he painted, he designed buildings.

He was a master of charcoal and the #2 pencil.

He hunted, he fished. He knew and drew every plant in the forest. He knew where in the cold mountain streams to catch the biggest rainbow trout.

He knew the trails that led to where the 12 point mule deer chomped on the best leaves and munched the finest moss.

He could milk and skin goats. He could tan their hide into leather fit for vests or boots.

He loved his mom and he loved his country.

The day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he drove to the recruiting station in Sacramento and stood in line for two days to enlist in the United States Army.

He spent two years in the jungles of tiny islands with no names, then stepped onto a landmine on the island of Guam.

After two years, he could walk again. He used the GI Bill to go to college and earned his degree as a structural engineer.

He took advanced classes with the Army in Washington, DC; preparing to rebuild airstrips in the South Pacific after World War II ended.

One day, returning to his barracks after a day of classes, he jumped off a trolley and crashed into a young Navy WAVE who was about to get on the trolley. They both ended up sprawled on the ground, and as a way of apology, they shared a cup of coffee. They shared a dinner, more dinners, and when the war ended, they shared a last name.

They returned to his family home in California, made a home and started a family.

He drank a little. The pain of his injured feet and legs got worse and he drank a lot. When he drank, he remembered the jungles. He remembered men who tried to kill him. He remembered men that he killed. He drank and in his wife's face he saw the enemy. In his child, he saw the enemy.

Finally, he didn't have to drink to become a brutal man. It became his nature.

The woman who loved him took their child and left.

He got help. He got a little better, but the dark days would come on like a sudden storm and no one was safe.

The child remembered the man who took her fishing. She remembered the man who taught her draw with charcoal. She remembered the man who took her camping and showed her where the giant mule deer lived. She remembered the father who rented a movie theater on her birthday for a Saturday matinee.

But she remember the other things. She remembered the loud angry words after she was in bed. She remembered the bruises on her mother. She remembered the day her puppy wet the floor and she remembered when he took his rifle and shot it in the head.

She remembered that loud voices might be dangerous. She knew that the strap by the door might be for her mother or it might be for her. She learned to hide and make herself very small - how to avoid the sudden rages.

Finally he was gone. She lived with her mother, but she was afraid. Suppose he came back. Suppose he hurt them again. Then one day, her mom got very ill and went to the hospital and never came home.

A few days later, her family came from Pennsylvania, her clothes were packed and she flew across the country to live with relatives she hardly knew.

She was angry, confused, afraid, and rejected those who provided her daily bread and a home. She was sure that her father missed her as much as she missed him. She remembered the good days, and never thought of the bad days. All through her teens, she looked for her father. She called everyone with the same name - before there were personal computers, let alone the Internet.

No matter what or who he was, daughters will search for their fathers.

Finally, after years of confusion and unhappiness, of running away from home, of foster homes and being declared a Ward of the Court, she got through high school, and found her father.

They talked. He was as she remembered him on the good days. She forgot all the dangerous days. They arranged to meet, and she flew to California.

He looked the same though older. He smiled, he hugged her, she cried, and felt as if she was a little girl again and home.

She visited for a week. He was remarried. It was fine until that last weekend when he and his wife took her out to dinner. He drank. They came home, and she saw the old look on his face. 

She was an adult now, and she woke up to hear him shouting, his wife screaming, and she heard the slaps and punches. He was still a brutal man.

She went home to Pennsylvania. They stayed in touch for awhile, and then she stopped writing and calling him.

Forty years later, she heard when he died. She felt no sorrow or pity. He had been a angry, damaged man who damaged her soul and how she would see the men in her life.

He was an artist.

He hunted and fished.

He loved this country.

I wish I could have mourned him.

He was a brutal man.

He was my father.