Summary:
Headed off for the Korean War, this U.S. Marine aviator wanted a keepsake for his wife and kids. But he hadn´t counted on the wrath of a Navy Chief. 860 words, and a bit of nostalgic humor first published by J. Fox (foxtale) in The Front Porch newspaper supplement, November 2004. (Will deep discount to veterans websites, newsletters, magazines.)

Details or Sample:
Mixed Signals
My dad was called back into the service during the Korean Conflict. He had phenomenal navigation skills and had flown many different planes as a Navy Aviator during World War Two. However, when the Korean Conflict began, it wasn´t Dad´s navigational skills, but his expertise with the propeller driven Vought Corsair that the Marines needed, and they offered him an officer´s commission as a Marine aviator. "That," my Dad use to warn us kids, "is the first sign of danger! When someone offers you an up-front reward, you had better read the fine print several times!"

Dad, like most of the people in our country at the time, did not realize the dire straits into which the U.S. Marines had plunged on the Korean peninsula. His squadron of prop driven fighters and dive bombers arrived in Korea to discover they were to provide close air-to-ground support for troops fighting in desperate hand-to-hand combat in sub-zero temperatures. In the macabre humor born among men facing death, one of his fellow flyers called this duty "Crop dusting the harvests of Hell!" In later years, after a Scotch or two, Dad would describe the hazards of flying at hill top level on strafing and bombing runs so close to enemy troops that he could see the muzzle flashes from rifles, and as he claimed, "where I could tell which of them wore eye-glasses and which didn´t." We knew he wasn´t exaggerating, because after that second Scotch, he´d quietly add, "Over the years I´ve named each one of those sorry S.O.B.´s." But, when he´d set out for Korea, Dad had a different view and expectations of that "forgotten war."

Dad was lucky. While most of the public was vaguely aware of an overseas war going on and newspaper reports about the troops would be published somewhere behind the ads for new Buicks and Frigidaire appliances, Dad was claimed by two towns as a ´local boy´ at the front. His picture ran in his Modesto, California hometown newspaper, and at the same time another appeared in the newspaper in Hutchinson, Kansas where he´d met and married Mom. But Mom hated both photographs, probably because of the fact that Dad had just finished college and now had a wife and three kids to support on a Marine´s salary. And, unlike rest of the country she understood this ´policing action´ was an all out shooting war. Dad, however, had a favorite of the two photographs. The first showed him in his cockpit, checking his instrument panel before taking off on a mission. But the second, which was his favorite, showed him in his leather flying jacket and silk scarf, leaning against the tail of his warplane. This photo hung in his home office, and he rarely discussed it, especially around Mom, but one time I was privy to the story behind the photograph.

An old service buddy had dropped by and eventually he and Dad had drifted into the office. I followed them and melted into the background to eavesdrop on their war stories. Dad pointed to the photo, "That´s not the picture I originally wanted," he said, "in fact I had hoped to make a keepsake for the wife and kids, but you know the service…" he´d paused and his buddy laughed and finished the sentence, "The old Snafu..."

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Written by: foxtale
Available File Types:Text
Words: 860