CHAPTER NINETEEN "So our lives In acts exemplary, not only win ourselves good names, but doth to others give matter for virtuous deeds, by which we live." George Chapman 1557-1634

BACK IN THE USA
May 1945 & Beyond

he long journey from Butte to Iwo Jima and back has filled upwards of eighteen chapters. It's hard to believe that the story is just beginning. You see... I wasn't even born yet when all this heavy-duty living was taking place.

See that news clipping up there? I remember getting my first scrapbook when I was about eight or nine years old. It had a grey vinyl cover with pictures of "cool teenagers" dancing around a record player in their poodle skirts and ivy league shirts. I wanted only the very best and most precious stuff in my scrapbook. I conned my grandmother out of a news clipping she treasured and promised I would not lose it or damage it.

My scrap book is long gone, but that clipping is still with me. It is still attached to some of the scrapbook paper and it has been folded, stapled, and pinned, but never mutilated. I've seen a couple other clippings about my Dad and the war from time to time. My Auntie Patch, who you met in Chapter One, had one of them in her scrap book too and it found its way to me after she died not so long ago. I guess you would have to say that it represents someone really important and events which have real significance.

Many of my family members will tell you how hard it was to get Dad to loosen up with his "War Memoirs". He worked on them for a long time but hoarded them in his computer with password keys for years. I don't know why I was lucky enough to be chosen as the first to read them. Sometimes I think maybe it was a test since I am known to have rather delicate sensitivity to such things. I treasured them and found them to be the essence of my Dad. I poured over them numerous times and was elated and enlightened. I had a new perspective on the war which I had not known before. The writings were not all documentary but they were warm and witty as well.

The process of getting Dad to let me place them on my website was a slow one which I approached with much caution. But before long the emails were flying back and forth across cyberspace and the project snowballed into a major event which gave both of us many happy hours and much to look forward to day by day. New parts were being added and memories were being revived.

Now that the project is near completion I am increasingly aware that everything contained in these pages is only a beginning. But as promised, we got from Butte to Iwo Jima, and even a little beyond. The war was over... but Dad was just embarking on a great adventure-- the rest of his life. He has done some amazing feats in his time but you probably wouldn't hear him put it that way....exemplary feats were just common day to day living in his life. I am hoping to convince him to capture the essence of some of his other great moments in his own words in subsequent writings.