"The Artist's Corner..."

WWII War Art

What I Like About This: I was reminded that yesterday was VE Day (Victory in Europe) and it passed without much fanfare from the world.  All but a handful of the veterans who fought to save the world in WWII are now gone. But, I paused to remember my own father who served in the Navy in the Pacific where the war against Japan would rage on until September of 1945.  Although my father didn't tell me any first hand war stories until he was in his 80s, we all knew Dad had seen war and the worst of humanity in real life. 

One of my only remembrances of Dad speaking about the war was when I was a boy was when I was maybe 8 or 9.. Back then, it was rare for my father to be home in the evenings because he worked the afternoon shift for most of his working life. But I remember that it must have been a 3 day weekend and Dad walked into the den and found me watching "Hogan's Heroes" on the giant B&W Silvertone with the huge 19" screen.  When he saw what I was watching, he was triggered and went off on me.  Dad yelled and cursed (something I'd never before heard him do, ever) and told me to "Turn that sh*t off!" And I remember I burst into tears and then Dad calmed down, he turned off the television and explained why he was angry, not at me, but at the ridiculous satirical parody of war that was that show.

Most of what he told me was beyond my ability to comprehend at that tender age, but I've never forgotten what he said about the pain of serving his country in a segregated military and being subjected to abuse and mistreatment at the hands those who were supposed to be his comrades in arms. Then he turned to the thing he hated in "Hogan's Heroes." Maybe you remember that the radio operator was a black man played by Ivan Dixon. Dad explained to me that in reality, a captured black soldier in Europe would have never seen a POW camp because the Germans didn't take black prisoners, he'd have been shot immediately upon capture. 

As I looked up at my father telling me the realities of being black in WWII, I saw tears welling up in his eyes, this would the first of only two time I can recall my father showing such strong emotions. When he finished speaking about it, he said he was sorry for yelling at me and that he loved me. He said he wanted me to know the truth about the world. I later realized that what I'd experienced that evening was the first of many lessons my father would teach me about what it meant to be black in America. I thank him for those lessons and I'm thankful that his sacrifices and those of millions like my dad helped to make a better world for me.