Worry

US Navy forces approach Iwo Jima, February 19, 1945.

The innocence and naivete of the world in mid-February 1945 is surprising to revisit. As a US Marine aboard the USS Texas back then, my father was in the middle of nowhere—especially by 1945 standards—in the South Pacific. Knowledge of places around the world was not what it is today…most people in Philadelphia in 1945 had never heard of Iwo Jima, Okinawa, or Saipan, places that World War II would make famous and infamous! Texas was at the Ulithi Atoll—a dot in the ocean about 1100 miles east of the Philippines and 900 miles north of New Guinea…the middle of nowhere—getting underway to rehearse for and then participate in the Battle of Iwo Jima.

But the innocence goes further than not knowing geography…on February 6, 1945, my father sends a letter to his father, apologizing that he has nothing to write about; “Don’t worry about me I am feeling fine,” he writes, even though he and the Texas were soon headed into battle. That’s the last letter he sends home for nearly a month. During that month, the Texas and her crew engage in the Battle of Iwo Jima, spending February 16th–19th bombarding the island and taking fire from Japanese batteries and air attacks ahead of the actual invasion. Then on February 19th, 70,000 Marines go ashore to engage the enemy hand-to-hand. For the next thirty-some days, US forces suffer 26,000 casualties—including 6,800 killed in action—and the Japanese suffer incredible losses, with approximately 20,000 killed.

And yet, on March 1st when my father is finally able to write home again, he explains simply to his father, “Perchance you are wondering how I’ve been spending my time in the past weeks, well, by this time you may already know. Well, the Texas has added another campaign to her credit, that of Iwo Jima. We were there all right. I can’t tell you anything more except I am feeling fine and there is nothing to worry about.” Half a world away on a battleship surrounded by killing and death, and all he reports is, “Nothing to worry about.” It was a different world then.

[The full collection of letters is available at Amazon collected in A Philadelphia Family Goes to War.]

Birdsong

Some time ago on my daily walk, 2.5 miles of brisk walking for exercise, I noticed a distinctive bird call soon after I’d crested the most challenging part of the walk; I think it was a mourning dove: low-note…high note…low…low…low. It sounded bellowy like it could be an owl hooting, but I recognized it as a mourning dove—those birds that are shaped like a slim pigeon, longer wing feathers and oh-so-very-smooth taupe-colored bodies, the ones that seem to squeak when they take flight. Once the dove woke me out of my “zone” of out-of-breath walking, I realized that she was cooing in a rhythm; she sent out her song five or six times and pausing before repeating the song. I couldn’t see her, but she was nearby. I began to listen intently, to make a distinct effort of listening, an intentional concentration to gather the sounds around me.

Soon I discovered about a dozen other birds’ songs overlapping, some clear from anear, some faint from afar. Two birds with the same song seemed to call to each other from different parts of the neighborhood, first to the left, then to the right, then back to the left, etc; I’m convinced they were having a long-distance conversation. I heard the distinctive scree of a hawk… I saw him in the distance floating over the trees, scree…scree. I spied a blue jay on a wire, calling out a staccato call. Surprisingly I thought I heard an actual owl’s solitary hoot. Then I saw a cardinal light on a branch and sing a three-part song: part whistle, part chirp, part melody.

I found it hard to stay attentive to the birdsong: my attention shifted unconsciously to my own physical effort, or to something on the road, or to a loud human sound—the din of construction or a car or truck. I kept adjusting to pick out the birdsong again that was a background song to everything else…not each song, but the blended constancy of birdsong in the air. It was not dominant, it was not obvious, it was quite soft and abundant!

When I walk very early or very late, I notice that the hum of insects rises, too, rises out of the fields. The chirp of crickets and chiggers and, in late summer, the shrill of cicadas. Their crepuscular sound is more of a drone than a song, but it creates a bassline to the birdsong, and that’s clearly how I hear it now, a blend of all the birds in birdsong.

As I neared the end of my walk, a crow landed on the roadside ahead, hopped a bit, and then let out its distinctive caw-caw-caw! Those crazy blackbirds still seem to pursue me and this particular one announced himself. I was surprised how much birdsong is all around the neighborhood all day. I was surprised, too, at how many songs I recognized. I wonder if you listen to the world around you—not the cars, trucks, construction noise, and the trash men and other people, but the regular sounds from nature. If not, try it and be surprised.

Patience

[Foreground, left to right] General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Rear Admiral Carleton F. Bryant, Captain Charles Adam Baker, May 19, 1944 on board the USS Texas in Belfast Lough, Ireland.

It was a cold and rainy morning in Belfast Lough on May 19, 1944 when the crew of the USS Texas turned out in rank-and-file to await General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Allied Supreme Commander would address the crew in a brief speech from a stage on the fantail of the ship, next to what my father called “his guns.” Eisenhower’s words roused the crew for an invasion that they knew was imminent, for which they’d been rehearsing…but they didn’t know where or when.

Copy of Eisenhower’s address to the ship’s crew, distributed to the crew just prior to June 6, 1944.

World War II took place, naturally, before the immediacy of communication that we expect today. “You are there” is today’s rallying cry, where cameras and on-the-spot broadcasts give us news immediately. If Viet Nam was the first “television war,” and the Iraq invasion was the first instantaneous war—we watched live from around the world as Bagdad was bombed—then World War II was simply the war of patience.

Adding to the delay of information created by the mail system was the tyranny of censors: many things just couldn’t be shared. My father wrote home 6 times  during those 18 days between Eisenhower’s visit to the ship and D-Day, but never once did he mention where he was, never once did he mention an upcoming invasion, never once did he mention that Eisenhower visited the ship…he writes home on May 25, “I probably will have plenty to tell you when I see you, but “mum” is the word until then.” Had he tried to tell details, the censors would literally have cut the letter to pieces.

Thus, my grandfather waited patiently—if anxiously—at home. Naturally when the invasion began, he heard reports on the radio; he wrote to his son on June 8, two days into the invasion, “I heard a re-broadcast of a battle from the deck of one of our battleships given by a war correspondent, of a Nazi plane being shot down in the English Channel. It was very exciting. I thought I could hear you shouting when the plane burst into flames & pitched into the sea.”

He explained that he reads news accounts, shares information across the family, but he waits patiently and hopes: “I hope and pray everything is OK with you and all your mates in fact all our boys. I understand why we have not been hearing from you lately.” In fact, he will not hear “directly” from his son until 20 days after D-Day!

The form letter from Jack to his father, June 10, 1944.

On June 26, he received a form letter signed by his son, written by the ship’s chaplain, Lieutenant  Moody…nearly three weeks after the battle. The form letter relieved any need for the censors while still allowing the ship’s crew to send something home. By the time the letters arrive in the states, the beaches of Normandy had been well secured, the Allied forces were well advanced onto the continent, and the Texas had been to Cherbourg [where she was hit by two German shells, wounding 13 and killing the only combat fatality aboard the Texas during the entire war, Christen Norman Christiansen] and was undergoing repairs in Plymouth, England.

Nevertheless, my grandfather was relieved and excited to receive a post-invasion letter from his son, no matter how out-of-date it may have been. He writes back to Jack the next day, June 27, 1944, to express his mixture of pride and optimism and realism:  “I was ever so happy to receive it and it simply confirmed everything that we have been getting in the news. It looks like the old Texas done more than her share, boy, when we catch up with you I think we’ll wear you out with questions, you sure have seen something that you’ll never forget. Although that letter was dated 6/10 and 17 days have since elapsed & I know she has still been banging away, I feel certain that everything is OK with you.”

I know that my grandfather relied on his faith at the times of greatest worry, but I often wonder if patience is what really got him through the war.

[The full collection of letters is available at Amazon collected in A Philadelphia Family Goes to War.]

Obscurity

Francis P. Conlin, Jr., New River, NC, August 1942.

UPDATE: May 27, 2019

I’ve kept searching to pull Cpl. Frank Conlin a little further out of obscurity…with some surprising results: contrary to the report in the Evening Bulletin, Frank was wounded on February 27, his 9th day into the battle for Iwo Jima and 12 days before he died. According to records in the National Archive, Frank died of “wound, fragment, shell, rt. side.” The record also notes that he was buried in a military cemetery on Guam. I haven’t yet found if he was transported to Guam for treatment before he died—air evacuations of wounded began on March 6, 1945—or simply for burial. I also found that his name is etched on his parents’ gravestone in West Conshohocken, PA…so I continue searching for records to confirm that his body was repatriated during the government program to return the war-dead during 1947-48. Below is the original blog.

He was killed in obscurity on this day, March 10, 1945, Francis Patrick Conlin Jr. I struggled to find details of his death during the battle of Iwo Jima. I can find no record of when he went ashore or how long he battled before he was killed. Two internet records note simply that he was “killed in action” and “died of wounds,” but I don’t know how he was wounded or how he may have suffered before he died. His parents would have received his Purple Heart explaining the circumstances of his death…but I can find no record of it. I assume that he was buried on the island, but I don’t know if he is still there or was later moved home (as many others were) to a local grave. Obscurity.

Home on leave in Philadelphia, PA, March 1943 (L to R): Jack Pawley, Frank Conlin, Mary Pawley and her future husband, Jerry McCauley.

I’m haunted by the obscurity of this young man, Frankie, who was so close a friend to my uncle (Bill) and father (Jack), so highly regarded by my grandfather and aunt (Mary), that he could have been the third Pawley brother. The family letters collected in A Philadelphia Family Goes to War overflow with mentions of Frankie, questions about his whereabouts and well-being: he is mentioned over 100 times in their correspondence, beginning in Letter 1, up to Letter 299 when Mary reports that he was killed on Iwo Jima, and finally in Letter 392 after the war is over, when my uncle confesses he’ll miss Frank more when everyone is back home again. But who was this young man who gave his life?

Months ago I set out to write a blog about the word “Obscurity,” except that my work on the letters redirected me: I felt as if the dead were communicating with me about their long-lost lives. Yet the idea of obscurity persists…lives begun and sacrificed in honor during the war, lives lost in obscurity by number (so many of them: 6,825 Americans died on Iwo Jima) and time (so long ago: 74 years). 

I’ve worked since to pull Frankie out of obscurity, but to only small effect:

• His memory is clouded from the very beginning when The Evening Bulletin originally reported his death misspelled as Francis Conlan, Jr….and so I question the accuracy of their other information.

Frank Conlin in his paramarine fatigues and jump boots, March 1943.

• He attended John Bartram High School and left his job at Sharp and Dohme to enlist, June 1942 at age 20. He trained as a Marine paratrooper in New River, NC and then at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, CA until the “paramarines” were disbanded in January 1944…the letters explain that Frank was very disappointed and maddened by this. He was transferred to the Fleet Marine Force and shipped out to the Pacific Theater in August 1944.

• Internet information reveals that he had an older sister (Elizabeth), a younger sister (Anna), and a younger brother (John).

• The letters reveal that Elizabeth had a baby some months before Christmas 1944, so Frank probably knew that he was an uncle.

On leave and living it up in Los Angeles, CA, August 1944 (L to R): Frank Conlin, an anonymous friend, Bill Pawley, and Mike Kelly.

• Bill prophetically writes in his letter of 08/20/1944: “Enjoyed seeing Frankie but doubt if we will be able to get together again.”

• Mary’s letter of 03/28/45 reveals that the Conlins received a letter from Frank on March 12th  saying he’d been wounded and was in the field hospital; then they received the infamous “telegram” on March 16th reporting his death…ironically he had died on March 10th.

• Mary’s letter of 08/14/45 reveals that Mr. Conlin believed “Frank had [his] whole heart wrapped up in the Marines.”

Frank Conlin dreaming of future days, with Mary Costello, March 1943.

Two of Frank’s letters to Jack were saved among the collection and reveal a bit of his personality.

• He uses the language of a 1940s hipster: Jack’s girlfriend is “quite the chick,” and Frank’s girlfriend, Dot, is “au reet.” He refers to Jack and the other sea-going Marines as “you cats.”

• He writes with humor and exaggeration as he complains about Marine life: “My feelings for the F.M.F. are not permitted to be put in a letter…you would probably lose sleep at night.”

• In the two months before he is killed, he hopefully writes of times to come: “I received a picture from Dot…I’ll be married before I get home if things keep up.”

• Then he writes of joining the police force: “…all I want [is] to get on the force so I won’t have to walk the kid at night.”

• Finally, he writes of just being home again: “Boy, just think of all the nights we can spend drinking and talking about this Great Marine Corps—ah, yes, what an outfit.”

Bill writes to Jack in April 1945, “it is pretty hard to believe such a happy-go-lucky guy like him could be dead on some damn little island that God forgot.” It is that kind of obscurity for so many young lives cut short that haunts me.

Artificial Intelligence

“Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?” © Warner Bros. Pictures

Artificial Intelligence is surely here to stay. It’s as common as the warning buzzers in our cars and as complex as robotic surgery. It will continue to expand across new areas and deepen into areas where we take it for granted. The prevailing attitude is often described with the ironic question, “Is there anything that Artificial Intelligence can’t do?”

As I’ve written before, the right question is as vital as the right answer…and I think we’re asking the right question, but I’d ask it without the irony. The world is so ready to adopt and adapt to digital developments, I wonder if we should be more cautious and critical of them. We constantly find and embrace more benefits to AI, but what do we risk? I think that we face two risks if we plow forward with total acceptance: 1.) are we ready for when the computer fails? And 2.) Aren’t there things that only a human can do? It may be intelligence…but it is artificial!

I am not offering an answer to this critical question; but I think that it’s an important question to ask.

When I was first learning math in grade school, we were encouraged always to evaluate the answer that the calculator delivered; we were warned not to grab the answer and move on. “What if you hit a wrong button or the batteries are low or if the calculator malfunctions?” asked Sister Elizabeth. “You need to think enough to judge if the answer seems right!” But those days of reasonable paranoia are gone.

In reality, when we face life-and-death reliance on technology and artificial intelligence—air travel and space exploration are extreme examples—we usually rely on “redundant” systems, back-up systems used “just in case” the primary system fails. Thus we trust technology, but we have a back-up…like Reagan’s adage to the Russians, “Trust, but verify.” Hasn’t everyone run into an app or a website that just won’t work the way it’s supposed to? I’ve pulled into the airport parking garage only to find that I can’t get my ticket on my phone. I’ve had Spotify recommend horrible playlists…supposedly based on my listening habits! Today, I had a wrist blood-pressure device that read my blood pressure at 160/93…fortunately the nurse took my pressure by hand (124/72) rather than rush me to the ER!

We have long lived with that fear, the fear of technology run amok. How many movies tell a tale where technology becomes the enemy:

”Give me another 24 hours—and no one…will be able to tell a Machine-Man from a mortal!”

•  As early as 1927, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis showed the insidious side of technology when the iconic robot replaces the angelic Maria and brings about chaos and destruction.

“Open the pod bay door, please, HAL.”

•  In 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the computer, HAL 9000, both ran the mission and developed a mind of its own. “I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me. And I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen,” he warns Dave as the two begin a battle of wits to survive.

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.” © The Ladd Company

•  In 1982’s Blade Runner, androids have a genetically engineered death date to limit their threat to humans; a group of them returns to Earth in search of “more life.” The android leader, Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), tells his nemesis, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), “Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it?”

Irreplaceable Humanity

What of the things that only a human can do, things of which a computer is incapable…at least so far. There is a human side of perception and thought, the miraculous side of epiphany and inspiration, that computers can’t really do yet. The human side of perception and thought that is not the result of logic and can’t yet be loaded into a databank resource. AI grows through programming, then extends itself through machine learning—analytical model building that identifies patterns in the resource to “make its own decisions.” But to my understanding—and no one, not even my geekiest computer friends—has contradicted me on this: epiphany and inspiration are beyond the realm of AI and will remain there for quite some time. Perhaps forever. If an apple were ever to fall onto a computer, the computer would never imagine gravity. If a beautiful woman were to pass by a computer, it would never imagine, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day.” Even if all the notes and instrumental voices were loaded into a computer, it would never imagine Pavoratti’s “Nessun Dorma.”

I welcome AI as it continues to make many things better. I don’t get lost now with GPS, I enjoy the connectivity of my smart phone, I love the ease of voice-command cable TV. But to answer my opening question, “Is there anything that Artificial Intelligence can’t do?” I think the answer begins, “AI can do almost everything, except replace the inspirations of humanity.” I know at times that I want only the warm consideration of human thought and interaction. I love how genuine—how un-artificial—human thought and interaction can be.

Future

How far to the end?

I recently heard a talk by an astronomer who discussed the confusing and terrifying concept of the universe and beyond. We hear all the time about the Big Bang and the expanding universe…a story whose numbers are so enormous that scientists invented new numbers—light years—to describe them.  The astronomer said that many people are overwhelmed to think how enormous the universe is, and they are terrified to think of what’s beyond it! It’s been proven that the universe is expanding, but where or into what is it expanding?

The astronomer claims that the answer is simple: beyond the limits of the universe is Nothing…Nothing with a capital N. “Beyond the universe,” he says, “doesn’t exist.” The universe is expanding from its center, but it isn’t expanding into anything…the universe is everything. It expands not into a place, but it creates a place that didn’t exist before. There is no “beyond the universe”…there is only the universe. We live, the universe grows, and that is all there is to it…astronomers understand these ideas.

It occurred to me that the future is the same: the future isn’t a thing that exists, waiting for us to enter; we create it every second as we live. We have our futures to make, not futures to wander into. We are challenged to make the future whatever we can, whatever we dare.  This contradicts the idea of fate and destiny, where people believe they will fulfill a pre-ordained future by living out a life that was supernaturally planned for them. I believe in Free Will, where each decision we make and action we take today influences tomorrow’s opportunities. The future is constantly forming before us…maybe we should have new numbers to describe the possibilities.

With that perspective, the future becomes very exciting…and terrifying, as exciting and terrifying as our imaginations dare to make it. For the cautious, someone pursuing their imagined future,  the attitude may be like Red’s, (Morgan Freeman), in The Shawshank Redemption (1994); as he heads off to live what he’s dreamed the rest of his life will be, he thinks, “I hope the Pacific is as blue as it is in my dreams.” For the audacious, someone completely open to chance and possibility, the attitude is like the character’s, Karim, in Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia (1990); as he awaits his life in London, he thinks, “I was ready for anything.”

I think it is most productive to assimilate the past, manage the present, and invite the surprises of the future. The astronomer tells us that thinking about the universe and beyond can be overwhelming, terrifying; I think the future should be simply surprising! We live, we make our future, and that is all there is to it…we need to understand this idea.

Epiphany

We’ve all had it happen and said something like, “I just suddenly realized…” New realizations or new meanings have come to mind; or sometimes something makes sense for the first time…who knows why or from where.  We’ve all had moments like that when an essential truth reveals itself, moments of magically or divinely inspired insight: an epiphany.

Sometimes, we refer to them as an “a-ha! moment.” Not just moments when we remember an old friend’s name or lyrics to a song…that’s just memory at work. Epiphanies are illuminating moments, moments of discovery, moments when reality reveals a deeper meaning, deeper workings, or a path we hadn’t recognized. They are the moments that change a person, that can’t be undone.

Of course, Epiphany with a capital “E” is the moment in the Bible (Matthew 2:1-12) when the Magi from the East find Joseph, Mary, and the Christ child in the stable. Their Epiphany is that they recognize the deep reality of the poor family huddled with the animals in the stable: the Magi recognize the divine nature of the child, they recognize God has become man. This is in contrast to the shepherds, who are directly told by angels,  (Luke 2:11-12) “There is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” The shepherds are informed, but the Magi make a realization, an Epiphany.

An epiphany has that greater sense to it, like the Magi story, the completion of a long journey through ignorance. I know epiphanies happen to us all because I see them in movies, on television, read them in books. I treasure it most when the artist captures and conveys the magic of the moment…not heavy handed, but like a realization blooming from within.

Lawrence waiting for revelation.

•  The moment in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) when Lawrence realizes his path forward in leading the Arabs against the Turks: he literally walks into the desert to seek his answer, and his epiphany sneaks up on him from behind. It is a subtle magic moment that director David Lean lets play out as a moment of the character’s clear and sudden understanding.

Jim realizing his future.

• The moment in The Office  (2007) when Jim realizes that his vision of his future includes Pam…that he loves her. He seems surprised by the clarity of his realization in reaction to David Wallace’s interview question, “So, long haul…where do you see yourself in 10 years?” Jim, understanding for the first time, moves forward decisively.

“…her hand circles in a gesture that gathers clouds and kites and grass and Queenie pawing earth over her bone.”

•  The moment near the end of Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” (1956) when the elderly cousin has her epiphany, a beautiful moment of realization that Capote captures beautifully: “‘My, how foolish I am!’ my friend cries, suddenly alert, like a woman remembering too late she has biscuits in the oven. ‘You know what I’ve always thought?’ she asks in a tone of discovery and not smiling at me but a point beyond.” She goes on to recount not that she has biscuits in the oven, but that she has a new and surprising understanding of the presence of God.

The challenge is for anyone of us to recognize the epiphany, to know when that magical or divine insight is a reality. That must be an act of faith or trust or, maybe, hope. But first we just have to accept that such epiphanies happen and can change us, can define a previously unseen way forward.

Faith

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein—universally considered a man of genius—is known for his revolutionary scientific ideas: relativity, an expanding universe, gravitational waves, etc. He is also known for his “God letter,” written in 1954 to a Jewish philosopher, where he writes, “the word God is for me nothing more than … human weakness, the Bible a collection of … legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.” The letter is (in)famous enough that it sold at Christie’s in 2018 for nearly $2.9 million dollars. I’m afraid the price of that letter is a sign of the post-WWII times, when many people had significant doubts in faith.  

Even today, Merriam Webster gives its first definition of “Faith” as “allegiance to duty or a person: loyalty.” A completely secular definition, probably a sign of our times. For my understanding, that would be a second or third definition, because my first definition is entirely spiritual: “Belief and trust in and loyalty to God.” I think my understanding and feelings of faith are a gift from my parents, who themselves exhibited faith in God. Because of faith, I sense that our lives are more than here-and-now: our lives are part of a continuous, divine existence. To express it, use whatever word or book you want…faith is a deep-seated sense of belonging to something divine.

William J. Pawley, Sr., William J Pawley Jr., John P. Pawley (L to R)

I know from his letters during the war (collected in A Philadelphia Family Goes to War) that my father, Jack, gained his faith from and shared it with his father. They openly write about trusting in God—whether it was my father’s facing the dangers of war or his father’s facing “everyday” challenges at home. Often, Jack reassures his father that he attends Mass and receives the sacraments. In May 1944, Jack feels “pretty good” expressing his faith; while aboard the USS Texas rehearsing in the Irish Sea for the D-Day invasion, he writes home:

“Was at Mass and confession today, and feel pretty good, haven’t missed Mass, for 7 weeks now, we don’t have a Catholic Chaplain on the “T” but we always have one visit for Divine Services each Sunday from another ship.”

Similarly, his brother Bill has that same sense of shared faith with his father and his brothers-in-arms. On his first Christmas at basic training in Yuma, Arizona, he writes on December 27, 1942:

“I received your letter … in which you said to go to Communion on Christmas Day. Well, I did. Heard Mass and took Communion in a big field during one of the worst sandstorms this Philly boy ever hopes to see. You can’t imagine the number of Catholic fellows in the 6th Division. All over the desert the priests were saying Masses and every one was crowded beyond hearing.”

Reportedly Lt. Charles Suver saying Mass atop Mt. Suribachi during the invasion of Iwo Jima, February 23, 1945.

The letters make clear a main source of their faith: the faith of their father. “Dad” closes nearly half his letters with, “God bless you.” His expressions of faith range from that closing to offers of prayers, requests for prayers, and trust in the practices of his Catholic Church—often reminding the boys,  “Don’t forget your Church & Sacraments.” When his son Bill is at the front lines in New Guinea, Dad takes comfort in Bill’s ability to practice his faith: “He seems to be very good living and mentions church & the sacraments quite often and I am very glad to hear this.”

Dad finds comfort in his faith, while still recognizing dangers and threats…his isn’t blind faith. He regularly invokes his realistic trust in God for his sons’ welfare. “I do have faith in God & never really feel that anything will happen to you both but at the same time I do get scared when I don’t hear from you for so long a spell.” He writes to Jack in December 1944 as the USS Texas heads to the Pacific,

“Joe Dempsey, Kathleen’s brother, killed in action, they received the telegram yesterday. I don’t like to tell you this kind of news but I feel it’s my place to make you & Billie realize you’re on no picnic & to keep yourselves prepared at all times, keep up the Sacraments & God will take care of you.”

Faith takes them beyond the here-and-now and makes them feel part of a continuous, divine existence. Their beliefs include a spiritual presence of their mother, who died before either son entered the service. Bill writes to Dad in January 1943 “Don’t worry, Dad. I pray for Mother every night.” Later that year in August, he writes, “Next week is one year since Mother died. … I just wanted you to know I did not forget, and will go to Mass and Communion in remembrance. I thought you would appreciate knowing.”

Dad similarly remembers and invokes his recently-lost wife. He writes to Jack about Bill, “I really can’t help worrying about him, but I’m sure God & Mother will take care of you both.” Later that same year, he writes again to Jack, “Son, keep the good work up and don’t forget your prayers & confession. Pray for mother & me also.”

While Einstein’s genius may have found the idea of God weak and childish, the Pawley family relied on their faith—their trust in God—to help them meet and overcome the fears and challenges of the war. It was a faith they shared, expressed, and relied on constantly.

Implied

Ignoring the dangers of a world at war (L to R): Jack, Frank Conlin (home on leave one year before being killed-in-action on Iwo Jima), Mary, and Jerry, March 1943.

In Kay Square Press’s latest release, A Philadelphia Family Goes to War, day-to-day life during wartime is exposed in detail; but one interesting feature of the letters is what is not said, what is implied behind the words on the page. The correspondents reach out to each other across thousands of miles in a steady stream of hundreds of letters that take days, sometimes weeks, to arrive; yet, so often they don’t actually say what they mean.

The letters are filled with mundane facts—chatter just to stay in touch: Dad’s stiff shoulder, Bill’s bad feet, Pop Pawley’s fall on the ice. Commonplace information fills the pages: requests for writing paper, pens, razors, and candy; discussion of sports—football, baseball, and boxing—in June 1945, Dad writes, “I guess you know the A’s & Phils are in their usual place (Last place)”; and opinions about movies, radio, and music.

Ignoring the dangers of a world at war: Mary and Jack (home on leave six months after the Normandy D-Day Invasion), October 1944.

The boys at the front lines—Bill in New Guinea and Jack on board the USS Texas—are allowed to tell only a few facts. The censors keep them from giving details; at times, they aren’t even allowed to tell where they are. Thus, details about invasions or battle action are delayed for weeks and months. In June 1944, four days after the D-Day invasion of Normandy, only a form letter drafted by the ship’s chaplain was allowed, which Jack sends to his Dad. The letter mentions “unpleasant sights,” but focuses on successes and camaraderie, not the dangers:

“There have also been many unpleasant sights, but I won’t tell you about those now. At one time, we had 27 enemy prisoners on board…didn’t look like supermen to me. We also had 29 U.S. Army Rangers aboard... Their wounds were treated on board, and only one died…

We have been under attack by enemy planes and glider bombs at night, and have seen many planes go down in flames. There have also been shell splashes in the water fairly close to us … and most of us consider ourselves lucky…

This experience has drawn us closer together on the ship, and has shown us what a fine bunch of ship-mates we have. The Army has praised our shooting, and we are very proud of the knowledge that we have done a good job.”

Ignoring the dangers of a world at war: Bill (home on leave one year before shipping off to New Guinea) and Jerry, March 1943.

When the boys get to describe their experiences at the front, they minimize the danger. In June 1944, from the jungles of New Guinea with the Sixth Army, Bill writes home:

“I am able to tell you only that we are really in it now, things are not as bad as they maybe and as yet our outfit has not seen any Nips but they are not over 2000 yds. away and at nite they come right up to our area. Fox holes and slit trenches are standard accessories with every outfit now. Second nite we were here a Jap plane came over & dropped a few but none were close to us.”

Both letters end with the same phrase, a phrase that the boys send home more than 50 times in their letters: “don’t worry about me.” The words say, don’t worry, but they mean—they imply—that the boys know the family worries constantly! They never really acknowledge the dangers they face; they never acknowledge or give credence to their family’s worries; but the implication is clear: “I know you’re worried about me.”

Similarly, Dad and Mary back home wait anxiously for each letter as a sign that their boys are alive and well while far from home. Neither one ever says, “I think you’ve been wounded or killed when I don’t hear from you.” They write only that it’s been a long time between letters…”haven’t heard from you” is as expressive as they get. They use the phrase frequently, as if the boys couldn’t write often enough. Except on January 31, 1945, when Dad deals with the kind of news that frightens him most; he writes to Jack:

“Last nights Bulletin told me about two sons, one killed one wounded at the same time, the only children of Herb Clark who I worked with for years… Things like this kind of get a fellow down a little, especially when he hasn’t heard from his boys in a long time. But I know that everything is OK. It just has to be!”

Of course, Dad is implying that Herb Clark’s tragedy may be his own any day soon. Yes, it gets “a fellow down,” but he never actually writes the words to describe his fear, he never writes: “you and your brother could be killed at any time.”

Then, in July 1945 as the end of the war feels close, Dad writes to Jack:

“…believe it or not I finally got ambitious & started to do some painting & general fixing. The idea struck me about 10 days ago while listening to the news. ...I got to thinking what a shack to have to come back to & call home. So Result! I got busy, so far I painted the bathroom & the stairs. Well when you start to do a little some­thing it always seems you run into more.”

William J. and Anna D. Pawley on their wedding day, April 1920.

Later in September of that year, after the war is over and Dad is expecting his sons’ return, he adds an explanation of his earlier “ambition,” the implied reason behind his efforts to paint and fix up. He had worked—through his constant, exhaustive letter writing—to hold his family together after losing his wife in August 1942; he makes explicit what he had implied in his earlier letter:

“The most important one for help & encouragement is missing! The home is a big problem for me. I would love to have a home that you & Bill would be proud to come back to but unfortunately I am only a man & not a combina­tion of Mother & Father.”

One thing that is never implied, that is always overtly and directly stated, that closes virtually every letter: a bidding of love. From father, sister, soldier, and Marine; from home, from the office, from aboard ship, and from the jungle; handwritten, typed, and V-mail; the letters all close with “love & kisses,” “love to all,” and “love from all.”

Some things are best communicated through implication; some things are best said directly.

Veterans

© DreamWorks, 1998.

My wife accuses me of loving war movies, as if I watch them only for the excitement. “Dad’s watching another war movie,” she’ll announce to the kids, as if I were mindlessly giving in to some obsession to watch Thin Red Line (1998), Saving Private Ryan (1998), or even an oldie like Paths of Glory (1957).

But when they are well done, war movies tell about the extremes of human experience where a person’s mettle is tested as in no other circumstance. Is there an equal experience to fighting to save one’s own life—literally? Or risking one’s life for others? Or making decisions and taking actions that matter in a life-and-death way—literally? Whether it’s planned actions or spur-of-the-moment reactions, one’s actions and decisions—one’s life—is intensified in war. That’s what I enjoy about well made war movies.

When Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) sits and cries alone—a central moment in Saving Private Ryan—the impact is one of personal struggle to absorb the terrors of war while maintaining focus to lead and lose men on a dangerous, hopeless/hopeful mission. Captain Miller’s moment of emotion underscores his heroism throughout the rest of the movie: he does more than can be expected in leading his men, confronting the enemy, achieving his goal…and in overcoming his fear.

That same intensity of experience is what I see in all real-life veterans that I meet. Look up the word “veteran” in a dictionary or thesaurus and you’ll find that it doesn’t dwell on war or military service; it is about experience, practice, expertise, mastery. When I meet a veteran, I wonder at what they’ve experienced and discovered about themselves; I wonder about their moments of fear and emotion and how they overcame them; I wonder at what they achieved despite their fear. And, of course, I wonder what I would be capable of if I had been put to the same test…

Soldiers clear a bunker in New Guinea, 1944. Bill writes, “you get a little sick & scared & mad as H.”

In Kay Square Press’s latest release, A Philadelphia Family Goes to War (available at Amazon), both boys—one a soldier and one a Marine during World War II—write home about facing and overcoming their fears. While in New Guinea in 1944, Bill writes to his father about the horrors of war and the lure of being home again:

“You see some awful sights, you know we lose men too & when you see some dead boys you know you get a little sick & scared & mad as H. The dead decompose fast here in the heat & rain & it is not a pretty sight to see. You get used to it, but never forget it. Hope this isn’t too gruesome but maybe you can see why it will be nice to be home again where there is nothing to worry about except $$$”

The anti-aircraft fire whitens the water ahead of an incoming kamikaze. Jack writes, “His pendulum-like sway makes him a tough target. Closer and closer he comes…they always look closer. Just when it seems he will prevail, one wing shears off, then the other, he bursts into flames and hits the water in a tumbling splash. There is wild cheering.”

His brother, Jack, a Marine on the battleship USS Texas, writes, too about doing his duty despite his fear. During the battle of Okinawa, the Texas’s anti-aircraft (AA) teams lived and slept at their stations for 50 straight days; on April 6, the Japanese launched an estimated 700 planes—over half of them kamikazes—and exacted a terrible death toll on the US fleet in both lives and ships. When censorship about the battle finally ended in June 1945, Jack wrote his father about the thrill of victory despite being more than scared:

“…my station is still on the AA guns and our gun was one of the three guns who knocked out the particular Jap we got credit for. He was coming very low, heading directly at us, probably a suicide run, when the guns cut both his wings off—was I scared? That isn’t the word for it!”

Jack’s grandson gets a history lesson: standing at his grandfather’s post on the quad 40s anti-aircraft guns on the USS Texas.

In the end, yes, I love war movies…especially when they show what makes our veterans veteran: the experience of overwhelming fear and the exhilaration of overcoming it.

History

Marines from U.S.S. Texas on liberty in Hollywood, CA, December 1, 1944, on their way to fight in the Pacific (l to r): Robert Evans, Jacob Straub, Fred Dunikowski, Jack Pawley.

Attributed to Winston Churchill is an expression that is only generally true: “History is written by the victors.” Certainly writing history is more pleasant and easier when the story is about one’s own victory. Victors focus on each element—their strategies, their decisions, their actions, their virtues—that led to their victories. Maybe that’s why history is often the story of nations, governments, sweeping events and geographies…victors tell their histories grandly.

Other histories are told, too, by other storytellers. History is simply a description of the flow of human experience, supposedly based on facts, in the form of a story. The storyteller selects enough facts from among many to create his/her version of history…and so the storyteller matters; the storyteller’s point of view matters; the storyteller’s agenda matters. For the victor, self-aggrandizement or self-righteousness may be the theme; for the vanquished, defensiveness or conciliation may be the theme; for future generations, explaining/criticizing/rewriting the past to make sense of their present may be the theme. For example, many histories are being told based on a single flow of human experience—stories of the 2016 election…stories of victors and vanquished, stories of monsters and men and women. As readers of history, we hope to decipher the truth.

But at the root of all history are individuals living their individual, daily lives. With publication of our latest title, A Philadelphia Family Goes to War (available now for pre-order), Kay Square Press has compiled a firsthand tale of four such individuals, one family writing firsthand how World War II engulfed them. This is a history of the defining years of the Twentieth Century, told in deeply personal letters from a father to his sons and among two brothers and their sister. This is not a history told with an agenda or theme; from the first letter forward, the correspondents share personal discoveries, losses, worries, hopes, and loves. For three years, the story of those discoveries is traced, in real time, day-by-day, emotion-by-emotion, and battle-by-battle. As readers of history, we hope to recognize the truth.

While much of what they write is plain and mundane, much of it is firsthand observation and reaction to historic events: the invasion of Normandy, the battle for Iwo Jima, the U.S. return to the Philippines, and the racially charged Philadelphia transportation strike. The letters are always surprisingly heartfelt and honest. In their bare honesty, the letters also tell some unsavory or regretful facts. As four correspondents dealing not only with the fear of war, but also with the complete revolution to their way of life, they write things in confidential confidence. Opinions about some family members are, at times, unflattering; some assessments of neighbors are cruel; and in troubled and troubling 1940s America where racism and nationalism were completely unguarded, insensitivities and slurs arise. These aren’t movie-scripted characters invented by a professional; these are real people living in a real world and expressing it from a real 1940’s perspective. As readers of history we hope to understand the truth.

A Philadelphia Family Goes to War is a history by the people as they were living it, about the events as they were happening, in a city and a nation as they were evolving. A Philadelphia Family Goes to War is a true story..

Legacy

A long-time friend of mine has asked me twice over the last few months, very earnestly, “What will our legacy be?” A college friend of his died a few months before, apparently putting this question in his mind; once we’re gone, how will people remember us? He means, of course, once he’s gone, how will people remember him?

My work on Kay Square’s latest book, A Philadelphia Family Goes to War (due out December 7), has opened my eyes about differences among memory, facts, and legacy. In my last blog, Necromancy, I recognized how easily things are lost to memory. Facts soon become long-forgotten, but facts can be found with effort. Facts about my parents are available, facts about my grandparents can be uncovered, facts about my great-grandparents must be dug out, and so on…facts become buried in time.

“Legacy,” however, is different than facts. Legacy is “how” a person is remembered—Einstein is remembered as a genius, Andy Warhol as an avant-garde artist, Abraham Lincoln as a determined leader of great vision. Legacy—at least the way my friend means it— seems to be a boiled-down version of a person’s full life, one’s reputation as the future perceives it. Legacy oftentimes is based on a single fact, if it's based on facts at all. Richard Nixon’s legacy is to be known as the first U. S. President to resign from office, regardless of his diplomacy with China or ending the Viet Nam War; John F. Kennedy’s legacy is to be known as the “assassinated president,” despite having stared down the Russians in Cuba or launching and inspiring the Moon landings.

Sgt. William J. Pawley, Sr.

While compiling the letters for A Philadelphia Family Goes to War, I found many new family facts that led me to a new sense of legacy. My grandfather, in particular, evolved in my perception beyond the facts: he grew up in a poor, tough, Irish-American neighborhood, “the Devil’s Pocket,” in southwest Philadelphia; he held his family together through the Depression and through the War; he supported his wife through her losing battle against tuberculosis; he supported and housed his parents and in-laws through their final days; he served as a Philadelphia policeman for 27 years.

William & Anna Pawley, April 1922.

But his letters—and a few recently discovered facts—belie a certain toughness that the facts suggest. During the war, he writes constantly about attending Mass and receiving the sacraments; he continually advises his sons to do the same. He senses and sends relief based on his faith when he writes to Jack in December 1944, “…keep up the Sacraments & God will take care of you.” He strives to be both mother and father to his family, even as his sons spread across the globe at war; in September 1945, he writes Jack again, “I would love to have a home that you & Bill would be proud to come back to but unfortunately I am only a man & not a combination of Mother & Father.” Surprisingly for a tough guy, my grandfather easily wrote about values, emotions, and faith.

I knew in the 1980s that my father had quit his job when he learned that the company had been falsifying advertising rates; I was very proud of him. I recently learned that my uncle had once quit a political committee when he learned that they were misappropriating funds; I was just as proud of him. But it soon occurred to me that the facts about these two men weren’t coincidental; their character and actions were a concrete expression of their values…values that must have come from, been reinforced by, and now become the legacy of their father, my grandfather: a tough guy who shared and lived his values, emotions, and faith.

I told my friend that the future will create our (his) legacy and he can’t know what it will be. For now, all he can do is know his values, live his values, and let the future make up its mind.

Necromancy

Epinal American Cemetery and Memorial, Dinozé, France.

I had planned to feature a more common word—Obscurity—to make my point this week…but as I grew to understand what I wanted to say, a different, unusual word came to me: Necromancy. Necromancy is the act of communing with the dead. It has black-magic and witchcraft connotations—communing with the dead to tell the future. In Macbeth, for example, the weird sisters commune with the dead to give Macbeth warnings of his impending fate.

But I have been communing with the dead to understand the past, to bring the past out of obscurity. While working on Kay Square’s latest book, A Philadelphia Family Goes to War—due out on December 7—I’ve felt as if I’m communing with the dead…

My work began as editorial work, compiling 433 letters, understanding the cursive, organizing the dates, making sense of vague references. I began to research people, places, and things to make sense of 75-year-old facts. While much of the war is very well documented—battles, politicians, weapons and equipment—the real, regular people seem to be faded into obscurity.

I’ve learned in the letters about families and individuals who made the ultimate sacrifice…but their names never went far beyond the few days or weeks when they died. My father’s photo album from the war years shows several friends and family whose names I’d heard, whose pictures I’d seen, but whose lives are faded into obscurity.

That’s when the dead began to commune with me…necromancy. Sometimes it was information in the letters, or in enclosed news clippings, or in other old documentation that I tracked down; they told me the stories of brief lives and great sacrifice, of great holes created in families, and how the world quickly (and innocently) forgot and moved on.

The dead have told me about:

William Callen, circa 1942.

• William Callen: A first cousin to my father, Bill married Eleanor Adams in June 1942; they lived in Camden, NJ and he worked at the New York Shipbuilding Company until he entered the Army in December 1942. He rose to the rank of sergeant in the 100th Division. During an assault on a German-held town in eastern France, he led his squadron’s attack on a machine gun emplacement and was killed in action, November 20, 1944. Originally buried in the Epinal American Cemetery, Dinozé in northeast France, his body was returned and interred June 18, 1948 in the Beverly National Cemetery, Beverly, NJ.

Albert & Alice Callen, May 20, 1942.

• Albert F. Callen Jr.: Bill’s brother and a first cousin to my father, Al married Alice Marietta Keck in May 1942. As a Coxswain in the US Coast Guard, Al was wounded in Leyte, the Philippines and qualified for a medical discharge, April 11, 1945. But he requested permission to remain in action and was reassigned to Okinawa. While waiting for transport, he was crushed beneath an overturned truck and died April 29, 1945. Originally buried in the Tacloban Cemetery in the Philippines, his body was returned and interred June 18, 1948 next to his brother in the Beverly National Cemetery, Beverly, NJ.

Mary Costello and Francis P. Conlin Jr.

• Francis P. Conlin Jr.: Frank was my uncle’s best friend growing up and was a good friend to (and admired by) my father. He enlisted in the Marine Corps at the age of 20 soon after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and trained as a Marine paratrooper. In early 1944, the Marines disbanded their paratroopers…to Frank’s great disappointment. He transferred to the Fleet Marine Force (the guys who “hit the beaches”) and was sent into action in the Pacific in August. On March 10, 1945, Frank was killed in action on Iwo Jima at the age of 23.

Leo Strong in his formal service portrait, 1944.

• Leo Strong: Leo was a neighborhood friend who corresponded regularly with the Pawleys. He served in the U.S. Navy as a gunner in a dive-bomber. While in training in Virginia in 1944, he met up with my father and “the Swabbie” and the Marine toured the town drinking and dancing with southern belles; that was the last time my father saw his friend. Seventeen months later, Leo was killed just after the war had ended when his plane crashed in a non-combat mission in the Pacific.

There are many other names and other photographs that I’ve yet to hear about…maybe the dead will continue to commune with me, to give up more secrets about the past, to help me pull brave, dear people out of obscurity through necromancy.

Letters

“The medium is the message.”
                          Marshall McLuhan in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

His concept was revolutionary when McLuhan wrote it in 1964: the medium is just as important, maybe even more important, than the contents. The way we communicate is equal to what we communicate. I have found this to be true in compiling the archive of letters to be published this December, A Philadelphia Family Goes to War. Of the hundreds of compiled letters, 70% of them are the original handwritten sheets—ephemera that has been stored and protected for approximately 75 years.

There is nothing equal to the medium of a handwritten letter: the tactile, private, personal connection of holding the sheet; seeing the scrawl of ink or pencil; noting the corrections, marks, and stains across the pages. The physical sheets—the medium—tell stories of their own; the sheets tell of dedicated hours committed to writing, reading, and re-reading; the feeling and styles of the paper hint at the writers’ situations; the scrawl of ink reflects the emotions at the moments of composition.

Among the contents of the letters are details of history and mundane minutiae. Mary manages her baby brother’s love life; Billie guides both his sister’s and brother’s decisions about school, jobs, and marriage; Dad cautiously disburses bad news about family war dead and missing. But the letters—even when you don’t know the correspondents—tell their own tales:

• In January 1945, Mary begins writing her brothers on writing paper brightly embossed with red and green roses, likely a Christmas gift in 1944…she runs out of the paper by March.

• For 18 months, Mary works at Strawbridge & Clothier—one of the major department stores in the Philadelphia area at the time—and frequently uses S&C stationery when writing from her desk.

• Both brothers ask Mary to send writing paper, pens, and stamps…all at a premium at the front. Jack complains “Have been doing quite a bit of writing lately but have to use this darned station­ary. It's so thick and rough. Can't wait until the stuff Mary sent arrives.”

• Billie, stationed close to the front in New Guinea, writes on a variety of scraps of paper, often scribbling his letters in pencil from fox holes and slit trenches.

• Jack, a Marine stationed on the battleship USS Texas, writes on gold-embossed ship’s stationery in a manner his father calls, “beautiful pen­manship and very neat.”

• Dad writes thick, dense, detailed letters beginning with the date and time when he sits to write, describing breakfasts, dinners, food prices, family updates…committed to staying in touch with his sons.

• From the harbor at Leyte, Philippines, from the deck of the USS Texas, Jack pauses his writing as the ink is smudged by rain: “(Excuse rain drops, it just started so I came below).” But his struggles below deck continue, “Boy, it's really hot below here, so the next smudges you'll probably see will be perspiration...”

• Similarly, Billie in a letter notes with arrows in two places where he has smudged the ink; “Tears!” he explains in a side-note.

Importantly, even when the contents of the letters are mundane, receiving letters held enormous value to all the correspondents. Over a quarter of the letters mention the excited expectation of waiting for mail call at the front or the mailman back home. Participating in the invasion of Hollandia in New Guinea in the spring of 1944, Billie writes to Dad that he doesn’t know what could be more important than mail to a GI so far from home. In one letter, he writes:

“The mail has been quite meager for over 2 wks. Guess all this action at Hollandia has something to do with it, probably need the space for something more important than mail tho I don't know what it could be, mail means more than food or medicine to keep a guy going.”

The content usually didn’t matter, because the medium—the handwritten letter—was enriched with unique connections that were best appreciated when touched.

Discovery

The story lay dormant for 15 years; it had bubbled for three years of everyday activity, paused, was tucked into a box, and left at the bottom of a back-room closet. Then in 1960, my grandfather’s rowhome in southwest Philadelphia was damaged in a fire—the neighbor’s boy had been playing with matches and set the house next door in flames. That house was destroyed and the fronts of several houses in the row had been damaged. The front of my grandfather’s house, both upstairs and down, was destroyed forcing him temporarily into an apartment.

Salvaging what he could, he discovered the box at the bottom of a closet in the back, unused bedroom: 433 letters that he and his children had shared during World War II. Sheet after sheet of familiar script on post cards, onionskin, formal stationery, V-Mail, even scraps of paper…letters that had kept his family—my family—connected over three years of war, across two oceans, on four continents, and across 14,000 miles.

But the story began before that…the story began in 1938 when my grandmother at 38 years-of-age was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The family—daughter, Mary; older son, Billie; and the “baby” (my father), Jack—was pulled close together as they supported her through her illness. For more than three years, she was in and out of hospitals, where my grandfather visited her every day (children were allowed visits only on Sundays), until she died on August 31, 1942. The family had developed a closeness that was then tested by the War—the nation needed men to fight Imperialism in the Pacific and Nazism in Europe…and this Philadelphia family responded.

The correspondents, left to right: William J. Pawley, Sr.; Mary Pawley McCauley; William J. Pawley, Jr. (Billie); and John P. Pawley (Jack).

Within two months of losing his mother, Billie enlisted in the Army and was inducted in New Cumberland, PA, where on Thanksgiving night, November 26, 1942, he wrote the first letter that was tucked away in that box. Importantly, he was honest in his writing: “Have plenty of company here, about 5,000 buddies, all of them just as dumb as I about Army life.” Thus begins the story of this Philadelphia family going to war. A little more than a year later on December 17, 1943, Jack—at 17 years-of-age—sends his first post card home as he heads off to Marine Corps training; he naively writes, “What a train ­ride!!!”

The “ride” from that first letter forward is one of personal discovery: worry, dedication, bravery, patience, persistence, hopefulness, tragedy, loss, and love. For three years, the story of that ride is traced, day-by-day and battle-by-battle, in their from-the-heart collection of letters. My grandfather and Aunt Mary wrote about many things, but always optimistically about waiting to welcome their boys back home; the boys wrote what they could—censorship limited the details—but they always closed their letters with the hollow admonition: “Don’t worry about me.”

This collection of letters—and peek into history—is due out this December: A Philadelphia Family Goes to War. It is a personal story filled with daily life, intense worry, high hopes, and history: the collected letters of four Philadelphians during World War II, two who waited at home for the safe return of their boys: one a soldier and one a Marine.

Business

"Have you ever seen a lioness devour her cub?...Save your heart for love and use your brain for business." Dwight Schrute, in The Office (2005-2013).

The idea of “business” seems to have fooled many people, because cleverly hidden at its core is a single guiding principle and goal: profit. Business’s goal is profit. Manufacture something to distribute it at a profit; coordinate an array of goods to sell them at a profit; provide a service for a profit. Business succeeds or fails on that sole principle: profit. The goal of any action tells everything: what people will do, say, and jeopardize is defined by the goal…with this clear principle in mind, business easily takes on the personae that Dwight refers to above: business is a cold, profit-driven affair.

In conducting business, companies spend billions marketing themselves and their products as something personal: you will be happier, you will be healthier, you will have more time, you will be more successful…with our product or service. “Buy and benefit!” they say. To be fair, I am a big consumer and I feel happy to be happier, healthier, etc. because of my purchases. But my personal happiness is only a small item in the process, a by-product along the seller’s road to success. The mantra from The Godfather (1972) is correct, it’s not personal, it’s just business.

“Even the shooting of your father was business, not personal, Sonny!” Tom Hagen to Sonny Corleone, in The Godfather.

In today’s world, a new business has evolved—still cleverly fooling us and hiding its goal: personal information. This form of business clearly fools people, as it arose and evolved and succeeded in plain sight.  We all “reviewed” the privacy contracts and agreed to them…but who foresaw the insidious nature and universal scope of this business?  Google seems free; Facebook seems free; LinkedIn and Twitter and Instagram seem free, but they come at a price.  Apps on your cellular device seem free, but they come at a price. Allegedly beneficial services track everything about us and sell it to any bidder…because the business goal is profit. The charm and intimacy and “friends” of Facebook are a by-product of the business…the interactions may feel personal, but it’s all business. That business and its profit are insidiously based not on selling to you…they are based on selling you to the bidders.

Even after their methods have been revealed, even after Congressional testimonies and multimillion-dollar fines, we’ve all read and agreed to their “new & improved” privacy statements as a way to feel personally protected. Nevertheless, the last shards of privacy are gone and the selling continues at a profit.

“Ethically,” businesses are committed to creating profits for the owners—private or public. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) oversees that process for the public sector, and professes “to protect investors; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation….to help [investors] secure their futures, pay for homes, and send children to college.” But there is little to no spoken consideration of the quality of product or service, integrity to the customer, or rights of the employees. All too often, business ethics end with the commitment to profits. As investors, we like the profit side of the balance sheet; but as customers and employees, even as private citizens, we’ve learned, “There is the no balance to the balance sheet.” Let’s not be foolish about that.

Courtesy

When I began this blog 91 entries and 26 months ago, I hoped to find a sense of relevance despite the facts around me: the world continues to rush through changes by super-sized leaps, some great improvements, some great disappointments. I work hard to keep up with the improvements, but I am terrified of the disappointments, the backsliding that seems to be overtaking us.

Core to my interaction with people—all people—is what used to be called “common courtesy.” I was treated with courtesy and taught courtesy throughout my youth: things were explained, requests were made, even corrections were given with a sense of shared respect. People listened to me as much as they expected me to listen to them. Articles in magazines and newspapers, television and radio shows, people on the street and on the phone…courtesy was common to them all. Not that we all agreed or gave in all the time…but disagreements became a discourse and true loggerheads required persuasion! Mad Magazine was as outrageous as behavior got: Mad Magazine was daringly impolite!

But common courtesy has “backslid” to become completely uncommon. Some burning need to be aggressive and to act superior to others has driven widespread attacks at any target at any opportunity. Trump’s Twitter attacks on people or institutions are crude, but met with equally insensitive, vulgar, or even libelous verbal attacks. Roseanne Barr’s infamous tweet was ignorant, but met with tremendous venom, the cruelty of which often surpassed the original ignorance. Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant and the response was both self-righteous “moral superiority” on one side and caustic outrage on the other. Recently, a member of Congress said that opposition to Trump’s immigration policy should be delivered as “public harassment.”

Even away from the spotlight of fame, every day on Facebook or Twitter I see torrents of angry, racist, mean-spirited, dangerous commentary. Post even a mild-mannered opinion and chances are someone will attack it. Online news headlines often feature reports/photos/videos of intolerant people demonstrating their worst behavior…only to become quickly “viral” with volumes of venomous, self-righteous commentary both in defense and opposition. Anger generates anger, insults stimulate insults, “our” self-righteousness is opposed by “their” self-righteousness!

Yet I know that courtesy gets us so much further than harassment or defiance. Some will shout me down; the kind ones will say, “Naïve and irrelevant!” and the rude ones will shout, “Ignorant! Stupid! Shut up!” But at the heart of courtesy is simple respect—not always agreement or acceptance, but a basic respect that acknowledges other’s needs, other’s ideas, other’s opinions. Courtesy assumes a sense of equality between and among all people, and meets them with sensible behavior. Especially when there is disagreement or unacceptance, courtesy is usually the best bridge.

As a perfect example, on June 10 at the Tony Awards, Robert DeNiro used his fame to shout an obscenity at President Donald Trump; most, if not all, of the audience stood to applaud. But I’m convinced it accomplished nothing…DeNiro’s attitude toward the President is well known and the vulgarity of his anger simply generated anger: DeNiro supporters were reminded of their anger, and Trump supporters were angry with DeNiro. Shortly later and in sharp contrast, when Tony Shalhoub was named the year’s Best Leading Actor In A Musical, he took the stage to deliver an eloquent message against Trump’s policies—without ever mentioning Trump’s name. He delivered a strong, positive lesson about his father's immigration while remaining courteous to his audience, respectful to the Tony Awards and to the nation. DeNiro got all the headlines, but viral venom flooded the internet pro and con for days; conversely,  Shalhoub’s courteous message met ignorance with intelligence, blindness with vision, hatred with love. I’m convinced that Shalhoub used his two-minutes to raise us up, to bypass our anger, maybe even to think for a moment. That’s what courtesy can do.

Sons

Every father is a son; while it is an obvious fact, I understood it anew in 2013. That year, I had a run-up to Father’s Day that tangled the two ideas. It began when my son phoned me about 10 days before his expected college graduation. He was terribly sick—a 104° fever had him vomiting continually—but he was required to show his final project for film class the next day: show it or don’t complete the course in time to graduate. His advisor also surprised him with a question about being one credit short for graduation…I told my son that I’d be there in the morning. At 8:00 a.m. I was in the car headed to New York; at 10:00 I was on the phone with his counselor; at 11:00 I was with my son; at 6:00 we walked to the Heimbold Center and showed his film; and at 6:20 a gaggle of students applauded the film. I drove home at about 8:00 p.m., crawling in Friday-night G.W. Bridge traffic, wondering, “Is this what it means to be a father?”

Suddenly, I was playing in my head a scene of my youth: my father called an 8-year-old me into the kitchen and asked sternly,  “Did you take soda from Harry’s Market?” I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. “No!” I said. My brother had just come from Harry’s Market where the owner had told him a story about how I tried to steal a case of soda! My brother was appropriately shocked and came home with the news. My father took me at my word—the truth—and loaded me into the car. “I don’t want Harry making these accusations!” my father said to me and anyone else who might hear him. My father led me to the store counter where Harry stood. “Is this the boy you saw stealing the soda?!?” my father demanded.

“I didn’t see him, it was my son who saw him,” he answered.

“Get your son!” my father demanded next.

The son was soon in front of us to recount and recant his story to say that it was a boy “who looked like” me…but it wasn’t me. My father was livid. He turned to Harry. “You accused my son in front of my other boy’s friends! You’d better get your facts straight next time,” he said. “You can steal my money, but don’t steal my good name!” my father paraphrased Shakespeare’s Iago…he always had a quote ready to make his point.

All I knew was that my father had been a warrior on my behalf that day and I liked to think that I’d been the same for my son.

Ten days later when my son graduated, we went to a celebratory dinner in White Plains. For the daily special, the server announced the seasonal soft-shelled crabs, my father’s favorite dish. Being a good son, to honor my father on my son’s big night, of course, I ordered the soft-shelled crabs and ate them with relish.

Perspectives

My Uncle Bill in the Philippines, September 1945.

I’ve been compiling letters from World War II that will become the collection, A Philadelphia Family Goes to War, for release in December. I am repeatedly surprised how their sincerity and truthfulness are so noble that they seem stereotyped, they seem clichéd by today’s standards. We read them from a 21st Century perspective and doubt or miss or question their reality.

I have approximately 500 letters—post cards, V-mail, form letters, and beautifully handwritten letters from November 1942 through November 1945—which chronicle my family’s experience of World War II. They are unedited letters among a father (my grandfather) and his daughter at home in Philadelphia and his sons—a Marine and a soldier, off to war around the world. While much of what they write is plain and mundane, much of it is so heartfelt and honest that it surprises me. These aren’t movie-scripted characters from the pen of a professional storyteller; these are real people seeing the real world and expressing it very differently than we do today…from a 1940’s perspective.

My Uncle Bill in training at Camp San Luis Obispo, March 1942.

My Uncle Bill joined the U.S. Army early in 1942 and soon found himself in what he calls “a Military Police (MPs) outfit” stationed in the Philippines and New Guinea. Over his last year of service, he was stationed “in back of the infantry” at the front and saw terrifying episodes of war, suffering, and endurance. His letters are frank, but today’s readers might mistake them for cliché. To his father, he writes:

June 23, 1944
Dear Dad,
Dad don't let anyone tell you that MP's are non-combatants. Our men go right up with the doughboys & stay up there. Our area is, of course, in back of the infantry but if you have read about the Japs you know how they are experts at infiltration. Night before last 4 came up to about 100 yds of my bed. The boys in the dugouts shot one of them in the legs with a B.A.R. and then he held a hand grenade to his own chest & finished the job. I saw him next morning & altho it was the bloodiest, rottenest mess I've ever seen or want to see, I felt no sickness.

Later in 1945, his 6th Division set a record for continuous time in combat: 110 days straight. Again, his simple honesty comes across as glib. To his brother, he writes:

May 7, 1945
Dear Jack,
Yes, Jack, we broke all records for a division in combat but to tell you the truth those doughboys don't give a damn for records or ribbons. You should see some of those kids who were up there for 110 days, they look like old men, tired eyes like dead men, dirty as hell, little cuts become ulcers from the filth & flies, every scratch becomes infected from lack of a good diet & no resistance.

Uncle Bill on duty with “his buddy,” Sgt. Bader, New Guinea, May 1944.

As the war slowly heads toward its end, my uncle is charged with guarding the relatively few Japanese prisoners who surrender. He tells how the prisoners are completely unprepared for capture because they had been taught to die first, in part based on “the untruths they are taught about Americans’ treatment of prisoners.” He writes to his father of the mistaken prisoners and the nobility of the U.S. “doughboys.”

June 22, 1945
Dear Dad,
I am surprised to see how many Japs are surrendering. We have had over 1000 prisoners now since we've been overseas. This is not much considering the way the Germans gave up but then you can't compare them. The Nip is a good soldier & is plenty tough but he starts to wonder if he is right about the Americans when he sees the treatment he is given when captured & especially when wounded. We have one here a Jōtōhei  [Superior Private] who speaks English quite well (a rarity) & he is really disgusted with himself for believing all the stuff his superiors told him about us & the way we torture a captive. I doubt if any of them would try to escape if given a chance. I saw one in N.G. who was pretty bad & lost a lot of blood, he was lying in a field hospital beside a doughboy. The Nip needed a blood transfusion in the worst way & the doughboy said to take some of his. That Jap cried for two days & nites. He couldn't get over it. The doughboy was hit himself. Oh well that's good old G.I. Joe for you. Everybody's a buddy when he's down and out.

On this Memorial Day Weekend, I will probably watch some war movies…I used to think of them as entertaining clichés; but I’m changing my perspective. I’m learning that life—especially during intense times—offers many surprising perspectives.

Motherhood

Is there anything more comforting...?

With Mother’s Day only a few days away, naturally my thoughts turn to my mother—like everyone’s thoughts, I assume, turn to their mother. Naturally, too, my thoughts turn to the mother of my children, my wife, whose motherhood is certainly a blessing for me, almost as much as it is for my children…maybe more, but in a different way.

At the same time, I importantly differentiate between “mother” and “motherhood.” Technically, “mother” is someone who has given birth to a child…the result of an act; but motherhood is a continual state of being that encompasses physical, emotional, spiritual, psychic, even surreal benefits. Motherhood is an amazement: someone who both gives you life and then sacrifices her own to see that your life is safe, joyous, and successful. Real motherhood is a special quality, like my father’s idea about heroism: doing more than one’s duty, more than what’s expected…all for the love of one’s child. Motherhood creates otherworldly happenings: the mother who senses across the miles an injury to her child; the mother who lifts a car off her child; the mother who works multiple jobs or goes nights without sleep or risks her life for the benefit of her child. Real motherhood ineffably links lives to one another.

I frequently hear stories that horrify me about women who don’t have that special quality of motherhood despite being, technically, mothers. Women whose children suffer or long for the love, strength, support, and sacrifices of motherhood. I hear reports about criminals, rapists, murderers who hated their mothers or never knew them…and I compassionately think, “Without the benefits of a mother’s love, how could anyone prosper, even survive?” Yet I also hear stories about people who prosper despite their mothers’ shortcomings or the early loss of their mothers; I pityingly think, “How could they have succeeded without a mother’s love to buoy them up?”

I fear that a blog about Mother’s Day will be too trite, too corny…because the quality of motherhood is too essential to be evaluated, too precious to be defined. The racks in card stores are filled with trite, corny, pretentious cards trying to express the inexpressible…in 1976 in her Saturday Night Live monologue, Madeline Kahn explained it simply: “There just doesn’t seem to be any way to repay…my mother gave me birth…and I gave her a scarf!”

My mother in the midst of her motherhood.

Because in my life, the motherhood that my mother provided me was as essential as food, as life-sustaining as water. Yes, she gave me birth, and then she gave me love and faith and knowledge and security and understanding...she nursed me through illness, coached me through dating, helped me through school, hugged me through disappointment, praised me for success, and encouraged me through failure. Of course, she wasn’t looking for repayment because there isn’t any…even though we all keep trying.

Of a million stories I could tell, one is clearest: I visited my mother in the hospital at the end of her battle with cancer. As I was preparing to leave for the night, I said to her, “I love you.” She replied, “I love you, too.” Only as a tease, I asked her, “Do you really? Are you sure?” She simply but very emphatically answered, “Oh, yes, I’m sure.” As I walked to my car I realized that I was sure, too; a certainty I’ve relied upon my whole life.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms whose motherhood is an amazement!