On this Veteran’s Day, I am going to exercise my executive privilege as author of this blog and write not about driving but about my Dad, a World War II veteran who will be 92 in January. (OK, since this blog is supposed to be about driving, I will acknowledge that Dad taught me to drive when I was a teen, and move on.)
I am the proud son of Kenneth Hollister, United States Navy (Retired). Dad served in the Pacific during 1944-45 on the Revenge, a mine sweeper. We believe he is the last surviving member of his ship. The Revenge would have been the lead mine sweeper in the invasion of Tokyo Harbor in September 1945 had the war not ended two weeks earlier after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thank you, President Truman.
After the war, Dad continued in the Naval Reserve for more than twenty years, retiring with the rank of Commander (thus providing his family with a lifelong nickname). Of course, Dad has many stories from the war, including having his appendix removed on a hospital ship — during a typhoon.
Some of my earliest memories as a child are going to with my parents to the Brooklyn Navy Yard during its glory days in the early 1960’s, when the Officers Club sported dark-paneled wood, bright red carpeting, and a not-insignificant supply of alcohol. I was usually dressed in sailor suit. And I vividly remember my 5th birthday party, which occurred in the state room of a submarine docked at the Navy Yard; you think I was popular with my neighborhood buddies that day?! And I cannot neglect the health benefits that my Dad (and while she was alive, my Mom) received because Dad was a veteran. Notwithstanding what we read today about the Veterans Administration, the health care my Dad has received as a retired Navy man has been extraordinary.
Dad now lives in a retirement community in Rye, New York. A few years ago, when folks there learned that he was a World War II veteran and that he still owned his uniform, they asked if he would put it on and pose for the camera. The result was the photo above, which has always struck me not only as a photo of an old sailor whose uniform still fits, but also an iconic representation of the truism that sailors and soldiers age, but they rarely lose that pride in serving their country. You can see it in Dad’s eyes.
Aye, Aye, Sir.
