Water Tender First Class Eugene Patrick McGarrigle

[tmcg]

I was trying to think all day yesterday what I could write about my dad's experience in the Philippines in World War II. I'm his only voice now. Well, me and my mom. I keep thinking someday I'll rise to that privilege, but I keep shying away from it. Anyway, he never talked much about war as war. All he told us were the funny stories. Some of them were horrific, like the guy sleeping near him who woke up screaming and stabbing a man's head repeatedly with his knife, and it turned out to be a coconut that had fallen onto his mosquito netting. Some of them were deeply ironic in a Joseph Heller way. Most of them were just plain funny. I know he saw some terrible stuff; and he had some hard experiences growing up itinerant during the Depression, and he never hesitated to tell us those stories, so I think he buried a lot of what he experienced in that war so deep that he didn't even go there anymore. I don't know how he felt about his service to his country. He said he enlisted when he was seventeen, because he was tall and could pass for eighteen and he didn't want to get drafted into the army or the marines; he wanted to go into the navy, because they had showers. I don't know what he thought about the war he fought in. I wish I could ask him. Then again, he was a Big Fish kinda guy. He'd only weave more tales of the past he created as much through telling it as having lived it.

So, basically, I'm just going to post a picture:

Comments

[cussedness.livejournal.com]

My Mama's eight brothers all served in World War II and only two of them would actually sit and talk about it, usually after having a few beers. The nice one would tell the funny stories. The odd one would tell the disturbing ones, the scary stories. I still remember some of them, but not nearly enough of them. I wish I had written them down before they died.

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Write down the ones you remember! I've got to do that, too.

Interesting, but not suprising, I suppose, that only two of eight would talk about their experience.