Beech Tree News Network

I’ve told you before that there was never any love lost between Garey’s dad, J.D., and me.  I didn’t like the fact that he was so disrespectful to Garey’s mom, Aggie, and I really didn’t like the fact that he treated the rest of us like we were idiots.

In later years, Aggie, Garey and Charlotte deferred to the fact that J.D. had fought in WWII and probably suffered from PTSD.  J.D. talked little with his wife and kids about his time in the service.  Most of the information came from relatives or friends.  From his uncle, Garey learned that his dad had fought in the Battle of the Bulge, a bloody six-week battle fought in December 1944 to January 1945. (The Americans suffered 75,000 casualties during that battle.)  From his cousin, Garey learned that most of J.D.’s fellow soldiers were killed during the fight, and he was separated from his unit, hiding and living off the land until he was able to join another unit.

I understand that J.D. had PTSD, but I knew other men who fought in that war and saw horrific things but didn’t return home to treat their family members badly.  Garey’s Uncle Leon had been one of the American servicemen who freed the prisoners from concentration camps.  He watched in horror as the living skeletons surrounded the soldiers to thank them for their freedom.  Uncle Leon was one of the kindest men I have ever known.  In my book, J.D. had no excuse.  Until he did.

You learn a lot while excavating other people’s lives—especially those people who are no longer here.  While I was cleaning out one corner of Aggie’s and J.D.’s basement, I discovered a large metal lard can.  Inside the can was a car radio.  Under the car radio was a small green bag.  Inside the green bag were relics from J.D.’s time in the army.  There was a German hunting knife, German playing cards, several foreign coins, a sewing kit, black and white photos of J.D. and his army buddies, and a wallet that contained a buffalo nickel and a picture of a woman I didn’t recognize.  There were also pictures of a funeral.  Two flower wreaths in the foreground contained ribbons that read MY DARLING ANGEL and GIRLFRIEND.

A neighbor of Garey’s grandmother had told a fourteen-year-old Garey that J.D. had lost the woman he loved while he was serving in Europe.  Garey told me the story years ago.  I wondered if the picture in the wallet was of this same woman.  I didn’t think anymore about it until a couple of days later, when our daughter, Natalie, came to help us in our efforts to get the house and its contents ready for an estate sale.  She began cleaning off a bookshelf that had a small storage area at the bottom.  She pulled out notepads, pens, Readers Digests, and other miscellany, when she discovered a small black cardboard box.  She handed it to me.  I opened it.  It was a time capsule.

There were black and whites of J.D. and the girl in the wallet.  There was a letter from the army, denying J.D.’s request for a furlough, a letter from a German girl, and a letter from a neighbor back home.  The letter was dated November 16, 1945.  It was from the mother of the girl in the photo.  It opened with: “Dear J.D., I have been trying to write to you for several days, but I just couldn’t get myself together enough to write.  J.D., Margie had to leave us, she died Friday, November 9th, 15 till 6 in the evening.”

The mother goes on to write about her daughter’s suffering.  Margie had been in the hospital under an oxygen tent for eleven days.  She had received four blood transfusions to offset the bleeding from her nose, mouth and eyes.  The diagnosis was Acute Lupus Erythematosus Dissemenatus.  “The doctor said there isn’t any cure for that disease,” she wrote.  She tried to encourage J.D.  “I don’t know anything about you all’s plans,” she wrote, “But don’t let it get you down, for you have a mother and dad to come back to that need you.”  She closes with, “Be a good boy,” and signs her name.

My sister, Marsha, once wrote, “War doesn’t listen to eighteen-year-old boys.”  J.D. was nineteen at the time.  War doesn’t listen to nineteen-year-old boys either.  I remember being 19.  I can’t imagine being dropped off in the middle of a war zone at that age.  Add to that, losing the one you had planned to spend your life with, not even getting the chance to say goodbye, and I don’t understand how you would even manage to get out of bed in the mornings.

J.D. did as Margie’s mom encouraged him to do.  He came home to his mom and dad, picked up the pieces and went on.  He married Agnes, then built a life with her, their children, and the ghosts from a war he did not start.  The story was hidden in a small box for nearly 80 years.  

“The true measure of a man isn’t what he reveals to the world, but what he hides from it (Andre Mairaux).