Watch Your Back, Jack

My dad enlisted in the Navy on his 17th birthday. He ran away from home at age 14, lied about his age and signed up for the Marines, but his mama tracked him down and dragged him home by the ear. He was terrified that the war would be over before he had a chance to get his licks in. As it turned out, he got plenty of licks in; he was one of the first men to land at Okinawa and spent 82 days under fire. He saw some shit, I tell you. But, that's not the story I'm telling today.

My dad's brother L.E. was a bonafide war hero, awarded the Silver Star for actions in the line of duty on the day the USS Franklin was shot out from under him. He used to say that he went swimming that day. Sometime after that incident, he received a serious head wound which resulted in what we now know as traumatic brain injury. He returned from the war suffering from grand mal seizures and a serious lack of impulse control, particularly when he was drinking. He drank alot. But, that's not the story I'm telling today, either.

After my dad completed basic training, he boarded a troop train headed for Treasure Island, where he was to embark for the Pacific Theater. The train stopped over at Chicago's Union Station, which must have been an awe-inspiring sight to a 17 year old boy who had never been out of Alabama. As he and the other recruits struggled to keep up with their platoon leader while gawking at the grandeur, my dad heard his name broadcast over the public address system: "Private Elbert Eugene Smith, please come to the information desk. Private Elbert Eugene Smith, please come to the information desk." My dad couldn't believe it; here he was, a teenage kid from Alabama, being publicly paged in Union Station. He ran up to his platoon leader and said "that's me! That's me! They're calling me! I have to go to the Information Desk!" The platoon leader was skeptical but finally relented. "OK kid, but be back here in 10 minutes or I'll hunt you down myself." Dad took off like greased lightning, running through the vaulted corridors until he found the information desk. Leaning on the counter, flirting with the female announcer, handsome, cocky, his hat tilted over one eye, there was L.E.

Dad couldn't believe it; how had L.E. known he was there? Turns out L.E. had just gotten off the phone with their sister in Anniston, who told him that dad was passing through Union Station that day. L.E. took a chance, had him paged, and the rest is history.

They could only talk for a second before dad had to get back to his squad, but he always remembered, and often repeated, the last thing L.E. said to him: "Be careful out there kid; they're shooting live bullets." With that, L.E. gave him one of those utterly confident American GI smiles and walked off into the crowd. Dad didn't see him again until after the war. L.E. was not the same man after his injury so, for all intents and purposes, that was the last time my dad really saw him.

My pathetic problems at work pale in comparison to what these men saw and suffered, but I thought of this story today when I got mowed down by management. If I could speak to my colleagues at the Art Farm, I'd tell them what L.E. told my dad: "Be careful out there, kids; they're shooting live bullets."