“What Did You Do in the War, Daddy” was not only a middling 1966 comedy movie, but also the occasional subject of lunchtime conversation among baby boomer students about their fathers.
The dads of many of my fellow students, after all, had served in World War II or the Korean War.
I knew my father had served in World War II and had been stationed in the South Pacific. But that was about the extent of my knowledge.
Oh, the subject of the war came up at home occasionally, and once or twice one of his fellow soldiers blew through town for a brief visit. We also knew he’d married our mother shortly before being shipped overseas and that the oldest child among our five siblings had been born while he was away.
But what he did specifically, what his life was like while over there, whether he ever saw action, how he felt about the war, what it was like without his wife and son were questions I never asked. And, like many who served, he was not one to bring up the subject on his own.