Veterans Day

November 11, 2024, at home

On Veterans Day today (November 11, 2024), I honor my father, who served 22 years in the Navy on active duty and in the reserves. Here he is in 1958 at age 24, when he was stationed in Hawaii.

My mother worked for the Navy as a civilian.

My dad retired at the rank of Commander, about three months away from earning the rank of Captain. After more than two decades, he had enough and decided to retire from the military.

Dad also served aboard a ship in the late 1950s, transporting displaced persons (delayed pilgrims, as he called them) after World War II multiple times from Bremerhaven, Germany, to New York City.

Soon after his death in 1997 at age 62, some of his ashes were scattered from a Navy ship into the North Atlantic Ocean, where, as he had told me, he spent one of the best times of his life.

The remainder of his ashes were interred at Breslau Cemetery in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York. (Lindenhurst was formerly named Breslau after the city in Germany.)

Dad requested that his ashes be mixed with the ashes of his favorite dog Ludwig, which were in a metal can as the only thing Dad ever kept in his large metal safe which was never locked. (We didn't do that.)

Dad would take Ludwig to work with him at his insurance and real estate office in Lindenhurst, the town where he grew up. Every weekday morning, my dad would get the dog a buttered roll and a cup of coffee with sugar and milk. Two things an already jittery dachshund definitely did NOT need were sugar and caffeine.