Ten Years Gone

By Tom Poland
November 15, 2013 

Led Zeppelin gave us great songs. One, Ten Years Gone By, is on my mind this week and for me it speaks to a place I cannot let go of, a place I call Memory. I’m never gonna leave you. I never gonna leave. Holdin’ on, ten years gone. Ten years gone, holdin’ on, ten years gone …

I’ve been holding on to memories of Dad since 2003 and man did the years go by fast. Ten years cannot fade one special memory. I am home from Columbia, a surprise. He sees my car in the drive and bursts through the den door. His blue sparkle and he breaks into a wonderful smile. Hey Tom!

I sure miss moments like that. The little moments mean more than the Christmases and days we think loom large. At least they do to me.

Ten years gone … It was ten years ago, four days past Veteran’s Day, November 15, 2003 that my dad lost his heroic fight with cancer. He was a veteran in two senses. He had fought the battle of his life against an undefeatable foe, cancer, and he had served in Japan as an occupying soldier.

Dad was an Atomic Veteran, that’s where his cancer came from in part. He journeyed to Japan on a troop carrier out of Seattle in Operation Downfall, the Allied plan to invade Japan. Somewhere along the way, two atom bombs brought Japan to its knees, and some 200,000 would-be invaders, my father among them, occupied Japan instead. Had we not dropped the bomb he would have invaded Japan, and he may not have returned at all. Had that happened I might not be here nor would this column nor would seven other special people.

Had The United States invaded the Land of the Rising Sun as it did at Normandy I am sure we would have a cemetery there for the men who lost their lives and maybe the man who would have been my father would lie there in eternal rest. It didn’t turn out that way though. Still, because my father’s death and Veteran’s Day come close together, I often think of where he could have chosen to be buried: in a national cemetery. What majestic yet emotional places they are.

Perhaps you recall the opening scenes to Saving Private Ryan. No one can watch Harrison Young’s portrayal of the present-day James Francis Ryan and maintain composure. Walking amid the marble crosses he’s overcome with emotion as he sees the cross of the man who saved him. The camera moves in, all the way into his pupils and then D-Day explodes. It’s one of the most touching and dramatic cinematic moments I recall.

I’ve always wanted to see the cemetery at 14710 Colleville-sur-Mer, France but it is a bit out of the way. I’d love to go to Arlington National Cemetery, which is much closer yet about 500 miles away. I had an option, however.

Georgia and South Carolina have national cemeteries. Georgia has one in Canton and one in Marietta. The Palmetto State has three, one in Florence one at Fort Jackson in Columbia, and one in Beaufort. If you want to see splendor, I suggest you see the one in the Lowcountry. I did. Consider making a day trip to Beaufort National Cemetery. If you’ve not seen its precise rows of gleaming marble monuments standing beneath moss-draped live oaks, it’s time you did. Its graves radiate out from the flag circle fan-like with roads cutting through like the spokes of a wheel and everywhere stand beautiful live oaks festooned with moss.

Beaufort National Cemetery (Photo by Tom Poland)
 

I was there in October. Pure sunlight, green grass yet to succumb to autumn, and rows of white marble headstones overpowered the senses. The exactness with which the headstones stand cannot be appreciated except in person. And the marble monuments stand as solid memorials to the veterans beneath them. Something about Spanish moss and the way sunlight strikes the marble stones enhance the beauty of this place of eternal rest.

Veterans of both sides of the Civil War lie here. A German prisoner of war rests here as well. Veterans from World War I and World War II lie at rest here, of course, as well as veterans from the Spanish-American War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf War. It’s a contemplative experience to walk among so many veterans, many of whom made the ultimate sacrifice. While I was there I thought of Dad. Perhaps he knew some of the veterans here. I like to think he did.

What could have been Dad’s final trip to a national cemetery began close by here, fifty-five miles to the east in Charleston in April 2002. That seems like a long time ago now. 

Hiroshima (Photo by John M. Poland)

In Charleston we learned that though Dad saw no combat in Japan, there was a price to pay. My father served in U.S. Army Ordnance and he spent time in Yokohama but he also went to Hiroshima just after the Enola Gay dropped Little Boy. And he went to Nagasaki. He returned to Georgia with evidence of his days in Japan: photos he took and much later something malignant. The photos, taken from a low but wide perspective, reveal block after block of charred rubble with I-beams drooping like melted candles. The next time you drive past a field of corn chopped close to the ground, imagine it burnt to a cinder. That’s what Hiroshima looked like, a charred, leveled cornfield, where nothing, not even one ant survived. Dad walked all through that stuff. Shortly before his operation, one of his doctors told him his time in Hiroshima hurt him. Hurt is putting it mildly.

Doctors at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston diagnosed Dad with esophageal cancer. In the many days following his surgery, we took slow walks with him to the tenth floor visitor’s room. We’d ease down the long corridor, one of us pushing his IV unit behind him. We’d stand before huge windows and look out over the city with its beautiful white steeples and green live oaks. To the left we could see the Ashley, to the right the Cooper, and sometimes we could pick out pelicans soaring near the bridges. I’ve long gone to Charleston working on book projects and taking part in book signings. For the longest time it was a difficult trip to make. It’s not as bad now. I’ve even returned to his ward and walked the halls again. On one such trip a stout nurse recognized me.

What you doing back up here?

I choked up and tears flowed. I was unable to speak.

Yo daddy’s gone isn’t he, she said and then she came over and with a bear hug lifted me off the floor and held me tight.

Time does heal such wounds, not completely, but I suppose we simply wear out grieving, and then, thank God, new family members arrive to inject new love and new life into us. When a weathered, weakened branch succumbs to the winds of departure we take great comfort in the new ones who sprout vibrant and green. Children keep the family tree flowering and branching out.

In the ten years since November 15, 2003, when Dad left us we’ve gained three beautiful souls. My daughter Becky and her husband, Mike, brought Mary Beth and Will into the family and what sweet children they are. I call them the Gabbas, after a favorite TV show of theirs. My daughter Beth’s sweet athletic daughter, Katie, was just a year old when Dad died. Beth brought her into his room one visit right before he passed and his blues eyes, faded with suffering, lit up with the fire of happiness. Dad would have loved these children a lot.

My sister Brenda’s daughter, Benton and her husband Keith, have blessed the family with Harper, a lively flaxen-haired bundle of joy with a wonderful spirit. How Dad would have loved her, especially as she lives close by in Lincolnton. My children and their children, sadly, are more than a good drive away. But my daughters and their children and I are all together in spirit each day just as my father remains in the spirits of every family member everyday.

And Dad’s final resting place? Well it’s not in Beaufort, Canton, or Marietta. It’s close by in the cemetery of the family church. Dad loved being close to home all his 76 plus years and there are two reasons he’d not have wanted to be laid to rest in a national cemetery. One, even the closest one would have been too far away from home. And two, even in dying he would have wanted to spare us long journeys. It was just the kind of fellow he was.

 

Photos By Tom Poland

Visit Tom Poland’s website at www.tompoland.net 
Email Tom about most anything. [email protected]

Tom Poland is the author of six books and more than 700 magazine features. A Southern writer, his work has appeared in magazines throughout the South. The University of South Carolina Press just released his book on how the blues became the shag, Save The Last Dance For Me. He writes a weekly column for newspapers in Georgia and South Carolina about the South, its people, traditions, lifestyle, and changing culture.

 

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