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November 11, 2009

Veterans Day and dad’s photos

By Tom Fink

November 11, 2009 — In reflecting on what was my childhood home, there are two places which come to my mind.

One of these was modest, and not unlike the house where I currently live, and nestled in the old Rolling Hills addition of Catoosa (although it technically had a “Tulsa” address, which I can still remember — it was probably the first important thing my mom made sure I knew, right after the potty training).

The second home was much more rural, and we moved there from the old Rolling Hills addition of Catoosa with a technically Tulsa address, off and on, between my years in elementary school and high school.

It’s complicated.

Anyhoo, with my father a teacher, my mother doing clerical work for what was then Getty Oil Company, and the family weekending between city lights and Green Acres, we didn’t exactly have much time, need, or (honestly) money for home decor.

Paintings, if they could be called that, were all reproductions of reproductions, and strategically placed in the house to cover the strips of wallpaper that were peeling or where holes needed patching.

One exception to this was a large, yellowed framed photograph of a Naval battleship, circa 1940’s, with what to my young imagination looked like the entire U.S. Navy on deck.

I remember marveling at that photograph, and noting the quietness that would overtake my father when we were in its presence. Not exactly like it was a shrine, but certainly a memento — a reminder — of something deserving reverence.

I later found that this was the ship on which my father served during his time in the Navy, and — in my youthful ...well, foolishness ..I would then spend hours trying to find him amongst the thousand of like-dressed sailors on board.

After ruling out the two African American men, I had it narrowed down to only a few hundred.

My father’s name was Kenneth Cameron Fink, and he was a war veteran.

He graduated from high school in 1943 and enlisted in the Navy in December of that same year, serving for four years. He used to tell me that his plans to go to medical school were interrupted by World War II, but after he served his time, he no longer had the desire to be a doctor.

It bears mentioning that while he was in the Navy, he spent some of his time on board a ship very much like the one commemorated in the photograph that hung in the bedroom of my parent’s room.

But he also spent much of his time, most likely time he’d prefer not to have thought of, on board a submarine, where he worked as an operating room technician in the Pacific Theater.

In hindsight, I can understand why he decided not to stay with his plan to be a doctor.

I can’t begin to imagine the things he saw, at barely 19 or 20 years old, working on injured young men and women with only the tools of the early 1940’s at his disposal.

He never spoke of it, and I never pressed him.

Every so often, he would start to talk about it, but catch himself, and leave the room. It was a part of his life he shared with no one — not even my mom — and it was something we understood about him.

Every Veteran’s Day, I remember my dad, who’s long gone now but never forgotten, and think of what he must have gone through during those days in the second world war.

Then I think of all the other veterans, the men and women who know what it’s like to be separated from their families, and their homes, in the service of their country, and I find myself falling silent out of reverence as my dad used to before the photograph of that WWII ship.

There can never be enough words of thanks for these old soldiers, who were willing to give of themselves — some of them not coming back, others — like my father —perhaps never fully coming back, but all of them deserving respect on this day, and every day.

So, thank you veterans, for your commitment, for your heart, and for your service. I for one salute and honor you, sirs and madams. God bless you and your families today and always.

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