“Let Us Give Thanks”

(November 11, 2018)  The 100^th Anniversary of the End of World War I

I heard a radio program tonight interviewing a young artist who has an album with a title track “The War after the War.”  She tells the story in song of the struggles of a spouse of a veteran who struggles with her pain after her husband returns from war changed in such a way as to interrupt for a long time the couple’s dreams.  Initially written to honor her dad, who died of alcoholism after his service in Korea, Mary’s song now encompasses six spouses she interviewed for the writing of this song.  This album honors veterans and their spouses still struggling to cope with the pain left over from war.  The artist is Mary Gauthier and the album was released in 2018.  It is entitled “Rifles and Rosary Beads.”

Listening to her deeply moving song, it reminded me of my grandfather and my dad who both served honorably in the US Army of their day.  My grandfather arrived in France on November 10, 1918 as part of an artillery division about to the sent to the front.  For him the war ended the next day when the armistice was signed.  He served a year in France before coming home and by his own report made money pressing officers’ pants.  He made over $2000 during his year in France and when he got home he proceeded to build a house made of stones picked up from his relatives’ farms.  The $2000 paid for a slate roof which outlasted my grandfather on this same home.  After building his home, he married my grandmother, Johnsie Dulin and they had one child, Laura Catherine, who is my mother.

My dad, Ben William Wilson, grew up in Gastonia, North Carolina and worked in the Firestone textile mill until about age 17, at which time he enlisted in the army.  After basic training, he was assigned to the motor pool on the island of Okinawa, Japan, as part of the US Occupation Army following the defeat of the Japanese in World War II.   He served on Okinawa for more than a year and tells the story of a major typhoon which forced the population to hide in caves normally reserved as a burial place for the dead, in order to escape the typhoon’s wrath. He reported to my mother that he and another soldier stood guard at the entrance to the cave, protecting the population, but the winds were so strong they both found it necessary to lash themselves to posts at the entrance of the cave to keep from being blown away by the fierce winds.

Later, per my mother’s report, after his first two years of service, he took an aptitude test and scored so high in electronics that he was placed in a secret military corp.  Re-entering the service over the next two years, he help hang the atomic bombs on the Nevada flats.  The military was carrying out testing of the A bomb in the early 1950s, to determine the effect radiation might have on soldiers in the field.  The first test at the Nevada test site occurred on January 27, 1951.  My dad told my mother he went through two separate Atomic bomb tests and was exposed to radiation blast, so much so that he lost his hair all over his body.  He told my mother he was not sure he could have children after all this, but they married in 1953 and I am the first of six experiments.  I still wonder what long term effects radiation may have had on my dad, on me, my two brothers and three sisters, but as far as I am aware, it has not affected his children adversely, nor our children.  My mother never attempted to collect the $75,000 which the military paid to survivors of these experiments.  She never even thought about it.

So tonight in honor of these two veterans of foreign wars and so many others like them, I pause to give thanks to God for their sacrificial service.  Both my grandfather and my father volunteered to serve their country.  Both served honorably.  But it is God who saw fit that both might survive their service long enough so they might return home, marry, and have families of their own.  My grandfather never had to go on the battlefield, where he might easily have been killed or maimed for life.  Many soldiers died from exposure to poison gas, besides dying from artillery barrage and other weapons in World War I, appropriately termed, “the war to end all wars.”  Both military and civilian casualties are estimated at 37- 40 million, and from 16 – 20 million people died in this war.

My dad survived two radiation exposures in the early 1950s, causing the loss of all his body hair, but he survived to marry my mother and produce six healthy children.  He died at age 39 coming home from work after being hit head on by a young soldier who had too much celebrating with alcohol.  It was reported this young soldier was celebrating being finally released from service in the army.

I grew up hearing stories from both granddad and dad about their service in the army, but I did not know about my dad’s exposure to radiation until after he died.  My mother was finally able to show us the certificate of honorable discharge from the secret military corp.  His oath of secrecy preventing him from ever telling us of his service in Nevada as long as he was alive.  His is a legacy of the aftermath of World War II.  Around the world, World War II saw estimates of deaths from 50 million to more than 80 million persons, including from 19 to 28 million from war-related disease and famine. (Wikipedia)

I pause today, on the eve before Veteran’s Day, 2018, and on the 100^th anniversary of Armistice Day which brought the end to World War I, simply to give thanks for my dad, Ben William Wilson and my grandfather, Mott Quinn Petty.  Without their honorable lives and contribution to our nation, I and my family could not be here.  For this gift of life, to the Petty and Wilson families and to so many others, who have sprung forth after these two world wars, we give our grateful thanks!  Thanks be to our God, for this wonderful gift.  Out of death, life has sprung; out of the darkness of war and the atomic blast, new life has come forth!

Thanks be to God for God’s wonderful gift, the gift of life, of hope and of new beginnings!  We remember the sacrifices of so many and pause in remembering to give thanks!  Our lives would have never been without those who have gone before us!  Let us give back in service, O Lord Jesus Christ, as we testify to what we ourselves have been given!  Amen and Amen!

“Amen.”

Bill Wilson, grateful son and grandson.

Remembering Armistice Day and Veterans Day, November 11 and November 12, 2018