turns out dad was a patriot

“I can’t even imag­ine how – how be­trayed … the ser­vice men that are still alive from that era … and are see­ing what is go­ing on right now. I can’t even imagine.”
—Jasper James, from RADíO FLoMM [con­ster­na­tion]
 

My dad used to col­lect type­writ­ers. And then he’d type up things from his life. 

Be­fore he died in 2006, he wrote up a state­ment crit­i­ciz­ing the cur­rent government. 

To para­phrase,
(be­cause I can’t find the doc­u­ment any­where),
he was dis­gust­ed with GWB,
Dick Ch­eney, Rumsfeld
and their takeover of the coun­try he fought for. 

To­tal­ly disgusted. 

WWII was im­por­tant. We had a vil­lain with a square mous­tache – and two oth­ers, one in the east and a blowhard pos­tur­ing in the boot of Europe. 

And that main vil­lain – a xeno­pho­bic na­tion­al­ist – had to be stopped at all costs. 

Annd – if you’ve seen Dunkirk (2017)
Sav­ing Pri­vate Ryan (1998)
Band of Broth­ers (2001)
or fol­low @RealTimeWWII –
THIS was not our war. It BE­CAME our war. And dad was in the war zone (qui­et­ly) de­liv­er­ing sup­plies be­fore Pearl Har­bor.

Dad snuck into the Mer­chant Marines at 16 – since reg­u­lar mil­i­tary has an age limit. 

Life is made up of mi­cro de­ci­sions that lead to a bet­ter world, one small de­ci­sion at a time.

Aside from mak­ing sure troops had tanks, guns and bul­lets (that’s what the Mer­chant Ma­rine does), dad used to sneak Jew­ish refugees out of Eu­rope by hid­ing them in the en­gine room on what­ev­er rat­ty, poor­ly armed ships he was sta­tioned on. In­cred­i­bly dan­ger­ous cause that’s where the tor­pe­does would hit. He said he’d RE­AL­LY ex­plain this up front, not all refugees were will­ing to take the risk.

It was to­tal­ly against reg­u­la­tions, but it was the right thing to do. Fuck the consequences. 

Dad was in the the­atre of war – the blood­i­est he ex­pe­ri­enced was the Mur­man­sk Run.

Over­all he es­ti­mat­ed he saw some­where around 100 ships go down around him. As he put it, he just didn’t die like every­one else.

Then his draft card ar­rived at home. 

His par­ents didn’t speak Eng­lish so they didn’t know what a draft card was.

Even­tu­al­ly he was ar­rest­ed – in a war zone – and end­ed up in Fed­er­al Court. 

With oth­er Mer­chant Ma­rine ‘draft dodgers.’

He said the most hu­mil­i­at­ing thing in his life­time was the lec­ture from that judge for not do­ing his pa­tri­ot­ic duty dur­ing the war. 

End­ed up fac­ing mil­i­tary prison or two years ba­sic train­ing in the army.

So
he in­sist­ed on wear­ing his Pur­ple Heart dur­ing ba­sic training.

This was a sore issue. 

And to­day, we have not only a draft dodger de­ter­mined to pil­lage to and fro, but some­one who snuck OUT of his war ser­vice, who open­ly in­sults vet­er­ans with­out any frame of per­son­al ref­er­ence or un­der­stand­ing for what they’ve been through.

AND he makes it OKAY for this to be the norm.
 

“I am ab­solute­ly a nationalist”
—Amer­i­can Pres­i­dent Don­ald J. Trump

“Na­tion­al­ism is a be­tray­al of pa­tri­o­tism. Na­tion­al­ism is a be­tray­al of pa­tri­o­tism by say­ing, ‘Our in­ter­est first, who cares about the others?’”
—French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron
 

To­day,
my aunt is a na­tion­al­ist, thanks to Fox News. Last time I saw her she start­ed a con­ver­sa­tion by telling me how brain­washed I am by the lib­er­als. And how Trump is do­ing the right thing for the country.

An­oth­er aunt – a nun, in her 90s – said I must watch Fox News be­cause we have to stop them from killing all the lit­tle babies.
 

What would dad think to­day – on Vet­er­ans Day? 

Know­ing him he would be rant­i­ng and rav­ing to any­one who’d lis­ten. Right­ly so.
 
 
 

—steve mehal­lo

Flom­mist Steve Mehal­lo is a graph­ic de­sign­er, il­lus­tra­tor, font de­sign­er, ed­u­ca­tor, food­ie and gad­fly. He is the cre­ator and founder of FLOMM! Im­age source.

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