I've been a bit forceful on how people should not be posting on AW on contemporary politics, but I am going to reverse that a bit here, once.
It's about the kerfuffle in the news about Obama's gaffe on his family's involvement in WW II. Here goes:
Familial history, unfortunately, has all sorts of both unintentional mine fields and shadings of the truth that tend to trip up family members in the telling.
Obama may well have been completely honest in his recitation of his great uncle's story, having heard it second or third hand years ago. Perhaps he should have checked it more closely before making his remarks, but, in the heat of the campaign, I can understand how one can just go from the gut feelings and imperfectly recalled family histories.
To a lesser extent, this happened to me.
As a kid, I grew up with the story from my parents about my father in WW II. The way it went was that Dad, the youngest of five boys, got out of high school in 1944. His mother had just died of lymphoma earlier that year and he and his father were not getting along all that well. So he and a few friends got drunk up one night and drove to Chicago to enlist in the army. Dad had some minor lung problem and was rejected, so he went to the Marines' recruiter and got accepted there.
Dad got sent to San Diego for boot camp, got a nice collection of marksman medals in the process, and then got word his unit was going to be shipped to the Pacific, for the Iwo Jima invasion, in fact. So, on final training maneuvers, he and his unit were out in the desert. He was on top of a quarter load land mine, defusing it when another member of his unit accidentally hit the trip wire and blew Dad three feet into the air. He got sent to the base hospital for a month and then was given the choice of a medical discharge due to lung damage from the blast or guard duty at a remote base, like Alaska. He took the medical discharge.
Now, understand, I grew up with this story. I believed it with my whole heart. Dad told it to me, so it was so. This was a guy who was 6'3", 240 lbs. and beat Alex Karras at arm wrestling when he was 45 and Karras was playing for the Detroit Lions. This was a guy who made me apologize to my college registrar for being rude to her when she and her minions outright lied to me. This was a guy who every day challenged me to do better. Of course I believed him.
But, then in my late forties twenty-five or so years after he died, I began to wonder. How does one survive even a quarter load land mine blast? So, I got on the internet and found out how to order up a copy of his service record. Four or five months later, I got a thick envelope with the whole thing.
I read it. Then I went out and got drunk.
Dad had lied to us all.
There was no quarter load land mine incident.
He got TB and was discharged. From the records, it seems he had a sub-clinical bout with it in junior high and it re-occurred in the Marines. He got his medical discharge, but not the way he told us. He got "cured" but got sent home as still unfit for military duty.
After a day or so, I came to understand. Picture yourself in WW II, enlisting, trying to be the best, getting knocked out by TB and sent home. What are you, a big, strapping young man going to tell everyone? I got sick and sent home or I got injured being blown up? After the years, it becomes second nature to tell that story when asked, especially when your best friend all through school went on to be in the Army Air Force, get shot down and spent two years in a German POW camp.
So I saw I needed to cut Dad some slack, especially since he wasn't around any more.
I grew up with a family story, one that I willingly repeated to my kids, friends and strangers, because I took it on faith. I'd not be surprised there was a similar thing going on with Obama. It's just that I'm not running for office, so I get more of a pass. Yeah, Obama should have checked a bit more carefully, but when it comes to family, we all get a bit less critical. While I wish he would have checked his facts more closely, I understand.
If Dad were still around, I think he would have, too.
