Every Picture Tells a Story

Tea: Lemon

Music: AC/DC, "It's a Long Way to the Top (if You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll)"

Time: Night.

Tonight, I took my son to a picture party for his high school strings group's trip to Australia.

There was food. There were, of course, pictures. There were videos (and, as usual, the homemade one was better than the one provided by the tour company).

And there was one moment that linked generations in my family.

My late father spent some time in Australia during World War II, on R and R from the brutal island-hopping battles of the Pacific Campaign. (His Marine unit fought at Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester.)

He crossed the Pacific by ship, wondering if a torpedo would send his ship to the bottom and him into the water with the sharks. My son crossed in a jumbo jet, sleepless only because his seatmate ("some random adult from England") was snoring.

But one shot tonight -- a picture of Luna Park in Melbourne -- brought their trips together.

My father went there, escorting a young Australian woman whose sweetheart was off fighting. (It was an honorable arrangement, and my father an honorable man.) My son didn't go in, but his group stood outside the gate in the same place where his grandfather stood more than sixty years ago.

I wish they could have talked about Australia ... but I'll tell my son what I can of my father's time there. And I'll pray that he never needs R and R from a shooting war.

Cup IV: Mine Eyes are Still Looking for the Glory

Tea: Blood Orange, with honey

Music: Bugle calls and drum beats, in my mind's ear

Time: Night

Herbal tea? Yes. I've already had plenty of caffeine tonight.

I'm two-thirds of the way through "Killer Angels," by Michael Shaara, about the Battle of Gettysburg. It's an engaging read, although one that was chosen more for me than by me. More on that tomorrow, I'm sure.

Seems odd, in this day and age of radar and reconnaisance flights and spy satellites, to think of a war in which two armies could be scant miles apart and not know each other's exact strengths ... in which riders, rather than radio waves, carried orders back and forth ... in which taking a defensive position was somehow seen as less honorable than charging across an open field of fire, even when that was tantamout to suicide by enemy fire.

But at the heart of it, it's still people killing people -- hardly an ideal set of circumstances in any century or venue. I know, "A time of war, and a time of peace;" etc. Sometimes, humanity being what it is -- which is to say, capable of the worst sort of inhumanity -- there's nothing for it but to fight. The idea, though, that somehow war is a glorious thing?

Can't buy it.

My father was a Marine during World War II, fighting in the South Pacific. He carried a Browning Automatic Rifle at Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester, New Britain, and that was hazardous duty. He talked little of combat, although he would gladly tell stories of his basic training, his time on the troop ships and his short stint in college, studying to be an engineer, when he was rotated home before the war ended.

But I wanted more. When I was growing up, I asked him countless times -- as I'm sure sons of veterans have done since the first armies formed -- whether he killed anyone. He finally answered that yes, he had. He had pointed the BAR at a tree and sprayed, killing a Japanese sniper who was targeting his unit.

At the time, I thought that was pretty cool. Looking back, I can see that it pained him. He was a peaceful man who, for the most part, put the war behind him. He never went to reunions, didn't join the VFW, didn't keep in contact with his Marine buddies (many of whom, to be fair, never made it through the next battle after he came home).

He understood, long before I did, that while there might be "a time of war," it's not a time for which anyone should wish.