My Father's War
To dig in gently
With my father being enlisted in the US Air Force and holding a career of almost 24 years in service the small mentions of how he started off got sprinkled in only a handful of times. Growing up as a military brat and moving every few years it was a simple existence of easy detachment from the world around me before connection to someplace new. It was standard to even have detachment at home where a depth of relationship with the people you were directly related to was nonexistent.
I know my father holds wounds physical and emotional from years ago. I want to know who he was so that there is a greater bond between us. With my brothers being younger they didn’t have as much time with him before my parents split so it would help them too.
It really boils down to getting to know a man who wasn’t there because of work. When all he has left are the memories inside himself, no other veterans to talk to about being there and only his sons left to say anything about it to, that seems to me like a lonely existence that I don’t want for him. I love my father with all his faults. This is my best guess and effort to find a way for him to work in concrete/abstract terms to share his head space with me and my brothers.
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