The book is my most popular one with hundreds of copies sold or given away like we will be doing from December 4, 2021-December 7, 2021. I have been given uniformly good responses by readers and have had interesting thoughts about it. Some saw it as a parable. Some saw it as a statement against war while at the same time honoring those who have to fight it.
On a personal note, my grandfather, Sanford William McClelland, Sr., served in the Army in the war as a Sergeant, teaching soldiers how to drive a machine called a half-track, half-tank, half-truck. He stayed stateside the whole time. He was in his mid-thirties, old enough to contribute to the war effort, but too old to be sent in combat. Plus, the fact that he had recently become a father to my dad probably had something to do with it.
Many of my friends had parents or grandparents that were in that war. My uncle, Paul, (actually my second cousin’s husband, but I always called him Uncle Paul.) He never talked about the war, though he spent almost four years in the military. I never thought much about him, besides he was my uncle, and managed a Seven Eleven. When I asked my dad about why Uncle Paul didn’t talk about the war, my dad said, “He worked in Graves Registration, and saw a lot of dead bodies.” That seemed the end of it, until he passed on, and we visited his grave. He left the Army as a Master Sergeant, the highest enlisted rank you could have. And he was highly decorated. Putting these things together didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes. He saw combat, probably a lot of it. They promote you that high only when all the other people above you are killed or severely wounded. I had no idea Uncle Paul endured that. But it made sense that when I had my own bizarre incident in the military, Uncle Paul called me and said I was like the heroes on the Normandy Beaches he knew and served with. I don’t know about that. I was flattered, but at the time I thought Uncle Paul lost his nut. Plus, I’m no hero. Anyone who knows me can tell you that.
Uncle Paul, and men like him, were the real heroes. They bled and sometimes died so free countries could remain so. I just was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Uncle Paul didn’t want a fanfare, didn’t want anything at all. He wanted to live in peace with my aunt and my cousin and he got that. So, on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7th, remember the Uncle Pauls of the world, and maybe say a prayer for them.
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