Frank is Emptiness

December 18th, 2021

Beth Hamedrosh Hogodel cemetery is located at 134 S. Dana Ct., Milwaukee, WI. It is a hard place to find, at least it was for me. I drove past the entrance by mistake. There was a cement truck blocking most of the street and I thought the road was closed, so I drove around to find a different way into the place. There was none. I had to circle back and squeeze through the only open section of a bridge that was being replaced. The Jewish cemetery is small, actually tiny in comparison to other graveyards. I-94 is right next to the cemetery. The highway and the burial ground are only separated by a dilapidated wooden fence. The location could hardly be called peaceful.

I was several minutes late for Jim’s funeral. Jewish funerals tend to be brief. Jim’s service lasted barely half an hour. I missed the first part of the rabbi’s eulogy. Even though he had a microphone and loudspeaker, it was hard to hear his comments over the roar of the semis on the freeway. It was also a windy day with grey clouds skittering across the sky. Between the howl of the wind and the noise from the traffic, it was difficult to understand any of the rabbi’s talk.

The rabbi, from what I could make out, spoke about Jim’s intelligence and his commitment to the things that mattered to him. He said that Jim was a brilliant man. I would agree with that. He taught mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His outside interests were eclectic. He once gave a talk at a Purim celebration about Yiddish cabaret music in Odessa and Lvov prior to World War II. That was a rather obscure topic, but Jim was able to make it fascinating to me. Jim was one of those people who never stopped learning. He had the insatiable curiosity of a toddler.

I only knew Jim from our conversations at kiddush after the Shabbat morning service. Jim didn’t talk much. He preferred to listen. I found that to be refreshing. Most people, including myself, are not good listeners. Jim was.

There were maybe twenty people at the graveside. Some wore yarmulkes, some not. I didn’t. I knew a few folks there from the shul: Neil, Ken, and Susan. The others were strangers to me. Each of us knew bits and pieces of Jim’s life. It is unlikely that anybody knew him completely. We all cared about him.

The rabbi explained a ritual to us that was traditional for funerals. Each person was encouraged to shovel a spade full of earth on to Jim’s casket once it was lowered into the ground. This was one last act of kindness that we could perform for our friend. It was an act for which we would never receive any recompense in this world. The rabbi went on to say that we should use the back side of the shovel blade to move the dirt. Using the wrong side of the spade indicated our reluctance to say goodbye to Jim. We were doing something that needed to be done, but we did it with sorrow in our hearts.

I participated in the tradition. I had never done that before. I shoveled a bit of soil on to Jim’s coffin. I found it to be a deeply moving experience. It was a physical act, something tangible.

Goodbye my friend. Peace to you always.

December 9th, 2021

I left the Army in the summer of 1986. For reasons that are now obscure to me, I kept some of my uniforms. I put away my dress blues and my Class A uniforms for safe keeping. I placed them in a closet with my full dress uniform from West Point. There really wasn’t any point in hanging on to those clothes. I just didn’t want to let them go.

In March of 1987 our first son, Hans, was born. When Hans came into our lives, then I felt like I had a good reason to keep the uniforms. I figured that, when Hans was old enough to understand, I would show them to him. It seemed like a good plan.

It wasn’t.

In 1991 my wife, Karin, and I built a house, and the uniforms found a home in a new closet. Sometime after that we had a major thunderstorm roll through the area. It dropped a couple inches of rain, and it knocked out the power during the night. This, of course, meant that the sump pump did not work. This meant that, hours later when I looked down the stairs into the basement, I could see my reflection in the water on the floor. The water wasn’t deep, but it was a mess to clean up, and the basement was damp for quite a while, even with a dehumidifier and fans going full blast.

A long while after that, I remembered Hans and my uniforms. I looked into our bedroom closet and found…nothing. I asked Karin about it, and she told me that she had put the uniforms into a suitcase and placed it in the basement. I looked around and found the suitcase on the basement floor. I opened it up and found my uniforms. They were soaking wet and moldy. Absolutely nasty. I threw the uniforms and the suitcase directly into the trash. There was no saving any of that.

I was livid, just furious. I took it out on Karin, and she couldn’t understand why I was so upset. I didn’t understand why either. I just was. I talked to Hans about that incident years later. He thought for a moment and said,

“Yeah, I think I remember all that yelling. You and Mom started going to therapy after that.”

That sounds about right.

I didn’t get to show Hans anything. That hurt. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, but I felt like part of my past had been stolen from me.

Fast forward to December of 2015. Hans joined the Army in 2009, and was deployed to Iraq in 2011. He ETS’d from Fort Hood in 2014. Then he moved into an old Texas farmhouse with Tom, an elderly widower that Hans knew well. Tom lived in the house with their dog, Fritz, while Hans worked for a fracking outfit in east Texas.

On the last day of 2015, the old farmhouse burned down, with Tom in it. Fritz died in the fire too. Hans also lost almost all of his worldly possessions. The only thing he had left from the military was his DD214 (discharge papers). Everything that Hans had from Iraq was gone. He had his past stolen from him.

To the casual observer it might seem that the loss of military memorabilia is something insignificant. In monetary terms that’s true. In other ways it’s not. The loss of my uniforms and Hans’ loss of artifacts from his time in Iraq hurt us because those things were memory aids. They were talismans. Seeing, touching, or even smelling these objects conjured up memories that were otherwise unavailable. These things were comforting in the sense that they were physical proof that what we had experienced was real. Sometimes, without them, it is hard to believe that we were once soldiers.

I kept one thing, and I never showed to Hans until he was in high school. I had my class ring from West Point. I would occasionally pull it out of a drawer and gaze at it, like Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings”. Eventually, I got tired of that. One day I walked into Hans’ bedroom and handed to him.

I have never seen it since.

December 4th, 2021

“So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun”

John Lennon – “Happy Christmas”

I worked as a dock supervisor at a trucking company for almost twenty-eight years. For almost all of those years, the company had a Christmas party (later referred to as a “Holiday party”) during December. Perhaps the corporation had the best of intentions, but I always felt that these festive gatherings were the antithesis of what Christmas means. Christmas is, or should be, about joy.

Maybe I would feel differently about it if I had been a driver or a dockworker. As a supervisor, I was required to attend the party. All salaried employees had to go to the holiday bash. The hourly workers were invited to be there, and many of them did show up. I simply rebelled against the entire concept of mandatory merriment. It was like being told,

“You’re going the party, and you’re going to enjoy yourself, dammit!”

It reminded me way too much of when I was in the Army, and I had to attend formal dining ins. I never understood the idea of socializing with people that I didn’t even like when we were together at work. I’m no good at false camaraderie, even if I’m drunk.

Debauchery was a key element of the holiday party. The big draw, for those who came willingly, was the fact that there was an open bar for one hour prior to the catered meal being served. Guests tended to show up exactly one hour before dinner, and the bar was packed with bodies until it closed.

It is impressive to see how much a person can drink when the booze is free. One year, I sat with a guy who worked on the dock for me. He had spent the previous sixty minutes going back and forth to the bar. Once it close, he proudly displayed a semicircle of glasses in front of his dinner plate. He had accumulated a total of seven tequila sunrises to help him make it through the meal.

He slept in his car that night.

Before the dinner officially started, the boss gave a brief speech. It was always the same. He thanked everyone for their hard work and effort, and told us all that the coming year could be even more profitable. He exhibited the moral code of the cancer cell: bigger is better.

Then somebody got up to give a blessing. The boss usually picked somebody who wore his religion on his sleeve to say the prayer. Without fail, the recitation was long and rambling. At the end, there was a mumbled “Amen” heard from most of the tables. The more inebriated guests shouted out, “Go Packers!”

The meal itself was generally awkward. Many employees had brought their spouses. These people often did not know anybody else at the table. The dinner conversation tended to be about work, which was plainly depressing.

I left the party as soon as was appropriate to do so, sometimes earlier.

So, what does any of this have to do with “joy”.

Sometimes, it is easier to define a word by showing what it is not. The company Christmas party was never a time of joy. It was at best a time of reluctant social mingling, well lubricated by alcohol.

Joy is spontaneous. It cannot be scheduled. It cannot be forced. Mandatory joy in an oxymoron.

Our grandson, Asher, is one year old. He often shows us what joy really is. He may smile contentedly as he munches on a blueberry. He might giggle when lifted off the ground by a pair of strong arms. He will laugh when the dog licks his face.

Asher finds happiness in the smallest and simplest of things. His smile is authentic and infectious. His joy lights up the room.

True joy lights up the world.

November 26th. 2021

Karin, Asher, and I were all invited to a Thanksgiving dinner. It was a small family gathering hosted by the parents of Mikaela, our youngest son’s girlfriend. The invitation was a godsend. Karin and I are the full time caregivers for Asher, our baby grandson. Asher will be one year old next week. Karin and I seldom have time to scratch together a quick meal, much less cook a Thanksgiving feast. We weren’t sure if we would cook anything that day.

Our son, Stefan, was there with Mikaela when we arrived at her folks’ house. Rick and Nena greeted us warmly. I spent some time talking with Mikaela’s younger brother, Nick. When the food was ready, we all sat down at the table.

Rick and Nena explained to us that they have a family tradition during the Thanksgiving meal. Each person at the table is supposed to tell the others what they are grateful for. That’s kind of standard practice on this particular holiday. Karin and I used to do that sort of thing too, years ago.

Mikaela told us that she was grateful for the encouragement and support she had received from her parents in her efforts to become a nurse. Nick was also grateful to his parents. Rick and Nena were thankful that they had such great kids. I don’t remember what Stefan said.

For Karin and me it was easy to decide on what we were going to say. After all, we were looking at the little guy sitting on Karin’s lap. We said that we were grateful to have Asher in our lives. He’s truly a blessing. I added that we were grateful that we have the resources to care for the boy. Lately, I have been communicating with an Afghan refugee family. They also have a baby in their care. Karin and I have a home, good health, and money. The refugees are in good health, but they don’t have those other things. Karin and I struggle sometimes to raise Asher, but we don’t have to struggle nearly as hard as that family from Afghanistan.

What should we really be grateful for?

Love.

We have love in our family, as does Mikaela’s family. The Afghanis have that love too. Love will get you through a lot of hard times.

Money is good to have. Having a home that is warm and safe is a big deal. However, people can get along without those things, at least for a while. Love is all-important. Love is what allows us to survive.

November 20th, 2021

For several years I taught a citizenship class at Voces de la Frontera in Milwaukee. Every Wednesday evening I would go over the one hundred questions on the citizenship test with the people who wanted to take it. One of the questions had to do with the duties of an American citizen. One answer to the question was that an American citizen is required to serve on a jury when asked to do so.

Honestly, there are not many things that an American has to do. We have to pay taxes (most of us). Other than that, the only other duty we have is to serve on a jury. Juries are a curious thing. Only countries that have a judicial system in the tradition of English jurisprudence have juries. The people I taught at Voces were mostly immigrants from Mexico, and they did not know or understand what the jury system was about. So, I tried to explain it to them.

I have served on two juries in my life, both of them were for civil trials. I tried to make it clear to the students in my class that they will get the opportunity to serve on a jury once they are citizens, and that there really is no way of getting out of that duty. I emphasized that serving on a jury is a heavy responsibility. A juror makes decisions that drastically affect the lives of others in the community. It’s a big deal.

People in our country often don’t think of jury duty as a big deal, until something traumatic happens. I am thinking in particular of the recent Kyle Rittenhouse case in Kenosha, Wisconsin. For several days the American justice system has been examined under a microscope, and it has been found wanting. The “not guilty” verdict of the jury has simultaneously caused both outrage and celebration. No matter what the jury decided, the verdict would have inflamed the passions of people throughout this country. However, they had to make a decision, and they quite possibly made the right one.

Rittenhouse was accused of intentional homicide after killing two men at a demonstration in Kenosha in August of 2020. He pleaded self-defense. The prosecution had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Rittenhouse did not act in self-defense and that killings were not justified. The prosecution was unable to do so. Rittenhouse walked away a free man, even though it is clear that he shot down two men.

I will go back to my own experience as a juror. I was the foreman of the jury in both cases (nobody else wanted the job). As I mentioned, I was only in involved with civil suits. The rules are a bit different with a civil trial as opposed to a criminal case. However, there are many similarities.

The most glaring similarity is the fact that in both types of trials a juror is required to decide on only certain questions. A juror necessarily takes a narrow view. A juror is not allowed to speculate on the wider ramifications of a verdict. A juror can only look at the evidence presented in court, and then use that evidence to make “yes or no” decisions. It is tempting to a juror to go off on a tangent during deliberations. As the jury foreman, I often had to reel people back in:

“Yes, that’s interesting, but we need to decide this question in front of us.”

I am sure that the twelve individuals on the Rittenhouse jury privately pondered the potential effects of their verdict. However, whatever they thought about race relations, or about gun control, or about whether Rittenhouse was just a young punk, they could not let those considerations influence their verdict. They were required keep a laser-like focus on the evidence. That was their sole job. That is the job of anybody who serves on a jury.

In both civil and criminal cases, the jury will make somebody deeply unhappy. That’s just how it works. In any trial somebody’s life will be turned upside down. Civil cases generally only involve money, but even mere money can make or break a person’s life. When I was on a jury, I was acutely aware that my choices would have a serious, and perhaps everlasting, impact on the people involved in the trial. Everyone else on the jury was aware of that too. Each one of us took our role seriously. To this day, I am impressed and proud of the attitude and actions of my fellow citizens when were jurors.

Jury duty is difficult. I left both trials feeling uneasy. I did what I thought was right, and I have no regrets about my decisions. And yet…the experience left me drained. I can only imagine the feelings of the jurors in the Rittenhouse trial.

When we completed our service as jurors, Milwaukee County gave us all a refrigerator magnet that said: “It was fair, I was there.” With regards to the trial I helped to decide, that statement was correct. The twelve of us on the jury did our best to be fair.

One last thought. Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all charges. He’s a free man. I am guessing that he is also a haunted man. Oh, he’ll be treated like a hero by certain politicians and pundits, for a while. That won’t last. He will be celebrated (and manipulated) for a week or a month, or maybe even a year. Then he will be alone again with his conscience.

My oldest son fought in Iraq. He killed people there, all of them in self-defense. He did what he had to do to survive. Even so, my son does not sleep well. Killing another human being changed him forever.

How will Kyle Rittenhouse sleep?

November 12, 2021

– Sir, you try my patience.
– I don’t mind if I do. You must come over and try mine some time.
– Groucho Marx

Asher is almost ready to walk on his own. He loves to stroll around with somebody holding his hands. The kid is on the move. He can wander throughout the house, assisted by Karin or myself, for hours. Eventually, Asher tires himself out, but not before he tires us out. Asher is eleven months old. We are in our 60’s. His energy reserves are seemingly limitless. Ours are not.

Asher likes to wake up dark and early. Once he has a fresh diaper and a warm bottle, he is ready for action. I take the early shift with the boy, so Asher gets to try my patience first. He’s getting really good at it.

Well, this essay is actually supposed to be about walking meditation. During Zen practice, we mostly sit on a cushion to meditate. If the practice goes on for an extended amount of time, then we break up the sitting with a short period of walking meditation. We walk in a line around and around the meditation room for maybe ten minutes or so. To the casual observer this activity seems rather mindless. Actually, it can be mindful. It depends on what the walker is doing as he or she shuffles through the room. If the person lets their thoughts wander aimlessly, yes, it is a mindless thing to do. However, if the person focuses on their walking, paying attention to every detail, then it keeps them in the moment.

Holding Asher’s hands as he stumbles from place to place is a form of walking meditation. To keep him from tripping and/or falling, I have to pay close attention to his every step. As long as the boy is leading me around our house, I am alert and aware of everything that he is doing.

Asher loves to pull on electrical cords. His hands are swift and agile, and remarkably strong. He will snatch at the cord and immediately attempt to yank it from the outlet. I can’t be daydreaming when he passes near to the microwave. The cord on that device is his favorite. He will sometimes try to deceive me by passing by the microwave and then quickly turning back to grab the wire. He’s stealthy that way.

Our home is not completely childproof. I’m not sure that any home can be. We have hermetically sealed a number of the kitchen cabinets, but Asher always seems to find a door that will open for him.

“Asher! Leave the door closed! Don’t take out the plutonium!”

Asher likes to walk over by our two dogs. They are old, and they tend to lie on the couch snoozing. Asher will happily go up to Shocky, the border collie, and pull on the dog’s nose. Shocky shows great tolerance toward the little human. She will lick Asher’s hands, and then give him sloppy dog kisses. Eventually, Asher gets tired of being soaked in drool, and he moves on to other things.

There are three smooth stones on the coffee table. I don’t know where they came from, or why they are there, but Asher loves to walk to the table and play with them. He tries to put them into his mouth first. They don’t fit. Then he pounds them on the top of the table. The coffee table is old, and a few more nicks in it don’t matter much. He beats on the table for a few minutes, and then loses interest.

Asher takes a perverse pleasure in ripping the leaves off of house plants. I don’t know why that is. I just know that he likes to do that.

“Asher! Stop that! What did that geranium ever do to you?!”

Asher is attracted to my old stereo system. He has become quite adept at turning all the knobs, especially the one for volume control. He is fascinated by the turntable. He loves watching the vinyl go round and around. He greatly enjoys looking at all the album covers. Oddly enough, years ago, I used to buy records purely based on the quality of the album art. For instance, I liked the art on Disraeli Gears from Cream. Asher doesn’t much care for the music, but he likes the illustrations.

After a few hours, Asher slows down. His legs become wobbly. He attention wavers. Then he takes a nap.

Which is what he’s doing now.

November 9th, 2021

“The horror! The horror!” – Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Asher is large. At eleven months of age, our grandson is a rapidly growing boy. He’s sturdy and solidly built. He is round in the middle, with broad shoulders and remarkably strong arms. Asher has the physique of a sumo wrestler, or perhaps a linebacker. There is nothing frail about this lad.

Sometimes he wrestles with me on the floor. He fights dirty. He likes to grab my right ear and bite it. He is toothless at this point, but he can still bite hard. He likes to rip out handfuls of my beard. He is also fond of twisting my large nose. He’s going to be a terror on the playground.

Asher likes to eat, pretty much any time, pretty much all the time. It was simpler when he just took a bottle. Now, since we introduced a variety of solid foods into his diet, things are more complicated, and significantly messier.

Asher is getting good at handling finger food. His fine motor skills have developed to the point where he can pop blueberries into his mouth without much trouble. Bananas are problematic because they are slippery. They usually wind up on his lap. Grapes are like that too.

The boy is only willing to be fed with a spoon for a while. Then he wants to take over. Without warning, he will grab for the spoon with the speed of an attacking mongoose. He gets it in a vise-like grip in his chubby hand, and he won’t let go. He’s strong. I generally let him have the spoon before its contents are splashed all over the place. Asher smiles once he has the spoon. He eats what is on it. Then he casually holds it over the edge of his high chair and lets it drop to the floor. For him that’s a victory.

Last night, my wife, Karin attempted to feed Asher some beets, and then some peas. Both the beets and the peas had been through the blender. Asher was uncooperative. That was odd since he likes both those vegetables. Asher fought off Karin’s efforts to get the spoon into his mouth. By the time he was done with the beets, the kitchen looked like a scene from a low budget slasher film. Everything was spotted red, and Asher’s mouth and hands appeared to be covered with gore.

After a hasty clean up, Karin tried the peas. Basically, she had the same results, just in green. Asher had his mouth full and managed to emit a fine spray of pureed peas in Karin’s general direction. It had that Exorcist look to it. Very disturbing.

Rather than hose the kid down, Karin chose to give him an immediate bath. She used his baby tub, which Asher has almost outgrown. I wiped down the kitchen while Karin washed the boy. Things seemed to go okay. The boy was finally going to be clean and fresh. Then I heard Karin call from the bathroom.

“Fraaaaank!”

That’s never good.

I went to bathroom. She cracked open the door. Karin looked worried.

I asked her, “What?”

“Asher pooped in the tub.”

November 1st, 2021

Why do people join the U.S. military?

There really isn’t a definitive answer to that question. There are as many reasons to join as there are people who choose to do so. Some of the reasons are logical, some…not so much. The decision to join the military comes from the heart as much as it comes from the head. Some of the reasons for making this life choice are crystal clear. Some of them are not apparent to anyone, even the person making the decision, until much later in life.

Perhaps the most obvious reason for going into the service has to do with money, or lack thereof. Some of my peace activist friends insist that we don’t really have a volunteer army. They say that we actually have an “economic draft”, implying that most of those who enlist are persons who are struggling financially. There is some truth to that. My son, Hans, joined up during the Great Recession in order to get room and board, health care, and a steady paycheck. He also hoped to learn some skills that would make him better able to find work once he returned to the civilian world. Additionally, he was thinking about using the G.I. Bill to go to college or a trade school eventually.

I went to West Point because I wanted to go to college, and my father made it clear that he could not, or would not, help me to pay for my education. The folks in the Army offered to pay for my bachelor degree, as long as I sold (or rented) my soul to them for at least five years following my graduation. It was a Faustian deal, but I don’t regret it.

Hans did not join the Army just because of money issues. Neither did I. I don’t think anybody does that. There are other, easier ways to become financially successful than being a soldier. Poverty can push a person toward enlisting, but I doubt that it is sufficient motivation. There have to be other reasons to join up.

A neighbor of mine joined the Marines last year because he needed structure. His parents certainly thought so. In any case, the military can provide plenty of structure for a young person who does not yet have a direction in life. Paradoxically, the military also provides plenty of noise and confusion. It has always fascinated me how an organization so regimented can still be filled with so much chaos. Well, people can learn from chaos as well as from structure.

For a young person there is often the need to prove themselves. All traditional societies have a rite of passage, at least for the young men. American culture has no rite of passage. Young people in the United States seem to fumble and flounder into adulthood. It’s not their fault. Nobody teaches how to be an adult. By default, the military takes on the role of rite of passage for many people. Hans went into the Army to prove himself to himself. He wanted to find out what he could really do, and he did.

Family plays a role in the decision to join up. I wanted to go to West Point partly to make my father proud of me. Hans went into the Army to prove that he was his own man, and that I wasn’t calling the shots any more. Years after he deployed to Iraq, I talked him about how I had felt about his enlistment. Hans grinned at me and said,

“Yeah, that was a pretty big ‘fuck you’, wasn’t it?”

Another reason for joining is that some of us just want to do crazy shit. I really can’t explain it any other way. Some of us like to blow things up. Some of us like to fly fast aircraft. Some of us like to jump out of perfectly good aircraft. Hans still gets a wistful look in his eyes when he talks about driving an Abrams tank or firing a salvo round down range. These reasons are not at all rational, but they make a difference.

Finally, people join the military because they want to serve. This reason may not be at the top of the person’s list. The individual might not even be conscious of this desire. However, this particular reason is always there. A person who is drawn to military service wants to be part of something bigger than his or her own ego. The person who joins up wants to be part of something noble.

That last reason is impossible to dispute.

October 28th, 2021

“Zogen einst fünf junge Burschen,

stolz und kuehn zum Kampf hinaus.

Sing, sing was geschah?

Keine kehrt mehr nach Hause.” – von Zogen einst fuenf wilde Schwaene

Translated from the German:

“There were once five young fellows,

proud and ready to go out to fight.

Sing, sing, what happened?

Not one returns home.” – from Five Wild Swans Once Flew (a traditional Lithuanian folksong)

My wife, Karin, was born in 1954 in postwar Germany. The last shot of the war had been fired nine years before her birth, but she started her life in a country haunted by the effects of World War II. The land and the people were still scarred by the violence. Her father and her uncles had all fought for the German Reich. Even when I first met them in 1983, they were still dealing with the issues that all veterans have, regardless of when and where they served, and regardless of what cause they served.

Little by little, I learned their stories. They told me about their years in the military. Now I am telling these stories to you.

Karin’s father, Max, was drafted into the Wehrmacht, specifically the Luftwaffe, in 1938. He was eighteen at the time, and had already spent his earlier teenage years in the Hitler Youth. He was from Silesia, which is now part of Poland. In 1939 he was part of the invasion of Poland. He served in Italy after that. Then he was transferred to the Russian Front with almost all the rest of the German forces. Eventually, the Russian Front moved west until it halted in the smoldering ruins of Berlin. Max got shot in the lung just before the war ended. He convalesced in a Lazarett, a German field hospital. He never went home again. He started his civilian life as a refugee, not knowing where any of his family members were.

Karin’s Onkel (Uncle) Kurt had been in the German Army. He was also originally from Silesia. Kurt was stationed in occupied France. On Christmas Day of 1943 he married Aga. He had only a couple days of leave. After the wedding he returned to his unit in France. He did not see Aga again until 1948. He was captured by the Allies after D-Day, and he was held as a French prisoner of war for three years after the end of the war.

The French did not give Kurt and his fellow prisoners enough to eat. Kurt worked in the vineyards. At times he was so hungry that he ate unripe grapes. Those gave him severe diarrhea and dehydration.

Kurt told me that, when he was finally released by the French, he found Aga (who was also a refugee) near Bad Mergentheim. He said that he got off the train and saw her standing on the platform waiting for him. He told me that it was as if no time had passed at all. She looked just the same as she did at their wedding five years before.

After the war, he became a salesman. He was good at it. He was always friendly and quick with a joke. Once he and Aga were back together, he would always make himself a plate of sandwiches before turning in for the night. He placed the sandwiches on his nightstand next to the bed. He did this every night for years because he wanted to be sure that he had enough to eat.

Karin’s Onkel Friedolin (Friedl) was bauernschlau, or “street smart”. He was not well educated. He had grown up on a farm. However, he knew how to take care of himself.

Friedl initially worked in armaments factory. However, he wasn’t getting enough food, so he joined the army. He was trained as an anti-aircraft gunner, and was stationed in Dresden. His unit was moved early in 1945, just before the fire bombing of the city. He barely missed being incinerated.

At that point in the war, chaos reigned in Germany. The Reds were at the Oder River, east of Berlin. The Nazis were feeding every soldier they could find into the Soviet meat grinder. Friedl was at a train station waiting to go east with his unit. Some troops from Bavaria were loading on to another train. They told him,

“Komm mit uns! Wir fahren richtung Süden!”

“Come with us! We’re going south!”

Friedl went with the southern boys. He got off the train a couple kilometers from his home. Then the war ended.

I don’t know what Max, Kurt, and Friedl were like during the war. Maybe they were rabid Nazis. Somehow, I doubt it. They got swept up in events they could not control, and they managed to survive. When I met them, they were the age that I am now. They were old, and they seemed to have made some sort of peace with their past. To the end of their lives, they believed that they had only fought to defend their homeland. They believed that they had done their duty.

They were vets, just like any other vet.

October 26th, 2021

“A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason.” – J.P Morgan

My youngest son, Stefan, is a welder in the Iron Workers Union. He is currently an apprentice, although he expects to become a journeyman in the next few months. Stefan had a job interview with a construction outfit on Friday. From what he told me, the interview was rather informal. The union hall had sent Stefan to this company, and the interviewers wanted to know what they were getting.

It went like this…

1st Interviewer: “Do you have any DUI’s?”

Stefan: “No.”

1st Interviewer: “Are you divorced?”

Stefan: “No.”

1st Interviewer: “Have you done any prison time?”

Stefan: “No.”

The interviewer looked at Stefan and asked,

“So, how the fuck did you ever get into the Iron Workers?”

No response from Stefan.

1st Interviewer: “Are you mechanically inclined?”

2nd Interviewer, as he was perusing Stefan’s Facebook page: “Of course he’s mechanically inclined! He rides a chopper!”

1st Interviewer: “Okay. Good. Do you have any problem with heights?”

Stefan: “No.”

1st Interviewer: “Do you want to start tomorrow evening?”

Stefan opted to start on Monday.

Stefan has worked at a number of construction sites. He is usually high up on lift, or he’s walking on steel beams 100 feet in the air. Stefan likes that. He enjoys the adrenalin rush. He doesn’t want to be on the ground tying up rebar all day long. He cannot tolerate boredom. Stefan is not risk averse.

Actually, nobody in the Iron Workers is risk averse. An individual who is overly concerned about their health and personal safety would never even consider joining the Iron Workers. The same sort of thing goes for people who join the military. They are the same breed as Stefan and his cohorts.

My oldest son, Hans, joined the Army in 2009. He knew when he joined that he would get deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. After he signed up, Hans told me the good reasons for going into the Army: food and shelter, regular pay, and chance to go to college, etc. Later, much later, Hans told about the real reasons for enlisting. Most of those involved the adrenalin rush.

Hans wanted to prove himself. He wanted an adventure. He wanted to push himself as hard as he could. In Iraq he did all those things, at some cost to himself. When he came back from Iraq, he took up skydiving and bought himself a crotch rocket. Hans is not risk averse.

I don’t think that anybody in the military is risk averse. Like the Iron Workers, the military attracts a population that wants to dangerous work. Doing risky things makes us feel alive. The things we do (or did) in the service (in my case, fly helicopters) straddle the line between totally cool and batshit crazy. It depends on your perspective.

I wanted the adrenalin rush. I still do.