He was a great father and was proud of his kids. Although I was far from being the “All-American Boy,” he never had a problem with me even when I started to dress en femme whenever I was invited out for Halloween.
Except for those Halloween forays, I was closeted, but in retrospect, I know that my parents knew something was amiss with their son, but they never commented in a negative way. And I am sure they would have been supportive if I ever came out.
I’ll never forget one Halloween as I was getting ready to go out en femme, my father warned me to watch out for boys!
Thank you for everything you did, Pop!
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| Wearing Cinq à Sept |
My dear Stana, I was touched by the story of your father. I don't remember that you have mentioned him before in this way. You had a great dad who surely noticed your femininity since you were little and didn't stop you. I am sure, that if you had told your father about your femininity, he would have supported you. The same thing happened to me my dad knew about my femininity, but I didn't have the courage to tell him about it, I think that if I had told him about it, he would have supported me. Greetings.
ReplyDeleteWatched 'The Pacific' series a couple months ago. Marines in the Pacific had tough duty. Thanks to your dad for his service.
ReplyDeleteHow many people here have parents who srved in WW2
ReplyDeleteMy father was a radio operator
He volunteered for a post that he thought was on the South Coast of England
It was Normandy!
He said very little apart from being in the first wave
From what I can make out he was on Juno Beach
I forgot to mention my Dad's birthday was August 15th, officially VJ Day here in the UK
DeleteI think that was the best birthday present ever
Lucy
My Dad also served in the Navy during WWII. In fact, he and his co-worker (they were soda jerks -- anyone old enough to know what that job was?) were in line when the Navy recruiting office opened on December 8, 1941. Dad was a Pharmacist's Mate First Class and was stationed in the Navy Dispensary in DC initially -- he often told us the story about how he was called to the The White House to deliver penicillin shots to Winston Churchill! He then was stationed in the Navy Receiving Hospital on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. They received the wounded Marines and Seamen from the Pacific Theater and got them to other care facilities or the serviceman's home towns. He didn't get shot at but certainly saw the ugly results of war. He stayed on for months after the war ended, as the wounded Americans finally made there way home. He talked about where he was stationed, but never his work. They were almost packed up for a move to Okinawa, anticipating the invasion of Japan, when the bomb dropped.
ReplyDeleteHere is the story of my Dad in WW2.
ReplyDeleteWhen my Grandmother dressed me as a girl at age four he was Kool with it but he grew up with two older and one younger sisters after his Dad died during the Depression. (Posted on this platform is the Story under the title; Sara's First Time ).
Dad in World War Two:
penguinsix loves your comment
Dec 15, 2021
US Navy Yard.. Washington DC tour.
Able Windsor
Since many of us here had parents who served in WW2, i will tell a little story...... My dad served on B-17s out of England early in WW2, before the 25 mission limit was imposed. He flew 52 missions. After return to the States, he spent his time training new crews. One day, he drew the worst Hanger Queen on the Base, He was the only one of the twelve aboard that day with combat experience. Everything went wrong, down to two engines plus bad control problems, he lead a mutiny... Six jumped with him, they all lived, Dad broke his ankle on landing. The Capitan, the command pilot, survived with bad burns ending his flight career.....the six who stayed all burned to death: he pushed hard to Court Martial dad. Thirty days later after dad led a breakout of the stockade with the other mutineers, the MP's arrested him in Baltimore, MD, at his uncle's house. He still had the cast on his left foot. When we tried to get Dad's service cover in the Eighties, DoD refused, period, total end of discussion, don't apply again . We had pictures of him in Army Air Force uniform in a Brit (London) South Seas club. Also insignias and other trinkets. His discharge Papers from Fort Meade Maryland. And another set of papers in a different name. We also had pictures of him in front of his 4th armored division tank with his ankle still in a cast. After the Battle of the Bulge. I was active in the GoP In Virginia, so on one election night, I asked my Congressman, M. Caldwell Butler, who was at the time on the Armed Services Committee to retrieve a copy of the Service Record. Several months later my representative who you may have seen on the Judicial Committee during the Nixon Administration Impeachment, -- Caldwell said he had been refused Access to the file, Quote" he did not have a high enough Security Clearance" to see the file, no doubt that tucked him off, rightly! About six months later, I got a phone call at work from Washington DC. A recently discharged veteran, a lawyer who had started on the Armed Services Committee Staff, said that he had copies of Two service records, his Clearance was high enough to see the file BUT he could not copy any of the files or send them to me; but he would talk and answer any questions about my dad's service.
WW2:P2
ReplyDeleteTwo hours later, for the first time I had the full picture! When Pearl Harbor attack happened, my dad had gone to enlist but when he presented himself at the Courthouse, he was refused because they said that at sixteen he could not sign up and to go back and take care of the Farm for his widowed mother and three older sisters. After the new year dad and a friend created fake paperwork, Hitch-Hiked to Raleigh North Carolina, and signed up... very few at that point we're volunteering...easy get. He was picked out of Basic and sent to train as a Bomber Navigator, at this point the US Army did not think they would get enough College men to fill the crews so they were going to do the Brits way and raise up Warrent Officers, enlisted. Just before he was ready to graduate, they came through and gathered up crews to full fill the extra bombers going to Europe since they were not going to be sent to MacArthur. The files when combined made one complete record. After dad was picked up in Maryland he was sent to a tank course for Officers being transferred into armor from infrantry. He picked up a tank driver cert to add to his heavy equipment Papers picked up on return to the States. Next he was sent to France where he was a replacement tank driver in the 4th armored division, went on to the rescue of the 101st Airborne at Bastogne. Later he would be in one of the units that first over ran the westernmost Concentration Camp. That was the one that when Eisenhower first Saw it just two days after it was freed, he ordered all Allied Officers (field grade and above) to tour the camps; and afterwards the Germans in the surrounding areas were by his orders forced to march Through and see the Truth, in each camp freed. After the war, dad managed to be Posted to Paris for occupation duty but soon received new orders to return to the USA for the Planned of invasion of Japan. Oops. A week before he was to shipout to Norfolk the Emperor Surrendered. He stayed in France for Another year, as his service jacket under his real name did not have enough points to muster out. The Committee Lawyer said in his twenty plus year Army career he had never seen two files for the same person that joined so perfectly. How many and how high did this have to go to get him out of a Court-martial .... took many many stars on collars for that too happen, lol. Later that year at a campaign dinner, the Congressman came and set down, he wanted to know what was in the file, you see as a condition of getting the file open HE could not see any of it or ask the staff lawyer for a verbal briefing, I was very glad to tell him the WHOLE REST of the Story. In the late ninties after President Clinton declassified whole Plantations worth of World War Two records; I again tried the get a copy of both service files and was again refused; I still wonder under what Names and classification levels they are being held. My father past in 1963, he was very closed mouthed about his whole WW2.....? Adventures ? Thank s to ALL who have Served ...........
EXCEPT for One Capitan!