I have no memories of my Granddad. This isn’t really surprising since he passed away when I was only six months old. Both of my Dad’s parents had gone by the time I was born. My Grammie lived until 1992 but she lived in Utah and, unfortunately, I didn’t see her much before her death.

Growing up, I’d always ask my Mom for stories about my Granddad and what he was like. I know he loved Spam (something his granddaughter did not inherit). I know my he and my Grammie got married on Easter Day. When I was a little baby down in Utah visiting my grandparents, I cut my fingers on a razor blade. The nurse was helping my Granddad shave and, in a moment of baby brilliance, I swatted at the blade when she was switching it out for a new sharp one. Mom told me Granddad cried for me and the gut-wrenching guilt he felt that is had happened.

In elementary when we started to learn about World War II I went home to my Mom and told her all I had learned that day. I was surprised to discover when we started to learn about Pearl Harbor that my Granddad had been there. Not only had he been there but he was on the USS Dobbin— the ship next to the Arizona.

This weekend my Mom was visiting after some training here on the east coast and I asked her for more details about what happened to Granddad during Pearl Harbor. Where was Grammie and my uncles? What was his rank? What exactly did he do during the war? As we munched on pizza the night before my Mom’s departure she told the small details that she had been told growing up and a small part of my Granddad’s life.

My Granddad was the officer of the day on the USS Dobbin the day Pearl Harbor was attacked. My Grammie was living on Hawaii at the time with my uncles Craig (six and a half) and Howard (six months old). Craig could remember until his death in 1994 hearing and seeing the kamikaze pilots headed toward the harbor and sounds of the attack. Worried, he ran to find Grammie to tell her of what he saw and heard on the pineapple farm where they were residing. Undaunted and displaying the no non-sense characteristics my Mom inherited, Grammie told Craig to go the market and get a loaf of bread and milk for later. Grammie called the base saying her husband was suppose to be off at 11a.m. that morning and could she possibly speak to him? Whoever answered the phone informed her he wouldn’t be home and hung up.

I can only imagine a fraction of the horrors that my Granddad probably witnessed at Pearl Harbor. Mom told me the only detail he ever revealed was that body parts rained down from the sky as the world around him blew up. Grammie finally got word Monday night that Granddad had survived where so many others had perished.

Granddad went on from Hawaii to Aleutians and then into the South Pacific. He went in with the pre-landing forces at Bougainville and some other battle sites to set up communications to direct landing forces. His speciality was radio communications. At the end of the war he was a part of Admiral Halsey’s staff and one of the higher ranking Admirals in the Pacific.

One story he liked to tell his children (something my Mom related with a big smile on her face) was the time he literally got ants in his pants. Not a smoker, Granddad would trade his cigarette rations for candy and store them in his pants… until red ants decided to crawl inside his pants to get the candy. Never again did he store candy in his pants.

I wish I could have known my Granddad and what a dynamic person he was. The historian within me wishes his memories and stories could have been recorded before his passing. I know he saw the horrors that man-kind did to each other during the war and he carried a heavy burden for all that he saw. When I was sixteen I was still living as an exchange student in Japan and went to Hiroshima on Christmas day. The devastation of war and how all sides ralliy themselves and pull together after such devastation boggles my mind and fills me with awe at the wonders of what we can do together.

Yesterday, I watched the movie Pearl Harbor and got choked up knowing my Granddad was there, lived through it, and went on to live a full life who could cry for his granddaughters cut fingers when he had witnessed so much.

To the veterans out there: thank you, and you’re sacrifices and honor are very much appreciated.

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