Pin-up girls were the rage among the guys in the barracks. That close - knit unit of men shared their photos and talked about the girls they would be leaving behind. They were all impossibly young, mostly naïve, inexperienced and homesick. The pictures of mother and daddy in those early years of their marriage bring tears to my eyes. They were just kids –– too young to be facing such a long separation. Daddy was heading overseas when he had never before even left his small hometown; he was about to endure combat duty, including the deaths and maiming of close buddies, when up to that point his life had been uneventful, peaceful and centered around his home and family.
Later, they would earn recognition as the "greatest generation," but at the time, they were just small - town boys going a long way from home and leaving behind everything they loved and valued.
My mother, a genuine Georgia Peach, wasn't yet twenty when she boarded that train headed to California on a journey to say goodbye and not knowing what daddy would face or whether he would return. She piled in a train car full of soldiers and their wives. These travelers were stuck together for a weary week in close quarters. Little wonder, I suppose, mother arrived in San Diego with a full-blown case of Scarlet Fever.
The reunion between the young husband and wife never happened because mother was quarantined immediately upon arrival in San Diego.
Daddy could only come over to the hospital grounds hoping to catch a glimpse of mother through the window. He found a wall outside mother's hospital window from which he could climb up into a tree to look longingly inside and talk with her from a distance.
One afternoon, daddy brought his best buddy to see his "pin up girl." When they arrived, mother was asleep. Daddy was bitterly disappointed because he had described mother's beauty in glowing terms and he wanted to show off his wife to his friend. Sadly, all they could see through the window was mother's feet.
We have laughed down through the years at the response of daddy's friend. He loyally declared that mother "sure had pretty feet." Even now, despite her age, at the beach or other situations where mother is barefoot, someone is sure to comment about her beautiful feet. When they do, all those stories from World War II flit through my mind, and I'm once again awed by those young people who devotedly preserved the freedom that we take so much for granted today. It is such a priceless freedom, and it angers me that millions don't value it enough to go the polls and cast a ballot when my dad and millions of other GIs fought to keep that freedom alive . . . for the girls who loved them, then and now.