I Met My Father When He Was A Young Man

More than a decade before I was born my dad wrote letters from the South Pacific to his best friend back in Belleville.

Then, long after dad was dead, and the friend past away, those old letters surfaced in a trunk in an attic and that's where I met my father when he was young man.

Already in his 20s, he was one of the older guys on that troop ship chugging through the Panama Canal.

"I always wondered how these things worked," he wrote.

And, of course, he teased his friend at home that even if he told him where he was stationed, his friend couldn't find it on a map!

In August 1942, he was working the artillery supporting the Marines at Guadalcanal. That was when he confided in his friend that he might be home for Christmas.

Little did he or any of the other GIs know it, but it would be years before he got home.

Copyright © 2007 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.