My father never talked about the war (WWII). He didn’t “not” talk about it, he just did not bring it up and no one pushed him for stories. He died when I was twenty-one and I did not really know him. I also know very little about his time in the South Pacific except that he was in New Guinea and Australia, he was in the 22nd Bomb Group and he flew a B-26. He was a Lt. Colonel and a pilot. I just spent a week in a cabin by the airport in Lockhart River, where the original building was constructed for the war in 1942.
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| It has changed very little over the years. |
It was only as we were waiting for our plane to leave that I saw the display of historical markers regarding the airfield.
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| We stayed in one of those cabins in the back there. |
At home in a box of stuff that I have had since I was a kid, I have an embroidered patch with that 5 and shooting star on it. It was my dad’s. I was walking the same ground he had in WWII. I really had no idea.
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| We may have opened the same door. |
We may both have opened the door to the Gent’s room with this same doorknob. I do not think he ever dreamed that anyone in the family would ever be there, where he had been (at least part of the time) during the war. I really had no idea. But I am very grateful that I was in this place where my father had been. I am also sad. I wish so much that I had known him better. He was a far more complex man than people where allowed to be back then, and I reckon it took its toll on him. He died at 58. Daddy, I was there where you were.
I would never have gone to the Iron Range if I were not a birder. Once again, birds and a love of “getting out amongst it” has lead me to things I never expected. I am grateful.
Birds. Peace. Love. Earth. Laughter. Music.
