My father 21 year old Army Air Corp Sergeant Marvin Edelstein 1942

What my WWII veteran father had done in the war and what the war had done to him was never clear to me.

Like most men of Dad’s generation, silence was a heroic virtue.

Just as the memories of the war hung back in the far recesses of his mind, so in a dusty corner of the stuffy attic hung his army dress jacket. Reeking of mothballs, the olive-colored gabardine wool jacket was covered with mysterious multi-colored bars and ribbons, tangible evidence that he had actually been in WWII.

The only other item from his war experience was an Army-issued regulation olive-colored tin can of foot powder, which he still kept on our bathroom shelf book bookended by bottles of red Lavoris Mouth Wash and Old Spice After Shave.

Army Maneuvers

Corporal Marvin Edelstein stationed in New Guinea

Every year on Veterans Day, former Army Air Corps Sergeant Edelstein would begin “Operation Army Jacket” by retrieving the jacket from our attic.

The attic was not easily accessible making it all the more mysterious. Access was only through a trap door in the ceiling of his bedroom walk-in closet. Dad would go out to the garage, retrieving a large paint-splattered wooden ladder, electric lantern, and coiled-up extension cord.

As though he was back in basic training, he’d quickly climb the ladder, and then wriggled his body way up into this dark hole in the ceiling. I never ceased to marvel at his contortionist-like abilities getting himself through this small opening. What other treasures lay up there I would never really know as I only went up into the attic once or twice in all my childhood.

Army Air Corp Sergeant Marvin Edelstein

The dress jacket was in pristine shape, as though it had never been to war. It was hard to imagine him wearing this scratchy woolen jacket in the heat of the tropics where he was stationed. As he slipped the jacket on, it never elicited any war stories or memories.

Though with each passing year it became harder and harder for him to button the jacket closed, it was an annual reminder of a past life my family had no part of.

There had never been any explanation what all the strange bars and ribbons stood for that were pinned to the coat. Only towards the end of his life did he mention he had been eligible to have received a Purple Heart but declined it not wanting to worry his mother back home. How he had been injured was never spoken of. A mysterious scar on his chest, that resulted in a noticeably sunken pec muscle was the only indication.

That didn’t mean that the Greatest War was far from the lives of my brothers and our friends,

Most of the suburban balding men I grew up with had fought in the greatest of all wars, WWII, and were just as silent as my Dad was. Though little was spoken by mostly silent fathers, the war was memorialized in theatres screen, comic books tv shows and most importantly our playtime.

Ads for toy soldiers were ubiquitous on the back of comic books. You could choose your war and time period from Revolutionary War soldiers to Civil War or WWII.

The closest I got to war stories were the ones I made up myself with the aid of the dozens of green plastic WWII toy soldiers that you could buy packed in a bag for 99 cents advertised on the back of comic books.