Kim, I hope the visit goes well. I had very little to say to my father as an adult, and I keenly regret that loss. He was extremely difficult, a hard, brutal, and cynical man. The word 'love' never passed between us. He was a WW2 Marine, wounded on Guam. He refused to speak about any of it, and carried a lifelong deep hatred for so many thing: authority, government, those who own and run things. He hated but respected the Japanese. Too many of his friends were killed before he reached the age of 20.
I am still troubled by the facile and thoughtless comments made by some, and I can understand your frustration and anger. Few things are more infuriating than the smug certainty of the militantly ignorant. Many of us here in the US have very different beliefs and attitudes. We remember the million Commonwealth soldiers, and the nearly two million Frenchmen who died during WW1. The US has really not suffered those kinds of heavy losses of life in any of its wars, except for the Civil War. Talk is cheap.
I have been a great admirer of the War Poets ever since I encountered them one long ago spring morning, in a survey literature class. I continue to read them. For some reason, the words of one have been haunting me since yesterday.
Charles Hamilton Sorley, a captain in the Suffolk Regiment, wrote:
'...earth that blossomed and was glad
'neath the cross that Jesus had
shall rejoice, and blossom too
when the bullet reaches you..."
and
"When you see millions of the mouthless dead
across your dreams in pale battalions go
say not soft things as other men have said,
that you'll remember, for you need not so....."
He was killed at Loos by a sniper in 1915.
I wish you the best.
