In Celebration of Father's Day 
 
My father was an imposing man. He stood 6’2”, was movie-star handsome, and had that innocent, just-off-the-farm demeanor for good reason. Dad grew up on a small farm in Missouri where he watched airplanes fly over the family’s alfalfa fields and dreamed about becoming a pilot. He wanted to join the Navy at age 18, but his father wouldn’t hear of it. He waited until he was 21 and enlisted. 
 
Dad headed for California where he was deployed as a sailor on a ship and was later selected for pilot training. He loved flying. He was a member of the search party looking for a missing Amelia Earhart in the summer of 1937. On Sunday, December 7, 1941, he was shaving in Honolulu when shrapnel started flying through the walls and he had to duck to avoid being hit. He soon learned that the Japanese Army was attacking American forces.
 
My dad fought throughout World War II, teaching new pilots to fly off the coast of Japan. On one flight, when another pilot was ill, dad was asked to take the pilot’s surveillance flight. His plane suffered engine trouble, losing two engines altogether, and they were forced to crash land in the water. He lost some of his crew and the survivors floated for 14 hours awaiting rescue. Dad held his co-pilot afloat the entire time, despite his back being seriously injured. His Navy flight crew called him “a man’s man.” 
 
When I read that about my dad, I felt proud. Dad didn’t talk much about his wartime experiences, of course. None of that generation did. But his crew spoke for him. In their memoires and letters, they wrote about my father with great pride. He was a leader and others recognized that quality in him.
 
Dad achieved the rank of Lieutenant Commander, about the highest he could be awarded without a college degree. College was never an option for a poor farm kid. He earned a host of medals that hung on the wall of our family room for as long as I can remember. To me, he was just my dad. All those amazing feats he managed before I was born seemed impossible. Dad would head off to work looking handsome in his uniform and smelling like a good men’s cologne. He’d often be gone for days at a time, and then return home bearing gifts for us kids. Our family relocated every two years to some new base as dad was transferred; that life seemed normal for us. When he retired from the Navy after nearly 30 years, he struggled to find his next career move. After trying everything from selling life insurance to butchering meat, the war hero pilot decided he needed a college degree. Starting college in his late 40s was no easy task. 
 
I remember my dad spending long hours at the dining room table finishing his homework. Geography was easy for him, but he struggled with Spanish. When I needed to talk to him or get his permission to go somewhere with my friends, I would open the sliding door to the dining room and clear my throat just a little to let him know I was there. He was always immersed in his studies. To me, it was like interrupting the king. Even as a teen, I was a little afraid of my dad, a kind of healthy fear that kept me from doing something stupid.
 
By his mid-50s, my dad earned both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Jacksonville University. He began teaching geography and history to high school kids that benefited from a teacher who had flown all over the world.
 
When I got the call from my brother in 1983 that dad had died in surgery, a flood of emotions and memories came over me as I drove north to Jacksonville to grieve with my family. Our fathers are so important to us. They give us their guidelines for life, their special qualities and talents, their teaching, and their unending love. They serve as role models for us. And then one day, they’re gone. And when that happens, you realize how much like your dad you really are. 
 
Happy Father’s Day to all the dads in our club, in our community and throughout the world. Where would we be without you?