Monthly Archives: November 2009

As fate would have it, today’s Mero Moment falls right in between the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and Veterans Day.

Over the weekend I took my dad to an inspiring Veterans Day celebration. It was a musical mixed with old film footage from World War II. As I sat there with dad it dawned on me that, when I turned 19 years old, I was in Nashville, Tennessee on my way to school in Dallas, Texas. My dad turned 19 at Iwo Jima.

At 19 years old, dad had already been overseas for a year. He celebrated his 18th birthday in San Diego at boot camp. He went from there to the Philippines where, after several months, he contracted malaria and was sent to Honolulu to recover. When he felt better he was back with his naval group in the deep Pacific. He rejoined his group at night and didn’t know where he was. At morning, with the break of dawn, he found himself at Iwo Jima. Eight hundred ships and boats were poised for attack. Dad drove an LCM – those landing crafts that you see in newsreels where the gate comes down and the Marines hop off for battle. read more