MICHAEL TAKIFF
is a Yale graduate whose
writing has appeared in
the New York Times
and the Washington
Post. He is the
son of a World War II veteran
and lives in New York City
with his wife and son.
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How I Came to Write BRAVE MEN,
GENTLE HEROES
[From the Introduction]
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T
his book has its origins in a conversation
I had with my father in December 1992,
three weeks before his death. We were
in a hospital room in Elizabeth, New
Jersey, the working-class town where
he had lived his entire life, save
1942–46, his years in the Army.
Dad had always loved to tell stories
of his time in the service and I had
never tired of hearing them, even
though I’d heard each one a
hundred times. But during the last
year or two of his life, he returned
to the subject more and more. Dad
was a walking medical textbook, but
his most serious illness was chronic
obstructive pulmonary disorder. COPD
can be a terminal disease—it
was in his case—but it’s
not one that carries a fixed, imminent
deadline, as, say, lung cancer does.
Nevertheless, Dad’s health had
been deteriorating those last couple
of years; clearly, he was taking stock.
Alfred Takiff
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That
afternoon in the hospital,
I heard some of the old stories.
My favorite was about the
night he was billeted in the
home of an elderly French
doctor. After dinner, Dad
and his host argued over the
need for American bombing
of targets in France during
the Nazi occupation, then
got pie-eyed on Armagnac and
marched around the table singing
“The Marseillaise”
and “The Star-Spangled
Banner.”But as he sat
on his bed in his pajamas
and red-flannel bathrobe,
he said something he’d
never before said to me—nor,
I’m certain, to anyone
else. Just the two of us were
in the room that day; my mother
had had to leave town for
the weekend, so I was filling
in to help him pass the dull
hospital time. “You
might say,” he told
me, “that the war was
the high point of my life.”
I didn’t think much
about that comment right away.
There was already enough to
think about: He was sick;
a week later his condition
took a turn for the worse,
and he was dying. Only in
the months following his passing
did I consider what he’d
said. At first it made little
sense. He’d been to
war nearly a half-century
ago, he’d never fired
his weapon in anger, he’d
had a reasonably successful
career in business, he’d
raised four children, he’d
been married forty-nine years.
But then I realized: Of course.
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could compare to his crossing
the sea—this young man
who had never traveled more
than a few miles from home—as
one among millions around
the world engaged in this
grand and good enterprise?
How could the rest of his
life—nine to five, day
after day, year after year,
putting bread on the table
for his growing family—measure
up to sailing off to save
the world?
I suppose I had always been
proud of my father’s
service during World War II,
but during his lifetime, aside
from enjoying his stories—most
of them amusing, one sobering—I’d
paid it scant attention. I
suppose I had always admired
the accomplishment of all
the Americans who fought in
World War II. But it took
my father’s comment
and his death for me to begin
to appreciate the extent to
which the lives of these now
elderly men had been defined
by a few years of their youth.
Only then did I begin to understand
why men stood at traffic intersections
to collect money for the VFW,
why they marched in Memorial
Day parades. My father did
not march in parades, probably
because it was not his nature
to be demonstrative, perhaps
because he thought that other
men, who had seen more combat,
were more deserving of the
recognition. But during my
boyhood he took me to Memorial
Day parades in downtown Elizabeth.
Only after his death did I
begin to imagine what must
have been going through his
mind at those parades and
why, as the flag passed, he
took off his hat and placed
it over his heart.
In researching this project—talking
with the veterans who appear
in these pages and with many
others—I’ve come
to realize that the experience
of war is no less pivotal
in the lives of Vietnam veterans
than in those of the veterans
of World War II. War changes
people.
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The
foregoing is excerpted from
Brave Men, Gentle Heroes
by Michael Takiff. All rights
reserved. No part of this
book may be used or reproduced
without written permission
from HarperCollins Publishers,
10 East 53rd Street, New York,
NY 10022
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