On Veterans Day

Guv served with the U.S. Army Air Force (as it was then known) in World War II. I know almost nothing about what he did or where he was, other than the vague understanding that he was in South Asia--Thailand, and India--and, for some reason, served with the British.

He never talked about his war experiences. He joked about people who did, prefacing long-winded stories with this mocking prologue: "When I was in the service ..." But he never finished that sentence.

He told me a story, once, about being in India and how jackals ran through his tent at night. He told another story about needing to cross a river at night, and finding a man with a boat who didn't want to take him. So Guv took out his gun and took the safety off and held it on the man until the man took him across. And then once he had reached the other side, Guv realized he didn't know how to put the safety back on.

Those are the only two stories I know. Did he see battle? Did he kill anyone? Why was he in the jungles of India, needing to cross a river?

And the big one: Did he come home a changed man?

He kept his service revolver in his bedroom in a drawer, and I used to sneak in and look at it sometimes and then dart away, fearing that it might somehow go off, triggered by nothing more than the movement of the opening drawer and the light of day.

When Guv was dying, he told me about being in India and buying a present for his little sister--a paper cutout sculpture of the Taj Mahal, very beautiful and intricate. He put it under his bed and by morning it had collapsed.

It felt like a metaphor for something, but for what I cannot say. I don't know enough.

After he told me that story, he handed me a small rectangular sandalwood box, beautifully carved. After the collapse of the paper Taj Mahal, he said, he wanted to buy something more substantial, and this glove box is what he came home with.

It now sits upstairs in my house on the desk that used to be his, the one with the nameplate screwed into the corner: his first two initials, L.J., match mine.

These stories are meandering away from his war experiences, because they are all I know. They are all I have.