A time to reflect

Source: Wikimedia Commons A silent cannon stands watch at Gettysburg National Battlefield in Pennsylvania.

Source: Wikimedia Commons
A silent cannon stands watch at Gettysburg National Battlefield in Pennsylvania.

Mary Kemper
Staff Writer
Mom always said he should have taught history in college. But Dad said he’d never wanted to be anything but a soldier, all his life.
And he was, even after he retired from the U.S. Army at the rank of bird colonel. He enjoyed all the military holidays, and, of course, we always proudly flew the American flag wherever we were.
But no day meant more to him than Memorial Day.
He raised us alone, with the help of a housekeeper, when his first wife (my birth mother) and he divorced. And boy, did he run that household on military lines. Room inspections, police call, you name it. My older sisters, real “girly girls,” resented it, but it taught us all good lessons — and it resulted in three of us (both brothers and I) enlisting in the Army ourselves.
Even after he retired, he was quite the martinet. Every Sunday, he’d call up the stairs, “You have 12 minutes and 16 seconds to get in that car, or we’re going to church without you!”
Missing church was not an option, unless you were sick. Especially on the Sunday closest to Memorial Day.

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