Local View: A reminder on Veterans Day: Some outstanding debts can never be repaid

Rummaging through boxes of photos from my late mother Gertrude’s collection, we found a Christmas card from her brother, Ed Cichoszewski, dated 1944 when he was an American GI in France.
The front of the card was a collage of colorful drawings depicting scenes in Paris, with the message “Merry X Mass” printed diagonally across. On the inside flap of the card was a message in ink from Uncle Eddie to his parents, Rose and Joe, and to his little brother, Donald, which is transcribed here with Ed’s customized spelling and grammar left intact: Dear Mom Dad, and Baby,This is not quite a fashional  greeting card like they have in the states, but any way it’s the thought behind it.  I would definetly like to be home at this time, but there are a few things which prevail such delights, most likely I will have better luck next year, so I give you my best regards to a Blessed Christmas and a Joyous New Year in which the entire world will be at peace.Kayo He signed it “Kayo,” a nickname given him by his father as a child, since he resembled their favorite  character of the same name in Frank Willard’s comic strip Moon Mullins. The cartoon Kayo was a street-wise city kid who wore a bold smile and a blue derby hat.Finding the faded letter made us smile, since, even as long as 60 years ago, it showed familiar traits in the young soldier he still possessed as the middle-aged uncle we later knew growing up.His choice of words like “fashional” and “prevail” (instead of “prevent”), typified the well-meaning but accidentally humorous vocabulary by an intelligent, thoughtful man who was drafted into the Army not too long after his graduation from high school. Most noticeable was the very formal tone in a Christmas card to his family. In view of the horrors and hardships they endured, men of the Greatest Generation kept their emotions at arm’s length or, more often, locked inside. World War II soldiers did not talk about  the episodes of death and destruction they witnessed which “prevailed such delights.” And rather than indulge their deep feelings of fear, longing, or loneliness, they minimized or repressed their emotions, considering them manifestations of weakness.       You protected yourself with a hard shell. You signed off not with love, but with “best regards,” even to the people closest to you in this world.And Kayo might have had more reasons than most for avoiding vulnerability. He had been a standout defensive lineman on his school’s varsity football team. News clippings tucked in my mother’s photo album were testimony to his potential for bigger things. But any dreams he may have entertained about a sports career were dashed by the military draft, though he did play some exhibition football while in the Army, as entertainment for London audiences. In the final year of the war, months after he sent this card, and shortly after a peace agreement was reached, Kayo was wounded by a sniper while walking those same streets where he bought the Christmas card for his parents. Medics saved his life, but he spent months in the hospital before coming home.As with many returning soldiers, there were pains of adjustment. But Eddie managed to get a good job as a sales rep for a metal parts factory in Chicago. He also met a girl and fell in love. But her parents did not think Eddie’s Polish Catholic heritage was compatible with their daughter’s, and the relationship soured. He stayed a bachelor all his life, working, traveling some, investing in real estate and in electronic security technology.His penchant for arguing about politics and popular culture was not always appreciated by my father and other relatives. But he was a favorite to me and my brothers, since he was not like other adults. He rough-housed with us, poked fun at our shortcomings, gave us puffs of his cigarettes, let us take the wheel of his car. I remember when he visited us at a lake cabin rental in southern Wisconsin. There were no boat rentals left on a busy weekend, but he somehow found a 16-foot Everglades-style airboat with which he towed us on inner tubes.  People stood on docks staring at our deafening thrill rides.Most of all, we liked him because he liked us. He preferred horsing around with me and my brothers to sitting in the parlor with the other grownups.Like the millions of other veterans drafted to fight in a necessary but horrible war, Uncle Ed gave more to this country than courage and more than years of service. He gave up that which he could never recover: his youth.And the country owed him more than it was ever able to pay back. David McGrath lived in Hayward for 29 years, is a frequent contributor to the News Tribune Opinion page, is an emeritus professor of English for the College of DuPage in Illinois and is the author of “Siege at Ojibwa” and “The Territory.” McGrath can be contacted at profmcgrath2004@yahoo.com. Rummaging through boxes of photos from my late mother Gertrude’s collection, we found a Christmas card from her brother, Ed Cichoszewski, dated 1944 when he was an American GI in France.
The front of the card was a collage of colorful drawings depicting scenes in Paris, with the message “Merry X Mass” printed diagonally across. On the inside flap of the card was a message in ink from Uncle Eddie to his parents, Rose and Joe, and to his little brother, Donald, which is transcribed here with Ed’s customized spelling and grammar left intact:Dear Mom Dad, and Baby,This is not quite a fashional  greeting card like they have in the states, but any way it’s the thought behind it.  I would definetly like to be home at this time, but there are a few things which prevail such delights, most likely I will have better luck next year, so I give you my best regards to a Blessed Christmas and a Joyous New Year in which the entire world will be at peace.KayoHe signed it “Kayo,” a nickname given him by his father as a child, since he resembled their favorite  character of the same name in Frank Willard’s comic strip Moon Mullins. The cartoon Kayo was a street-wise city kid who wore a bold smile and a blue derby hat.Finding the faded letter made us smile, since, even as long as 60 years ago, it showed familiar traits in the young soldier he still possessed as the middle-aged uncle we later knew growing up.His choice of words like “fashional” and “prevail” (instead of “prevent”), typified the well-meaning but accidentally humorous vocabulary by an intelligent, thoughtful man who was drafted into the Army not too long after his graduation from high school. Most noticeable was the very formal tone in a Christmas card to his family. In view of the horrors and hardships they endured, men of the Greatest Generation kept their emotions at arm’s length or, more often, locked inside. World War II soldiers did not talk about  the episodes of death and destruction they witnessed which “prevailed such delights.” And rather than indulge their deep feelings of fear, longing, or loneliness, they minimized or repressed their emotions, considering them manifestations of weakness.       You protected yourself with a hard shell. You signed off not with love, but with “best regards,” even to the people closest to you in this world.And Kayo might have had more reasons than most for avoiding vulnerability. He had been a standout defensive lineman on his school’s varsity football team. News clippings tucked in my mother’s photo album were testimony to his potential for bigger things. But any dreams he may have entertained about a sports career were dashed by the military draft, though he did play some exhibition football while in the Army, as entertainment for London audiences. In the final year of the war, months after he sent this card, and shortly after a peace agreement was reached, Kayo was wounded by a sniper while walking those same streets where he bought the Christmas card for his parents. Medics saved his life, but he spent months in the hospital before coming home.As with many returning soldiers, there were pains of adjustment. But Eddie managed to get a good job as a sales rep for a metal parts factory in Chicago. He also met a girl and fell in love. But her parents did not think Eddie’s Polish Catholic heritage was compatible with their daughter’s, and the relationship soured. He stayed a bachelor all his life, working, traveling some, investing in real estate and in electronic security technology.His penchant for arguing about politics and popular culture was not always appreciated by my father and other relatives. But he was a favorite to me and my brothers, since he was not like other adults. He rough-housed with us, poked fun at our shortcomings, gave us puffs of his cigarettes, let us take the wheel of his car. I remember when he visited us at a lake cabin rental in southern Wisconsin. There were no boat rentals left on a busy weekend, but he somehow found a 16-foot Everglades-style airboat with which he towed us on inner tubes.  People stood on docks staring at our deafening thrill rides.Most of all, we liked him because he liked us. He preferred horsing around with me and my brothers to sitting in the parlor with the other grownups.Like the millions of other veterans drafted to fight in a necessary but horrible war, Uncle Ed gave more to this country than courage and more than years of service. He gave up that which he could never recover: his youth.And the country owed him more than it was ever able to pay back.David McGrath lived in Hayward for 29 years, is a frequent contributor to the News Tribune Opinion page, is an emeritus professor of English for the College of DuPage in Illinois and is the author of “Siege at Ojibwa” and “The Territory.” McGrath can be contacted at profmcgrath2004@yahoo.com.