A leader and a follower

Happy birthday to our favorite hero

He was a quiet war hero who never told those closest to him about that Bronze Star and Purple Heart he was awarded for his exploits on the battlefields of Korea.

Yet, he bellied up to the bar night after night at the American Legion with other men from his generation who answered the call from Uncle Sam to leave some of their guts on foreign soils in lands far away.

To use my brother-in-law’s words, my dad did some kick ass things to earn those honors. You just hand out medals like that, this student of military history assured me.

I know he loved my mother, but my father’s heart belonged to the red, white and blue. What did he share with the woman that blessed him with three children?

Probably nothing.

What did this former legion commander, seller of automotive parts, peddler of cookies, deliver of dairy products and head usher at Sacred Heart Catholic Church tell his fellow veterans?

Probably everything and then some. He was a teller of tall tales who loved to label people. He was a product of his generation.

I was Bud, the youngest sibling and only son who once came downstairs at night after a restless sleep and told my parents I wasn’t going to Vietnam. Canada, the refuge for men that didn’t want to crawl in the jungle, was my destiny.

I was only seven, but my father, the hired killer on the home front, from his smoke-stained chair, assured me I’d go to Vietnam and make him proud. It was my duty, he said calmly.

My father, known to the world as Milo, would’ve turned 88 on Friday, Sept. 22 (today). He left us on July 12, 2001, two months before the day that changed our world.

At the legion, he would’ve been in top Milo form to describe the terrorists who instigated this attack on our soil. We could use of those salty words today to describe certain world leaders, but we have to be politically correct.

A leader among men, but a follower at home, when I think of Milo, I’m reminded of the words he said in the hometown newspaper when he was named personality of the week. – I do what, when I want, when my wife gives me permission.

Happy birthday, dad.