Chapter 22: Honoring My Dad

June 17, 2000, Chicago, Illinois

Mid-afternoon on Saturday, Jesse, Albert, Nicholas, and I headed for Great Lakes for the ceremony the Navy men had arranged for my dad. Patrick was flying him and Matthew to Waukegan National Airport, and the Navy would pick them up and bring them to the base. Eduardo was bringing Michael to meet us as well, and a few other non-Navy guys would be in attendance with their kids. We arrived at RTC, showed our pass, and followed the directions given us by the guard to find the building where the ceremony would be held.

I got out of the car and was nearly bowled over by a pretty brown-haired Navy commander of my close acquaintance, who also had Matthew with her.

“Hi, Aimee,” I said as she gave me a bear hug. “I don’t think the hug is regulation!”

She laughed, “And you, Mr. Adams, are ANYTHING but regulation!”

“No kidding!” Jesse said with a smirk as I hugged Aimee tightly and then released her.

“You look great in dress whites! Is Commander Fitzmaurice with you?”

“No. He’s on deployment. It’s his third and final sea tour unless he wants a command, and he decided he’d rather have a shore billet to be with me and Elizabeth.”

“That sounds like a good plan. How is Elizabeth?”

“She’s fine. She’s staying with a friend because it was just too much travel for her in a short time.”

“And how is Kristin doing?”

“Great. She’s actually in London on assignment from DSIA. When she comes back, she’s all mine!”

“Does she know this?”

“We got along great so she won’t complain. Us Ohio girls have to stick together!”

“How long are you here?”

“I’m flying home with Dad and your dad after the ceremony, then tomorrow I’ll fly to DC and dad will bring the plane back to Ohio. That way I get some flying hours in. They’re inside, by the way.”

“Still working on classified stuff?”

“Always!”

“I take it you remember Jesse, right? And this is Albert, and Nick Evans’ son Nicholas.”

She greeted them and we began walking towards the building entrance.

“I have a question for you,” she said.

“Go ahead.”

“We’re looking at moving away from mainframes to use high-powered workstations. Do you have anyone who, in a few years, might be able to work with us on a project like that?”

“Sam would be my first choice,” I said. “But she’s about as anti-military as anyone I know. Brenda could do it, or me.”

“OK. We’re just in the very preliminary discussion stages, so it could be a few years.”

“You know my phone number! And speaking of which, why didn’t you tell me you were going to be here when we talked last week?”

“I wanted to surprise you!”

“And you did!”

“Dad is pretty clueless, so that’s not TOO difficult!” Jesse said.

“Miss Aimee?” Albert said. “You fly?”

“Yes, Albert, I do.”

“I want to learn to fly!”

Aimee and I exchanged a quick look which told her I supported that.

“Well, when you get big enough to reach the pedals, I’ll come see you and you can fly my plane.”

“Really?!”

“Yes, really.”

“Yes!” Albert exclaimed, pumping his fist.

Of course, given he was only going to be eleven in July, there were likely still a few years to go before he’d have his growth spurt.

“You don’t get many hours in?” I asked.

“Not cross-country,” she said. “It’s like anything else - if you don’t practice, you lose your touch!”

I winked at her and she laughed, but we were entering the building so no more banter was possible. We followed a sign which directed us to an auditorium where I saw a sea of sailors in dress uniform - a mix of officers and enlisted - though my dad was wearing ‘only’ a suit and tie.

“Grandpa isn’t in uniform?” Albert asked.

“No,” I replied. “I think he’d be allowed, but I don’t think he wants to.”

“We talked about that on the flight up,” Aimee said. “Your dad wasn’t thrilled with the idea in general, and the concession was no uniform.”

“Let me guess - he told you a lot of good men and women served and did their jobs and went home, and a lot of good men and women died.”

“You’ve had this conversation, obviously.”

“About five years ago. Commander Schumacher convinced him to come here today.”

Aimee nodded, “All these fresh-faced recruits need to see an honest-to-goodness hero at some point in their lives.”

“You and I agree, but Dad doesn’t. I’m pretty sure he banned that word from today’s ceremony.”

“I think the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with two campaign stars, the American Campaign Medal, the Purple Heart with a star for a second award, and the Navy Cross will make that clear. Not to mention the rest of the usual ‘fruit salad’, including his Navy Good Conduct Medal with three enlistment bars. Dad and your friend Mary at the State Department worked over Senator Voinovich to get the medals in that display case.”

“I know,” I replied. “Technically, the man who won those medals doesn’t exist, and they can’t declassify his CIA records until 2010. But you know the basic outline, right?”

“He told us on the flight up. No details, obviously. Though he did tell us it was the Social Security Administration that screwed up.”

“I knew a bit of it back in 1984,” I said with a smile, “because my Russian, well, Soviet, friends knew who he was.”

“Katy hasn’t said a word!” Aimee exclaimed.

“Right, because ex-KGB officers are known to speak carelessly!”

Aimee laughed, “If there is anyone more tight-lipped than Katy Anisimov, I don’t know who it is.”

“You mean, Colonel Yekatarina Sergeyevna Anisimova, retired, of the KGB?”

“She’s over there, in a business suit, so I’d be careful!”

“Dad loves to tease her,” Jesse said.

“I’m surprised you aren’t in a Soviet military uniform!” Aimee declared mirthfully.

“It doesn’t fit!” he groused. “I keep growing! And it’s too warm to wear my «ушанка»!”

“Let me guess - complete with a red star?”

“Of course! I also have general’s epaulets for my uniform.”

“Of course you do!” Aimee laughed. “We should take our seats.”

We moved to the front of the room to seats reserved for us in the first row, with Aimee sitting just behind us. Her dad and Katya came to sit with her and we greeted each other and shook hands. I thanked Patrick for flying my dad to Chicago, as well as for Aimee’s surprise visit. Eduardo and Michael arrived a few minutes later, and sat with us, and just as the ceremony was about to begin, Kara and my daughters arrived, along with Stephanie and David, filling the rest of the ‘family’ chairs.

The base commander called everyone to attention, a color guard entered as Anchor’s Aweigh was played, and following the Pledge of Allegiance, the ceremony began with a tape sent by Karl which was, in effect, the main speech. Once the ten-minute tape finished playing, Howard went to the podium and read out the list of citations and awards my dad had received, and then Brian took over for a huge surprise.

“Chief Adams,” he said. “In July of 1942 you made a harrowing trip to the North Sea on the destroyer USS Wainwright, to protect Convoy PQ-17. With us today, are three men who served on that ship with you. I’m pleased to welcome Lieutenant Eugene ‘Gino’ Lane, who served as Navigator; Chief Scott ‘Scooter’ Cranston, who served as Engineering Chief; and Seaman First Class Jason Hatch, who served as one of your radio operators.”

The three men came into the room from a side door to the raucous applause and cheering. They each went to my dad and shook hands, and I struggled not to cry, but the sheer emotion overwhelmed me. Kara noticed and opened her purse, extracted a tissue, and handed it to me. I dabbed the tears from the corners of my eyes and took a few deep breaths to get control.

“You OK, Dad?” Jesse asked quietly, sounding concerned.

“I don’t feel like I’m going to faint,” I replied equally quietly.

“OK,” he replied, giving me a hard look to confirm I was telling the truth.

I looked at those four men, all in their eighties, and imagined what they must have looked like in 1942. I had seen exactly one picture of my dad from before he married my mom, and that was of him in a pool in Las Vegas in 1961, so I could only try to roll back some years from that picture. I realized he didn’t look all that different at 83 than he had at 44, though his hair was grayer and he was a bit thinner than he had been.

My dad was in remarkably good shape, and seeing him next to his former shipmates drove home that point. At 83, he was anything but the picture of an octogenarian, while the other men looked old and frail. My dad did have problems with his hips, and to a lesser extent his knees, but in every other way, except for needing glasses and in-ear hearing aids, he was healthy as a horse.

When the men had greeted each other and taken their places, Howard called my dad to the podium. As expected, he said only a few words thanking Karl and the other officers for arranging things, then putting ME on the spot, without warning me in advance, by saying that he was planning to tell me the stories so I could write them, and that in ten years, he’d be able to tell the rest of the story to me.

There was a rousing round of applause and cheering when he finished, and the base commander ended the official ceremony, and invited everyone to join in refreshments in a nearby room. The color guard left, and then my dad and his shipmates went through a side door, and once the officers and enlisted sailors were dismissed, they began filing through the door where my dad and his shipmates formed a receiving line and shook hands with about 250 sailors and a number of civilians.

“No press?” I asked Howard as we got into line.

“Your dad absolutely refused, and that includes Stars and Stripes and Navy Times.”

“I’m not surprised by THAT, but the sailors? How did you pull that one off?”

“Karl does have some pull as Force JAG in London,” he replied with a grin. “Fortunately, almost no Navy records were lost in the Fire in St. Louis, so it was just a matter of finding the correct records. Some are computerized, but some had to be searched by hand. Most of those men have died, obviously. Seaman First Class Hatch is the youngest at 77. Chief Cranston is 88.

“So, when do we get to read your dad’s story?”

I chuckled, “Sometime after 2010 when he tells it to me! I only know bits and pieces at the moment, and you guys probably know the Navy part of it. So it’ll be some time before I publish... A Sailor’s Diary. The first volume would be about World War II and the OSS, the second about the CIA.”

“Sign me up to proofread. You’ll need a blue-water sailor to edit the Navy part for you.”

“Sadly, there aren’t going to be very many of those left in ten years, at least not with the kinds of experiences my dad survived. A sixteen-year-old enlistee in 1941 would be eighty-five by then.”

“And your dad will be ninety-three,” Howard replied.

“Not to be morbid, but short of Patrick’s plane crashing on the way back to Blue Ash, or being hit by a bus, I’d say my dad has at least fifteen more years, and likely twenty.”

“He sure doesn’t look 83, that’s for sure. If I met him on the street, I’d say sixty at the oldest.”

“He always said it was never smoking, rarely drinking soft drinks, and marrying a woman nearly twenty-years younger that did it for him.”

Howard laughed, “I’d get arrested if I tried that!”

“You’d be DEAD if you tried that!” Brian said from behind us.

“Well, yeah, that too! He was in his forties when he married, right, Steve?”

“Forty-four, by a few months. He’ll actually turn 83 in August, and my parents’ anniversary is in November.”

We went through the receiving line, and my dad introduced me and the kids to his former shipmates, and did the same for my boys who were with Eduardo and my daughters who were with Kara. After we shook hands, we helped ourselves to refreshments, and then spent the next few hours mingling with the assembled Navy men and other guests. I got to talk to Seaman Hatch, who would have the knowledge of day-to-day activities aboard ship. I took down his contact information and we agreed to speak on the phone so I could gather information.

When the ceremony ended, Howard and Brian had a private reception for my extended family and the other Navy men we were close to, and then, finally, I had some time to talk to my dad alone.

“So I’m your official biographer?” I asked with a smile.

“It makes sense, don’t you think?”

“It does. I did get Seaman Hatch’s phone number and address in Florida. I’m going to talk with him as well.”

“Don’t believe a word he says!” Dad replied with a laugh. “Or ANYTHING Scooter says about anything which might have happened on shore leave!”

I chuckled, “As if I’m in a place to criticize? Or I’d somehow think less of a sailor who fought hard, drank hard, and fucked hard?”

My dad laughed, “There are some stories I can tell you!”

“You’ll pardon me if I don’t want play-by-play details.”

“No more than I would want to hear them from you! Tell me about your sister.”

I took a deep breath and let it out.

“Ed cheated on her, at least twice. The reasons don’t really matter. With a bit of help from me, they worked out an agreement that leaves her with primary custody of the kids and nearly all of her assets. She made quite a pile working for Spurgeon.”

“No kidding. I’m sure there’s more to this, but if your sister swore you to secrecy, I know you’ll never tell. You two were so close before whatever it was that caused the split. I was very happy to see you repair that.”

“We both had a lot of history to overcome, and we both had a lot of growing up to do. In a way, it wasn’t all that different from the Year in the Wilderness Kara and I had after her breakdown at Christmas.”

“You know my take on religion.”

“I do. And you know mine. But I think you’ll agree, after nearly 83 years, that the universe is a much more complex place than we imagine.”

My dad nodded, “Maybe. It’s hard to reconcile the things I’ve seen, both during the war and in Cuba, with any kind of god or whatever you want to call it. The universe operates on the laws of physics. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.”

“And yet, we don’t fully understand how those operate, or what consciousness is, or a host of other things. I’m not trying to suggest a ‘god of the gaps’ defense for the existence of some supreme being, only that things are far more complex than they seem, and things like my shared dream with Bethany simply defy logical explanation. I’m not a theist, but I can’t be an atheist. I can, on the other hand, say I don’t know and keep looking for answers.”

“You’ve always been a skeptic and it’s served you well. Does Stephanie need anything?”

“Considering she could buy and sell me? Not financially. Emotionally, yes, but that will come from Jennifer, Kara, and a few of Stephanie’s friends.”

“And you.”

I nodded, “Yes, of course. And before you ask, yes, I’ve tried to talk her into some kind of reconciliation with Mom, but she’s not having any of it.”

“She still holds a grudge for how your mother treated you, even though you don’t. You haven’t quite forgiven her, but you’re at least civil to her.”

“It’s a two-way street,” I replied. “Once she realized that holding her tongue was the price of admission to see the grandkids, it was much easier for me to handle. How is her health?”

“Your mother had a tumor on her thyroid gland removed earlier this year. Please do not let on I told you.”

I sighed, “When she keeps stuff like that from us, it puts your grandkids at risk.”

“I know, which is why I’m telling you. She’s had an under-active thyroid since before I met her. Have they checked you for that?”

“Yes, the numbers are low, but still within the range that’s considered normal. That said, the REST of my endocrine system is messed up beyond belief!”

“You’re going up to see Mary at Mayo in August, right?”

“As usual. I’ll tell her about the tumor mom had. Any OTHER information I need to know?”

My dad shook his head, “Not that I can think of. You know me, I never get sick and haven’t had any health issues except my bursitis and now my knees, which is related to the hip replacements. Well, and my eyesight, but that’s just presbyopia. And the hearing aids, which they say are necessary because of the beating my ears took during the war.”

“Did you ever have tinnitus?” I asked.

“Most of my life. You have it, too, right?”

“Yes. Another unsolved mystery because I never listened to really loud music, worked in anyplace loud, nor do I have high blood pressure. Another one of those things where Al and Mary both shrug their shoulders. I don’t really notice it unless I think about it. Anyway, when do you plan to come see the kids?”

My dad laughed, “When you’re all around! I think we’ll come up at Thanksgiving, because you all are scattering to the four winds over the summer.”