Dad would've been in that massive invasion of Japan if Truman hadn't dropped the bomb in August, 1945. I read once that Japan figured we only had one and that was why they didn't surrender at first. Thus, Nagasaki.
Dad was an engineer in the Pacific. He didn't tell stories about the war. I know more about what J. D. Wetterling did than about what Dad did, and I've never met or talked to J.D.
This little glass paperweight sat on my grandparent's desk in the spare bedroom. In my mind (no one ever said), Goldia cut out a picture of her son in uniform to fit the paperweight. She kept it on her desk when he went off to war in 1942, and it stayed there when he got back and got married and had kids. It's one of my memories of their house when I was a kid.
It's on my desk, now.
I wish I could have gone here with him.
