Posts
My parents had a brief courtship. They met in a bar in Salinas, California. He was stationed at Fort Ord. When they first met, he told her that she can call him Bat, Hat or Mat. From that day in she would call him Bat. She was the only one to do so. Everyone else called him "Dink". Its even on his head stone. I remember, as a child, he had a leather belt with DINK on the back.
He was a charmer to everyone he met. Anyone who want family thought he was the best guy ever, and he was when he wasn't drinking.
My mother had 2 teenage boys who she was raising as a single parent. Now, my grandmother helped her quit often as well as her brothers. The oldest was biological her nephew whom she adopted and my grandmother raised until he was 12. The younger one, her and his father divorced when he was maybe 7.
She was looking for someone who could help her raise the 2 boys, start a family and be secured.
They got married at the house of one her brother's and sister-in-laws. Man, I wish I had that dress. I remember my grandmother putting it in a yard sale.
Anyway, not long after they married, like within a year, he got orders to go to Germany. Now, this was in the early 1960s, the cold war was strong and it was 15 years after the end of WW2.
Her youngest brother tried talking to her to not go over there with him. He even tried to talk to her to mother to marry. He sensed something was not right. He had feared for his sisters life and well being.
Well, he went to Germany, as he should, secured housing on base and waited for her and her two sons.
Before she married, she went to a Palm or card reader, I don't remember which one, but it was a fortune teller. The fortune teller told her that she was going to fly over a large bady of water and the plain will go down. Mom always laughed about that. She hated to fly. She was never a big believer of fortune telling, but just doing it for the fun.
So, when it came for her to fly, her flight was to leave out of New York. She missed her flight, and wouldn't you know it? That plane went down. She didnt know until after she arrived in Germany.
Well, while living there, his true colors came out. He started abusing her, taking away her passport and papers where she could not leave. She ofted told the boys to not to say or do anything since they had no other place to go. She lived in fear thinking she may not make it back to the States.
Now, being in West Berlin during this time, many of the Germans would not help her. He would buy her nice cars, Chanel perfum, the nicer things. Of course, he was a charmer when he wasnt drinking.
He was a mean drunk. He never did threaten physical harm to us, but he would often scare us.
Now, he did spend time in both the Korean War and Vietnam during the hight of both conflicts. He told my younger brother of things he saw and witnessed that involved children, especially little girls, that he could never get out of his mind. He was involved in some stuff that he would never talk about. He would tell my younger brother some, but he could never tell me. The military did not have the help for soldiers who had PTSD like they do now. They were just left to "deal" with it, that often included drugs and/or alcohol.
The term for PTSD is rather a new term. It was once referred as "Shell Shock". Have you seen pictures of Soulders from WW1 who have been labeled as Shell Shock? Hallow eyes, blank stare. They still look like they're scared to death.
World War 1 was the first big war that Americans died on forgien soil. They did not have their family near them. They did have men who were like their brothers.
Ok, that's a little history lesson.
My dad was not a faithful husband to my mother. Not only was he physically abusive, but also mentally. But doesn't that go together? What finally ended their marriage was that she caught him at a motel room with another woman. Mom and 2 of her friends parked in front of their room, flashing head lights and honking the horn.
The next day, he came to the house and mom and him fought through the living room door. My bedroom was where I could see the front door from my bed. I climbed under the covers and watched how he put his fist through the glass of the screen door while my younger brother was reaching up to be picked up by his dad. My mother came out of the kitchen waving a cook pot. Somehow, dad got into the house. My mother wrapped him in the curtains of the living room window and made use of that pot. He got away with a broken watch, wrist and a rib.
My mother was in the United States now. It had been almost 10 years since she did time in Germany. Now her family was here to help. Now she was able to stand up to him. Now, she's going to fight back.
