I was just sitting here today, remembering my father. I thought I'd like to share one of my favorite stories of him with you. It's how my dad taught me that we are all one people. Pop came from a family of miners and Tennessee hill folk. In 1936, to help the family, he hitchhiked to Atlanta to join the Marine Corps. After his boot time at Paris Island, he was sent to China and then to the Philippines. He had been transferred back to the Brooklyn Naval Ship yard when Pearl Harbor was hit. He was a MSgt. in Korea when commissioned as a brown bar. This story happened while he was a Battery Commander in one of the first missile battalions in the Corps (1st MAAM Bn.).

Every night, we would begin the supper ritual with my dad asking me how was school today. I went to Blessed Sacrament in 29 Palms with Irish nuns teaching. On one night, around my 11th year, I responded that today at school we had a new (at this point I used the ugly "N" word) boy at school. I knew something was bad because my mother dropped her fork and turned a dangerous red rapidly. She yelled, “Where did you learn that word?" I told her that's what Ted Lange called him. My dad reached over to touch her arm and said, "Rita, let me handle this." Dad said that I should never use that word again and that we would take a walk and talk after them meal. On the walk, he asked me to remember how I felt when the "bully boys" of County Derry called me a F*#king Catholic monkey and chased me and my cousins out of the local park.

My parents would send me to family in n. Ireland a couple of summers to know my heritage. They used to call us Taiges and I learned what it was like to be the
alienated minority. I said I sure did. Then he told me that the "n" word was just like taige and told me of other terrible words that mean people used to insult others. He told me that although President Truman ordered the military ranks to be integrated in '48, that the Corps was the last of the branches to do so. He was embarrassed and disappointed about that. He finished the lesson by reminding me that our ancestors were also southern sharecroppers with Negroes and there might be a Negro in our woodpile. When I asked him what that meant, he said that I could very well have "Negro" blood as well as Irish blood running through my veins.

So starting with the next day at school, after putting Ted Lange into the trash bucket upside down in the Boys bathroom, I proudly began to announce to anyone I saw that I was a Negro too. The nuns thought it was nice, but I can only imagine what was going through the mind of the poor new student with this tow head, hazel eyed, honky wannabe telling him that I was a Negro too and that we were going to be great pals. Then I began to share my new discovery with everyone I saw. I used to bag groceries at the commissary after school for tips and let each customer know, proudly announcing that I was a Negro. I told all of my companions at the playground and the Marines at the Base stables (For $1 a day and free rides, I mucked the stalls). This went on for about two weeks. The next part of this story was told to me by Marines who had served with my dad when I enlisted.

After two weeks of my pronouncements, my father's Battalion Commander called my dad and said that he had just received a call from the Base XO (a bird colonel) and that he and my father were to report to him at 1300. When my dad and his CO entered and announced to the Colonel that they were reporting as ordered, the XO kept them at attention. Both of them noticed that the Col. was examining my father's Service Record Book. He finally looked up and said to my dad, "Captain, I see here that you claim to be a Caucasian." My dad and his CO looked at each other blankly as dad answered, "Sir, that's because I am a Caucasian." The colonel asked him to explain why his son was telling everyone in the area that he is proud to be a Nero. I'm told that my father responded without missing a beat, "Oh, sir, that's on his mother's side."

That weekend, dad told me that he didn't believe that I was part negro, but when he saw my disappointment, he said that it was okay to say I was if I wanted to. I love my dad and I really miss him. While I grew up learning to be green, I went in knowing that I was also white, black, red, and yellow as well.

Tom