Battle for the Marshall Islands

by Kevin Schmitt

I thought I’d share with you some of the things my dad told me about his Navy days. It all began in Idaho, believe it or not. That’s where boot camp was, near Lake Coeur D Alene. (That’s about thirty miles east of Spokane Washington, in case you’ve never been there.) For Dad, it was a great experience. The lake is long and narrow, like Loch Ness, and so clean, they even had a rule against pissing in it.

Dad was seventeen years old and had been brought up with wood chopping and winter outhouses. So the rigors of a Rocky Mountain boot camp didn’t ruffle his feathers one little bit. In fact, there was just one thing that came into his life that was totally new to him, and that was a young man who was half black, and half Cherokee Indian. His name was Jamie Jameson, and he hailed from the state of Georgia.

I suppose you could say that Jamie was a social trail blazer. In order to gain acceptance, he had to be twice as good as everyone else, but real modest about it. Dad didn’t take to him right off because Jamie could run like the wind, whereas Dad was built for weight lifting. Running is a very important part of boot camp training, so if you’re a bit slow at it, you just might resent those who are not. Maybe Jamie sensed that---maybe not. But one chilly night when Dad was standing guard duty, Jamie showed up with a cup of coffee. Dad didn’t stop being a racially ignorant person that night, but it was a beginning.

Continued here:

http://morecontinued.blogspot.com/2015/08/continued-battle-for-marshall-islands.html

 Kevin Schmitt lives in Shakopee Minnesota and has been a factory worker for 35 years. He kayaks in the summer and writes fiction during the cold weather months.

See Kevin's fiction here:
http://beforekevlar.blogspot.com