On my "End of My Veteran's Day" post on Facebook, I posted a list of Vet's that I have known and wanted to honor. It's been my privilege to have Veterans who served from WWI to the present impact my life. A lot of people near the tail end of that list are familiar to my FB friends. I know the first few are not.

To keep the list from growing too cumbersome, I have limited it to those who actually served, and deployed in war time. Otherwise, it would be UNBELIEVABLY long.

So, let's start with the first one.

Frederick Valentine Kallenbach. "Val".

I moved to Eldon, MO in October of 1980. The year Val turned 84. Most of Val's extended family attended the church my family became members of. By this time, Val was in poor enough health that he rarely came to church, and was, more or less, a permanent member of the "Shut Ins/Prayer List" in the weekly bulletin. Though, he was able to attend a few of the services where I led worship/singing.

Early in 1982, the son of family friends came home from his stint in the Navy, Russell Parr. Russ and I became good friends very quickly. We had similar tastes in music. We loved cars. In hindsight, I guess I was one of the few people that didn't see a "druggie" or an alcoholic (Russ had gotten clean and sober, by this time.), just a fun guy who was willing to hang out with a 16 year old kid.

During the summer of 1982, if I didn't have to work at the local grocery store, or work on the yard at home, I headed over to Russ' parent's place and we hung out. Normally, we worked on his truck, or my car, or ran errands.

One day, I showed up at his house, and he was cooking fish. (At the time, I HATED all sea food, except for shrimp.) He had gone fishing early that morning, and had caught a pretty large number of perch. Russ put some on a plate for me. I told him I didn't care for fish. He insisted. So, I had one.

To this day, it is still the best piece of fried fish I have had IN MY LIFE. It was buttery. It seemed to just melt in my mouth. It was great! I was about to ask for seconds, when he told me we had to go, and he picked up a bag of perch fillets. We piled in his truck, and headed out. He started to drive to Tuscumbia (a nearby town, but outside of the area we normally roamed). We pulled up to this immaculately kept, but very small house.

We went inside, and it was the home of Val, and his wife, Letty ... whose real name I didn't learn until tonight (Marcia Alma).

Russ made his way through the house like it was a familiar place. He went back to the bedroom where Val lay, bed-ridden, and announced to Val that he had brought a "mess" of Perch for him.

When we walked in, Val looked like someone waiting to die. He saw Russ, the fish, and the light came back on in his eyes. Though he could not get out of bed, he became animated. Apparently, Russ and him had gone fishing quite a bit when Russ was a kid. They talked fishing for a bit. Then, Russ and Letty went off to cook the perch for Val. Leaving me alone with Val. He remained animated. He only wanted to talk about two things: fishing, and his time in the Navy.

At the time, I had no idea that Val was a veteran, much less a Navy veteran of WWI. The rest of the conversation is something of a blur, now. I wish I had something to take notes with me at the time. I remember being spellbound by the stories. (Even then, I had been a military history buff for several years.)

After the fish was cooked, Letty took me on a tour of the house, but the thing she MOST wanted me to see was the picture of Val's ship from WWI. It was hung in a place of honor in their house.
If I remember right, Val was a Navy Corpsman (medic) on a hospital ship off the coast of France in WWI. I think he made it all the way to Petty Officer, Third Class (E-4, for those of you not familiar with Navy rank titles).

During Letty's tour of the house, Russ went in and served Val the perch. While Val was eating, the two of them talked "Navy". At the time, I didn't understand the lingo. But, I remember the two of them talking as if they had served together.

So, what did I take away from that experience?

1) I walked into a room where I saw an old person laying on a bed waiting to die.
2) A friend, and a veteran of the SAME SERVICE, walked in with a gift that the "old person" would appreciate, and the "light" came back on in his eyes.
3) 64 years after Val's service ended, it was still one of the most exciting things, to him, in his life.

Val didn't talk about his kids, his grandkids, his great-grandkids, his career after the military ... etc. Letty was proud to show me the things about his military career, and didn't show me family pictures, or ... whatever.

One of my four grandparents was not born until after Val's military career ended!

Yet, the Navy, his service, and "his ship" was what he wanted to talk about.

That day was over 28 years ago. Val left us in 1989.

I can't explain it, but that day, and that experience has come to mean more and more to me, almost daily, since then.

Maybe it was Russ and Val talking "the Navy" ... two veterans with experiences decades apart, yet, having a close connection because of service.

Maybe it was the pride Letty had in her husband's service.

Maybe it was the way Val went from being a bed-ridden old man to an enthusiastic storyteller of his time in the Navy, when confronted with me ... a 16 year old, who was, really, incapable of understanding ALL that he was talking about, but I showed an interest.

No matter.

More and more, when I think about things like Veteran's Day, Val is the first person that comes to mind.

...

I think I would have enjoyed fishing with Val. However, I am more interested in the action of "fishing", than, actually, catching fish.

Labels: Navy, veterans, WWI