Last year, knocking on doors, I met a very interesting old man. And for the 100th anniversary of the great Armistice, I thought I’d share our chat here.

As an organizer, my job is to engage only those who engage back.  Initially the man dismissed me, saying he wasn’t interested. But as I circled back down his street, he came out, dropped his full trashcan on the street and called me back over with confident gusto. “Come’ere!”  He really reminded me of Izzy Mandelbaum from Seinfeld, if Mandelbaum were actually number one.

“I felt bad I shooed you away,” he said.  He signed on and told me about his life.

He was just short of 96 years old, with 10 kids, and 11 stepchildren (“And I remember all their names!”). He and I were laughing at the absurdity of his having 21 children, so I felt confident enough to ask him what I ask everyone I meet over 90 years old; “Are you a veteran of World War II?”

“Yes I am, Navy.”

I told him my grandfather was in the Navy, at Pearl Harbor.

The old man lit up. “He was there?!”

“After the bombing,” I clarified. “He went to operate cranes to help lift the sunken ships.” I still have faint memories of my grandfather talking about his journey by boat out of Boston toward the Panama Canal, as we took him back to Pearl Harbor at 88 years of age.

“I was on the other side, helping bring down Adolf,” said the man.

“Y-Yeah?” I said, suddenly, hardly able to contain myself.

“I was part of D-Day,” he continued.  It felt like my whole history-nerd existence had led up to this point.  My hand trembled as I wrote about this in my journal that night. I met a D-Day veteran. “D-Day?!” I mumbled in shock.

“Yup,” said the man, enjoying my fanboy moment. “That was a big operation.”

This is how he referred to the invasion of Normandy, the greatest military invasion in history.

“Amazing!” I burst. What should I ask?

“How they got over those cliffs… those cliffs at Omaha. I’ll never understand it,” he remarked, as the memories returned to dampen his bubbly mood. I knew what he was referring to; I more vividly remembered my father’s fury when we visited Omaha Beach, at the foolish Allied generals who stormed a cliff-lined beach. Apparently this view was not unpopular.

“Did you – did you storm the beaches?” I asked.

He laughed. “No, no. I was Navy! A gunner!  I was watching from the deck.”

But combat found him anyway.

He told me about two Luftwaffe planes that flew overhead while he was on deck, dropping torpedoes into the sea 30 feet from the hull.  The torpedoes missed the ship he was on by a few feet and sank into the blue.

As gunner, he kept his eyes on the enemy until they passed, though he didn’t get a clear shot. Then he looked down and saw his superior officer cowering on the deck.

“I’ll never forget it!” the man laughed.  This officer apparently had a reputation for bragging about his heroics. “But that yellow-belly, he practically wet himself!”

The only person who can call a D-Day veteran a “yellow-belly” is another D-Day veteran.

He said that was the last time he saw the enemy in the air. “We had vastly superior air power. That was the beginning of the end for Adolf.”

The man and I had a great talk. He shared more of his thereafter rather uneventful war experience.  He talked about his life after the war.  I shared my belief that the loss of his generation (“You’re telling me!” he said) has led to a decline in the civility of our politics, and he agreed. “It’s all about how much you can hurt the other guy, rather than what you can do for the country.” he said, gravely, of modern politics. “Used to be, what can you do?”

A few days ago (a year later), I canvassed the same neighborhood.

His house was for sale, and empty.  He was gone.

As I moved on sadly, I reflected that almost all veterans of World War II have passed away.   The fight for civil politics and good governance will be won by a new generation.

Later I spoke with a young woman, his former neighbor. I asked her when the man passed away.

“Chip?” she said. “God no, he’s a machine. He moved to Florida with his son. He’ll be 97 next month. Chip will outlive all of us – and he could drink you under the table too!”

Chip lives.

As I felt a warm relief, I recalled how my conversation with Chip the year before had ended on a positive note. Chip actually gave a donation to my group, Clean Water Action, having somehow saved enough for a four decade retirement.

“I just think, I’m 95 years old,” he said matter-of-factly. “How much longer am I gonna be around? So if I can help the next generation… my kids… and their kids… have clean water… that’s a good thing.”

Thanks Chip.

He didn’t have to talk to me. He chose to because it was, to him, the right thing to do. Because he remembered his call to service.

I will remember his example. And that of all those who don’t get blog posts about them.  Thank you to all the veterans who give me the freedom to post about less important stuff, knock on doors for clean water, and be the best American I can be.

Remember.

11.11.11.18

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@gregnasif