My Dad In The War (Part Fourteen)

Years later, my Mom told me that Dad had been mentally affected by the war.  Asleep at night, alone with his subconscious, he had many nightmares about the war and about the Japanese soldiers.  Those he killed and those who tried to kill him.

I don’t remember this incident, but she said that once, when we were young but already living on Cuba Drive, we were over his brother George’s house celebrating someone’s birthday.  All the men were together, drinking shot glasses of tequila, which was the norm in those days, and the Duchene brother’s alcohol of choice.

This time the tequila took Dad back to a darkness in his soul, and he had a war flashback.  He started yelling that the Japanese were attacking, and for everybody to take cover.  He hallucinated that two men who were at the party were Japanese soldiers, and that they were attacking.

He tried to go after them, yelling that they had to be stopped.  He was held back by several of his brothers.  It was tough going, my Dad’s always been one tough hombre, but they were finally able to subdue him. 

They had him on the ground, and he fought hard to get free.  Finally, from all the exertion, he passed out.  His brothers got him, and, I guess, all of us, home.  They placed him on the floor in the living room, where he slept until the next day.  When he woke up he couldn’t remember a thing.

Years after it ended, Dad was still fighting the war.

 

 

Raising My Father

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