1830 April 12th

Just had an accident on my keyboard, but it seems things are working, now where was I ?
We have to leave earlier than expected tomorrow because fridge in M/H isn't working, so here is last episode of 'My Uncle Roy'. I won't be on tomorrow.

4

O

ne afternoon in mid January of 1945, I was just hanging out at the non coms bar when I got a call to head over to the adjutants office. I finished my beer and strolled over. There were five other guys waiting in the little waiting room. We waited for perhaps ten minutes when this little female private came out, “Here’s your orders, you’re being transferred.” She said.

  We were out of there before supper and were on our way to what they called a refresher facility down in California. Actually it was a place where they whipped you back into shape and squeezed the booze out of your veins.

  Two weeks later we were boarding a ship and heading once more for the South Pacific. We practiced beach landings using amphibious vehicles and landing craft then on February 16, 1945 we attacked Corregidor, I think the spot was called Wheeler Point.  The enemy were supposed to have been softened up by the air force but there was still plenty of muscle left in those guys. Ten days later we had retaken all that we had given up three years earlier.

  Once again I got on sort of a treadmill and was shuffled around to different islands with a couple of other platoons.  There were still snipers here and there and things were never easy.

  I was finally sent home late in 1945 and once again went on furlough.

  The Japanese finally surrendered on September 2, 1945 and then the rumors about reducing the size of the army started making the rounds.

  I had been in the army for almost eight years and it was the only life I knew, I had no idea what the hell I would do if I was discharged. It eventually happened but by this time I had gotten some advice from a few of the other guys and the day I was discharged in January 1946, I went right out and enlisted in the Oregon State Militia.

  Once more I found myself having a tough time with the lack of action, because of my previous experience I was put into a training facility and expected to make fighting men out of kids off the street in about three months. But not having any choice I stayed with it but again lost my stripes and spent most of the next few years as a Corporal.

  Maybe the rest of the world moaned but when war was declared on Korea in June of 1950 I was happy. I shifted back into the regular army and was on my way just before the end of July. I stayed there until it all ended in 1953 and was soon back in Oregon. I was thirty four years old and had been an army man for fifteen years, once more I was wondering what the hell was I to do.

  I managed to get back in the militia and hung on for another few years, yeah I drank a lot but so what. I did guard duty, helped with training once in awhile and other nothing jobs. In 1959 I was honorably discharged, once again a Master Sergeant.

  I was still tough, I was only forty, I figured there was no reason why I couldn’t work but what was I going to do?

  Well I’d been a logger once, why not again? I soon found out that even logging had vastly changed in twenty years. I found work doing kids starting jobs but even those young guys were more adaptable than me. I remember one time Violet and John stopped by to visit, it was just after I got a night watchman’s job and I was having a few drinks before I had to go to work. God they said I should move to Canada and live with them for awhile. It was a nice offer, maybe I should have.

  A few weeks after their visit I got a letter at the flophouse where I stayed, would you believe it, it was from their son, my nephew.  I don’t know how he found so much to write about to someone he didn’t know as I hadn’t seen him since he was about three.

  Well believe it or not I wrote him back and then we kind of got in the habit of writing every once in a while. He also suggested I should go to Canada, said he was pretty sure he could find me a job.

  I never went to Canada, I lost my job and after a while I only seemed to care about anything when I got crying drunk. But when I woke up the next time the most important thing was, where was the next drink coming from. 

EPILOGUE

I

 could end this story on the preceding page but I have chosen not to because firstly it wouldn’t be befitting to someone who was actually a hero and secondly there is an important message that comes from the life and death of my Uncle Roy.

  Obviously Roy Harvey had slipped into a life that had no future and the memories of conflict and death must have been a terrible burden to bear. Alcohol obviously became his savior as well as his enemy. He had fought and bled for his country and the world but in the end there was no one there to fight for him. Some would say he had become a derelict, but was he? Perhaps he was a castoff, he had given all he had to give and then the very entity that had sucked him dry, turned away and left his stale brain and tormented mind to fend alone.

 

  Uncle Roy died May 4, 1966 at the age of forty seven years. He died in King County Hospital in Seattle, Washington; the coroner’s report stated that he died of shock due to 2^nd and 3^rd degree burns over his entire body as a result of falling into a rubbish fire on an empty lot. Interestingly his occupation was given as logger.

  Just another drunk, another rubby? No, no bloody way! And this is why.

  My mother took on the responsibility of attending to the burial and the things that had to be done. Together with my Dad they met with the attending physician and then later an army chaplain.  My parents explained about his military service and when this was corroborated arrangements were made for burial in the Willamette National Cemetery.

  After the brief ceremony the chaplain sat down with my mother saying the usual and expected things but then he went on. “There is one thing you need to know; even though those two wars are long over and in spite of the actual circumstances of your brother’s death he died as a result of war, he is a casualty as sure if he had been brought down by an enemy’s bullet.” He may have said more but these were the words my mother remembered and even cherished.

Roy Stewart Harvey was one of many heroes that suffered the consequences of going to war in the defense of their country and the giving of themselves in ways that most of us cannot even imagine. If he had never been coerced that day in the recruiting office, what would his life have been like? Would he have found a job, married a nice girl, raised a family, lived till he was an old man?  Maybe, maybe not; I guess it doesn’t matter any more, the past is done and unchangeable.

  But perhaps by looking back we can see the way ahead more clearly. 

  John Little