Most likely my blog posting reference is a website news item or a video that connects with my book, Reconciliation: A Son’s Story. My book can be easily ordered from this site…
The above video shows the homecoming of a soldier meeting his newborn child for the first time. My Dad, Vernon, saw his first son, Jerry, months after he was born following the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor. The visit was brief, then he was off again to war in the Asiatic Pacific Theater aboard the USS Belle Grove. Dad and new son Jerry reconnected at the end of WWII during the summer of 1945. My brother, as written in my book, had a challenging relationship with Dad his entire life. When kids spend so much time with a single parent during a long absence of the other parent in case of war, the returning parent has an uphill battle to bond with a 4-year old child who doesn’t know the strange person who suddenly shows up, whom Mom introduces, “this is your Daddy!” It is a shock and a threat at the same time, since the child has had one parent all this time. Consequently, it was never a pretty picture and an ideal relationship between father and son in this case. Sometimes the baggage lasts a lifetime and the separated child and parent never become close. Another sad legacy of war…
Steve Sparks
Author
Reconciliation: A Son’s Story
“Meet Me By The Slop Chute On The Ol’ Whangpoo”
My father...Vernon H Sparks, BMC, WWII Pacific Dad's medical records revealed his own painful trauma from WWII. I was totally in the dark for so many decades. As I slowly read his Navy records from...
