Now the Navy point system has come out, which finds me sadly lacking…They come to a miserable twenty out of the needed forty-four.—August 16, 1945
“The usual,” my father said, as we sat down at our regular table at Mr. Ed’s, before the waitress had a chance to ask.
“And extra sauce,” she said.
My father smiled. It’s a good feeling when someone knows what you want before you ask for it. But it’s even nicer just to be known.
“So, I’m at a pretty exciting place in the letters,” I said.
“Oh?” my father asked.
“Well, the war is over,” I said. “That’s pretty exciting, right? All that’s left to do is send everyone home.”
Dad laughed at my naiveté.
“What?” I asked.
“Well, that’s not exactly how it works,” he replied. “I guess I can try to explain it.”
He took out his pen and slid his paper placemat to the middle of the table. He drew a thermometer, making marks on the side of it.
“You had to reach a certain number of points to get to go home. You got points for the missions you were sent on. You got a certain number for being overseas. I think they figured in if you were married or had kids. So in a sense you are right,” he said. “Some of the guys did get to go home right away. But those were the ones who already had a lot of points.”
“I never thought of it like that,” I said.
“Everyone made those thermometers. Guys had them on their desk or in their lockers. I made a lot of them. I sent several home to my folks and then I’d tell them in my letters what number I was on,” he explained.
August 16, 1945
Dear Folks,
Well, a lot has happened in the past two weeks. A month ago I thought I’d be coming home in about a year. Now it looks like two years. The place really went wild the evening after V-J day was declared official. You’ve probably read about it all from in the paper. I didn’t do a thing except go to my tent and slept from about 7 p.m. until noon the next day. And I’m still sleepy. Back on the old schedule again.
Now the Navy point system has come out, which finds me sadly lacking. You’ve probably figured mine up. They come to a miserable twenty out of the needed forty-four. Of course most of the boys in the comm. school here are old timers who have been in a long time. Think I have about the lowest score in the staff. The next one to me is twenty-two. The majority seem to have around 30 to 40 and about six have the 44 and this morning they were filling out forms for discharges.
As for me, you have as good a guess as I have. Of course there aren’t too many in the 44 point bracket so they are sure to lower the points right away. But it’s a long long way to twenty points. No one has any idea what will happen to the rest of us now. Whether they are going to make a receiving station out of the school as rumored or just drop it like a hot spud like they are doing all other places. Then they could send us as a unit to the states or farther out. Your guess is as good as mine. Anyway don’t kill the fatted calf just yet. According to Uncle Sam that duration plus six months doesn’t start until the president or congress gets good and ready. In the last war I think someone said it was set at eight months after the armistice but congress didn’t ratify it and it dragged on until 1921. That doesn’t sound so hot. Personally it looks to me like everyone who wants to be a civilian again, will be out within a year anyway. But you never can tell.
What the guys are griping about most out here is the bill they are trying to get thru congress to stop the draft completely. That’s just like a stab in the back to us. It doesn’t seem very fair to stop drafting the men when we are still out here. If more new ones came in we would be going home and out much sooner. Well, that’s about all of that.
We hear most of the rationing has been lifted in the states, including gas. That would have been more welcome news to me than the declaration of V-J Day. Here it doesn’t mean a thing, to me. It’s been stopped here too but who cares. You know another thing about the point system—I think it’s about the fairest they could get. Of course the boys here with lots of battle stars and medals and months of hazardous overseas service really think it’s terrible. Especially one guy whose been here just a little while but went thru Iwo and Oki and he has way less points than a boy who works in the post office and has his mother dependent on him, but he hasn’t been out in a combat zone at all. Personally I’ve always thought, even if I’m overseas myself, that it isn’t very fair to give extra credit for things like the above when the individual hadn’t a thing to say about where he went or how much action he saw.
The base has changed around a lot. Everything at one end is being taken over by civilians, and the offices on the base and everything else is being moved down to one end. Just means I’m going to get even less exercise than before. Everything is within a couple of blocks of my tent now.
Oh almost forgot, as usual I’m late—this couldn’t possibly get there in time, but a happy birthday to you mom. Have a birthday present for you and Ray both—not the same thing but just couldn’t seem to get time to send it. I’ll send it first class mail so will probably be there about the fifth of September.
Write. Love, Murray
P.S. Woe is me…I’ll be glad when this is all over. They announced that all men with 44 points or more were on standby status and to lash their gear. What a lucky break—for them.
The war was over, but he didn’t get to go home. I’m sure my grandmother was relieved. She knew her son had survived the war. If it were my son, I’d probably have been thinking of ways I could get to him. I bet my grandmother considered that too. But travel wasn’t as easy as it is today and Hawaii was barely known at that time—known to most only as the place where Pearl Harbor was bombed. So once again, she turned to his letters as a source of comfort.
My father too must have been frustrated. I’m sure he would have agreed to any mode of transportation to anywhere just to get closer to home. It must have been bittersweet to see his comrades leave, happy for them and yet wondering when his day would come.
Dad and I had been through this journey together in a way. We’d started at boot camp. I’d watched as he dealt with tragedy and now the end was near. But this experience with his youngest daughter hadn’t been the source of any kind of closure for him. He continued to have periods when he was agitated and angry, almost always aimed at my mother.
But there was something more than that. He was so down. Sometimes when I’d drop by to visit, he’d barely speak two words to me. Even when I asked about his newest project, he gave a minimal amount of information. There were times when he seemed upbeat, but they came less and less. There was no sparkle in his eyes.
In the telling of his secrets, he’d lost himself. He derived no peace from the experience. I’d hoped it would be cathartic. But it wasn’t. He still remained as far away as ever.