The handsome young man on the left, posing for his proud parents behind the camera, is my dad, Leon Lambert. The family story is that he lied about his age and enlisted in the Navy at seventeen. But as I do the math, I’m not sure. He turned eighteen in September 1941, and Pearl Harbor wasn’t bombed until December 7th.
At any rate, he left his small town in South Texas, and traveled far away to California for basic training and ultimately, deployment in the Pacific. There his fleet engaged in some of the momentous battles of World War II. The navy taught him to cook, and later, he taught me. On ship, he developed a taste for gambling that stayed with him for the rest of his life. He saw the world, and never again was he content to stay long in one place.
At the same time, my mother was living in New York. On Sunday afternoons she’d sit in movie theatres, watching newsreels of bodies floating in bloody water, by the side of the vessel on which my dad lived and worked and fought.
In 1945, when he came home, my dad stepped off an elevator in the British Officers Club. My mum, sitting behind a table as the volunteer hostess, took one look at him and thought, “Oh, my God. I’m going to marry this man.” He was six feet, three inches tall, and he weighed 121 pounds when he signed the marriage certificate, three weeks later.
He went home to Texas to visit his parents, and mother followed him to San Antonio to meet them. She got off the train wearing a wool tweed suit and furs, into 98 degree weather. They took her home to a sun beaten farm house surrounded by dirt and animals.
Later, she took him home with her to Vancouver, to the beautiful house in Shaughnessy, to her father, the lawyer, and my Uncle Charles, the Lieutenant-Governor. They planned his future, and sent him to college. I was born, increasing the stakes. Then, with only a few weeks until graduation and the moment he was to step forward into their plan, he took us and bolted, back down the coast to one town after another, one job after another. In time, my dad made a success of his own business. My parents had seven children. They stayed together thirty-four tumultuous years.
For my father, the Navy was a stepping stone into a bigger life. I think he joined to take that step, but also because he loved his country and he wanted to defend her. He saw terrible things in the war, and if he came home a little crazy, that may have been part of the reason. He had a demon in him, that came out from time to time in violent outbursts.
My dad probably suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome, but in his time, there was no name for it. Like hundreds of thousands of other men and women in the 1940s, those who fought and those who served at home, he was marked forever by his war.
Thanks for posting this. Your willingness to share this history, which must in part be painful, adds another precious piece in our understanding of the human experience. I’m glad he made you.
Thank you, Todd. I am a believer in sharing, for just the reason you describe. We are all one, and the more we open up to each other, the richer are all our lives.
Thanks for posting this. Isn’t it amazing how many of are also processing the effects of this war before we were born?
I think you’re right, Robert. In the case of our family, I think the Depression and the war both made my dad the man he was, which of course affected all his kids.