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Author:
Donald T. Matter, Jr. Affiliation: none Written: Spring 2002 Publication history: First: unknown Second: SJPCC Newsletter, October 2002 |
Note:
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Number
of words: 350.
Illustrations: 1 photograph and 2 postcards |
My
Dad and Ernie Pyle
by Donald T. Matter, Jr. |
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My father died twelve years ago and I doubt this story will interest you, but here goes. Do you recognize the man in this picture? On the back, in my father's own hand are the words: My Friend, Ernie Pyle, some place in Normandy, 1944. As the years go by, I have developed a keener interest in my father's war. He left our home in Paterson (NJ) in January 1942. I was nine, he was thirty-one. He wrote letters everyday. Those fragile documents would arrive two or three at a time and mom and I would sit in the kitchen and she would read until she couldn't see through her |
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tears, then I would finish, as best I could. Each one ended, "Thinking of you, love Donald."
When my Dad returned to New Jersey in November, 1945, he had four things
he called his wartime treasures. First there was a red Nazi banner with
a swastika in the center of a white circle. Eventually Dad used that flag
to polish the car. "I don't want anything around here to remind me
of those bastards," he would say. Second, was a watch that he wore
until he was well into his fifties - I never saw that watch aga I still have the photographs, I don't know what happened to the watch or the Purple Heart. But get this - two months ago I found this postcard at a show in New England. On the back is written, My Friend Ernie Pyle. |