R.I.P. Dad: Best memory… Note on “stolen” valor

Dad died on this day with the Sacraments back in 1993. As a priest, I was able to give him Last Rites. He’s the one with his back to you immediately to the left of the propeller. This is on the USS Bataan. You can see a bit of the WR on the tail, but – I’m assuming this is “his” plane – it has no number on it. Anyone able to comment on that?

Here’s a paragraph from the original post written years ago:

• “My favorite memory of dad, George Byers Jr., was back in the Autumn of 1962, when I was just 2 1/2 years old, ten years after the picture above was taken. I’d walk up in the Communion line next to him with the rest of the family behind us. This was at the Cathedral with its gorgeous altar rail with the linens flipped over the top. I was always impressed by the linens getting flipped over the top, just as I was with kneeling there beside my dad, reaching up as high as I could to put my hands under the linens like he was doing. I was pretty small. I was filled with such wonder and awe and reverence as the priest and altar boy with paten would make it over to us. They would start on the Epistle side. We were always on the Gospel side. Everything worked together to instill reverence. It was good be on my knees with dad before the Lord Jesus. Very good.”

Note: This post was written back in 2020. I note the comments. Some have died since. Yikes!

A couple more pictures:

The at-the-time Senator Mark Meadows was able to get me dad’s medals from the Navy Archives:

That would be two Navy Distinguished Service Medals (basically, impossible, I’d like to get the Presidential Citations for these), two Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Purple Heart, etc. But then, a couple of months later, more came in from the U.S. Army, lots of joint service medals. I note that he has a third Distinguished Flying Cross, Five Air medals, etc., etc., etc.:

And then more. The U.N for Korea, again. The Philippines. Korea itself.

Because of what dad said to me throughout my childhood years, I’m guessing he’s the one dropping this stick of bombs in the lower-left picture of the USMC news clipping below, those particular bombs taking out the communications headquarters of Japan in the Philippines, that which ended Japanese aggression, just as General Douglas MacArthur had predicted. (It wasn’t Little Boy nor Fat Man…)

That’s dad in the upper left of the group of four pictures. The Japanese guy is American born, but raised in Japan for language and culture. He was drafted by Japan: Minoru Wada. I’m sure he was given a different identity when he returned to America. He was captured by our guys and became navigator of the flight that took out the communications headquarters of Japan in the Philippines. Original photographs of this were all around the house.

Thanks for ending Japanese aggression in the South Pacific, dad.

But most of all, thanks for having me kneel with you before Jesus at the altar rail so that I could “see” Jesus in the most blessed Sacrament. I was born 16 1/2 years after that stick of bombs was dropped.

Hail Mary…

P.S. I put up a memorial to dad on the back of my vehicles showing just some of these medals, and clearly stating:

• GEORGE BYERS JR 1924-1993 USMC. MB611 & MFA312 CHECKERBOARD CMC. THE WORLD THANKS YOU DAD. MAY YOU REST IN PEACE. AMEN.

However, I’ve had any number of people imply that to brag about him is an act of stolen valor on my part. Wait… WHAT?!

Sometimes people who should know better do this. I remember a cashier at the supermarket who followed me to my car because he’s wanted to go on the attack for a long time. I pointed out what is said right there for him to see about dad. And he insisted, saying that the Checkboard patch that I had there was all wrong, that he never saw that at Parris Island where the Checkerboarders are from, and where he was soon heading for training. I said that the patches continuously change through the years, but back in the day it had the airstrip in the mountains and the aircraft carrier with the checkerboard.

He was unconvinced, since this later changed VMF to VMFA [Vought Marine Fighter Attack], took out the aircraft carrier and the landing strip in the mountains, added a demon dog carrying, variously, six 50 cals, or a missile.

I told him that I was just the military brat, but that I think it’s ok for me to brag on my military dad, as I do, as I will. He was still unconvinced. I think he’s lived to regret that in seeing more of the history of the Checkerboarders at Parris Island.

Even more: As a military brat of a dad who killed untold numbers of people in battle, by way of close air support, so that you see your 50 cal. bullets literally exploding enemy soldiers right in front of you, by the dozens, and then dozens more, hundreds of missions, that works on you, no matter if they were firing on your guys, no matter if they were firing and connecting with you. PTSD, anyone? Severe, anyone? As were all his fellow pilots under him, he was a heavy drinker, a heavy smoker, would go into rages… What to say? He was trying his best. One Ash Wednesday, when I was a kid, he stopped drinking and smoking cold turkey. I was so proud of him. He’s especially my hero for that effort. He was very proud of me going into the seminary.

So, I got a lot of eye-opening in every way from dad. He was very pious, but he also knew how to criticize priests and bishops, and trained me in on that. He did lots of charitable stuff, lots of pro-bono work. He did a lot in local and state politics, messed around in Congress and the Supreme Court, did his best to get me interested in the FBI and vice-versa, having me meet with them personally. But then he was very proud of me going into the seminary and basically financed all my studies in Rome.

Did all his valor all around work on me, form me in some way? I would like to think that his valor has provided me with an opportunity to follow up. Is that stolen valor when he did his best to instill in me the best of the best? It isn’t just the pilot who goes to war, the whole family – even if that family comes later -remains at war with him. It is what it is.

Dad’s motto, which he repeated to me a thousand times in his last years, was:

• “GOODNESS AND KINDNESS, GEORGE, GOODNESS AND KINDNESS.“