herb
Newspaper Vendor
Posts: 20
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Post by herb on Jun 25, 2009 10:05:38 GMT -5
I've had this thread rolling around in my mind for some time, and figured it was time I threw my two cents in, especially as I just watched the episode myself.
I thought it was treated very sensitively. And logically. Out of all the Walton sons, Jason, in my mind, would have been the most likely to be either a CO, or not a very good soldier, ot at least not very good at being the stereotype soldier. Fortunately he did find a way to serve.
In my family background, I have the alternative. In Canada, we didn't have the draft, all of our troops who went overseas were volunteers. We did have a sort of 'limited draft' or, as our then Prime Minister, Mackenzie King put it, "Conscription if Necessary, but not necessarily Conscription". King was a master at obscuring things...
My uncle Hugh had the nickname Doc all his life, as his father was a doctor. He was very like Jim Bob Walton in many ways. Doc was shy, very soft-spoken, and very much a dreamer, especially about flying. When he and my mom were teenagers in 1931, my grandfather died, leaving the family almost broke - back then, country doctors generally died broke. However, more well to do members of my grandfather's family each contributed a small amount of money each month towards his widow and children - largely to save them the disgrace of having someone in their family on relief.
When my mother finished school, they asked her what she wanted to be. In 1932, the chocies for a woman were marriage, nursing, secretary, or teacher. The first three didn't interest her, so my mom said she'd be a teacher. So, the family sent her to teacher's college, which back then was a one year course. My mom taught in a one room schoolhouse like Rosemary Fordwick until 1936, when she married my father (back then, women were expeted to quit such jobs when they got married and had a man to support them.
When Doc finished high school, the family asked him what he wanted to be. He said he wanted to be a pilot. In 1935, commercial aviation was almost unheard of, so they told him it was ridiculous, and he wound up getting a job in a dairy, where he worked for the rest of his life.
When WW2 came along, I had always been told as a child that he didn't want to go. His reasoning was "I don't want to shoot at anybody, and I don't want anybody to shoot at me." Maybe not the bravest thing to say, but he was honest. So, he became a "Zombie"
Zombies were the name given to the people who were 'drafted', but signed a paper saying they would not go overseas. In Canada these people were reviled as cowards, made fun of, and when they got into the army, which didn't want them to begin with, they were given the worst, dirtiest, and most pointless assignments. Things like shovelling a pile of coal from one side of a room to another, whitewashing it, then shovelling it back to the other side of the room.
As a child I really Doc. I was painfully shy as a kid as well, and to me he was a kindred spirit, even though I only met him a handful of times - he and my mother weren't close, I wasn't to know why until many years later. He died when I was 11. As I grew up, based on what I remember of him, I came to figure he was right in what he did - I felt he would have been an appallingly poor soldier, being as shy as he was - he never married, lived all his life in the house they grew up in. He was scrupulously tidy, but he never got rid of anything - when he died at the age of 52, he still had the same furniture, same dishes they'd had as children, and still owned the first car he's had, a 1927 Chev, He also had a two year old car - with 700 miles on it. The people who had lived across the road from him had no idea he was sick until they read his obituary. They'd been neighbours for 38 years.
Some years ago, about a year before my mom passed away, she and I had gone on a visit to the town graveyard, not the one he was buried in, that was 50 miles away. My wife said later that her telling me what she did was her way of preparing to die, and looking back, I suppose it was.
Doc had not wanted to be a Zombie. He wanted to go. But my mother and their mother had talked him out of it. As a volunteer, especially early on, he would have had a good chance of getting the job he wanted. A cousin from the rich branch of the family did just that, volunteered early, became a fighter pilot, was awarded the DFC, and after the war, went to University on the CAndain equivalent and became a lawyer.
My mom and her mom talked Doc out of going because he was the only male meber of the family with their particular last name. They were afraid if he died, the family name would die with him. They were afraid he'd die, period. One of the cousins had been a Sunday School teacher in the First World War. Along with the Canadian tradition of only sending volunteer overseas, they sent local soldiers overseas together - you served with people you'd grown up with and had known all your life - it was believed this would reduce cowardice.
During the First World War, all 17 male members of one particular year of my cousin's Sunday School class were killed in France, and all within a month of each other. That was what my mom and her mom were afraid of.
Doc gave in to their pleas and became a zombie. In a small town in Canada that made you a pariah, much like John warned Jason about being a conshie. He stayed a pariah all his life
Doc never travelled, never worked anywhere but the dairy in his village. His one bright spot that I can see was that in his 40s, he and his best friend bought a liitle Cessna together, and he finally learned to fly. But only for a short time - he developed high blood pressure, which meant his pilot's license was taken away. That was what eventually killed him. He spent his free time at the local airport watching the planes, got a cold, and being bachelor he didn't take care of himself, the cold developed into pneumonia, and he died - at 52.
A sad story all 'round. But it is an indication of what could have happened had Jason not found a way to serve. I still identify with Doc in many ways - I don't want to shoot at anybody, and I don't want anybody to shoot at me. I spent several years working on an army base as a civilian contract employee, and I know enough about the military to realize I likely would have been a pretty poor soldier if I'd joined up.
But, I like to think I would have listened to myself instead of others if I'd been in the same position as Doc or Jason
Herb
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