He would be 82 years old, an old man with a full life behind him, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and perhaps a great grandfather, and a survivor of World War II. But he was not given the opportunity to do any of those things except the last one.
He was my brother, Ron, 16 years my senior, and a veteran of combat in the U. S. Navy in the South Pacific. During his two years on board the U.S.S.Dunlap, he faced a relentless enemy every day without that enemy inflicting any harm on him. He was discharged in April of 1946, having done his part to fight and to bring to an end the terrible war.
Less than a year later he was dead. Looking forward to married life with his fiancee, and a good job and a bright future, he died at the age of 21.
The survivor of World War II who spent three years thousands of miles from his home in combat situations daily, died as the result of injuries sustained in a car accident just 25 miles from his home. His fiancee was devastated. His mother, my mother, never fully recovered from the shock. His father, my father, carried the burden of loss to the day of his own death 31 years later. I was only six years old. I did not know my brother very well. He was only home that one year between his discharge and his death.
Years later, when I was an adult with grown children, my family discovered hundreds of letters Ron wrote home from the war. It was through those letters I got to know my brother. He was a gentle and optimistic man who did a terrible job in an incredibly difficult time of history. But that was behind him, and before him stretched the promise of a good life, a good life he would never know.
March 7, 1947, Ronald Albert Parsons left this earth for the experiences of eternity. I remember him, and continue to tell his story, a story which covers a significant portion of my book Windsor's Child.
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