Descendants Corner
by
Marcia Balmut Ward

Summer, 2005

My Dad Was an Ordinary Man
by Kristine Kozik

My dad was ordinary. He enlisted, like so many other young men, on December 8, 1941. He proudly served overseas, returned to the States, got a job, got married, had a family, and retired. This may describe myriad other “ordinary” servicemen, but there is nothing ordinary about ANY serviceman.

My dad never spoke about “The War.” He never told us what it was like overseas; he never spoke of what it was like to be cramped into the tail-gunner section of a B17; he never described places he’d seen. Not to us kids, anyway.

It wasn’t until late in his life that I overheard him telling his two grandsons about some of the things he’d seen while stationed in Framlingham, England. I remember feeling a twinge of jealousy that he could share a story with his grandsons but not with his own children. No amount of prodding would get him to tell me anything about what he’d seen. Perhaps he thought his “little girl” was too delicate for those kinds of stories. (Never mind that his little girl was in her 40s by that time.) I wanted to have a part of my dad that no one else possessed.

One Saturday afternoon, out of the blue, he just started talking. He told me about a time when he’d been on a mission in the air for 10 or 12 hours. I remember being amazed that the B17 had the capacity to stay in the air that long. And then I realized that Dad was actually – finally – Telling Me a Story. I was touched by his candor, and he made me laugh until I cried.

He described being at such an altitude that he had to break the ice off his mask in order to slip a piece of sugar candy into his mouth for energy. (“That’s the kind of stuff they don’t show you in John Wayne movies, Kris,” he had said.) I regret that I don’t now recall all the details of Dad’s story. What I do remember, however, is priceless: He described how, upon returning to the hangar, the men were debriefed. The Grey Ladies were on hand to serve Bourbon to the airmen, and Dad had had “several” drinks by the time he was debriefed. “Kris,” he said, “after three or four shots of Bourbon, hell, for all I knew we had been shooting at submarines.”

My dad was an ordinary man. He kept his medals in his sock drawer. He never bragged about where he had been or what he had seen or what he had done. He was a son; a brother; a husband; a father; a grandfather. I’m sure he never thought of himself as a hero. I have his medals, his discharge papers, and his “diploma” listing all his completed missions. I’ll keep them safe until I can pass them along to someone else who will cherish them as I do.

My dad never knew he was an extraordinary man. Dad, you were my hero. I love you and miss you.

[Stanley J. Kozik was a tail gunner in the 8th Air Force, 390th Bomb Group (H), 570th Squadron.]

Editor’s Note:
Stanley was on Robert E. Todds crew, #67 in the 570th squadron,, and flew 35 missions from 29 Nov ‘44 until 31 March ‘45. His daughter, Kris, recently joined our descendants membership to our museum.                                     AA