My father, John Bruskin, served in WWII, and received two Purple Hearts when he was blown out of the tanks he was driving. While in the military he used a service they provided to record a series of “45s”, 7-inch vinal records, and send them to my mom, Gertrude. This “poem” is a compilation of his messages to my mom from France and other military locations. His hopes and anguish are palpable.

He had been a young Jewish activist in the Communist Party in Philadelphia in the late 30’s but left the Party, disillusioned by its top-down structure.  Working in a radio repair shop when WWII broke out, he entered the service to fight fascism and ironically endured antisemitism while being trained in Georgia.

Although the notion of PTSD didn’t exist then, my father was clearly impacted for the rest of his life. He died young at 61 having been a TV repairman his entire life. The war never left his consciousness. I remember while growing up our summer “vacations” were yearly trips to gatherings of The Fourth Armored Division, held in a variety of cities, giving my father a couple days with the guys to reminisce and leaving me and my sisters bored and playing on the elevators. He read every book he could find on the war and watched every news reel documentary shown on TV.

Like many from the “greatest generation” the defeat of Nazism and the ascendancy of the US as the world’s superpower didn’t do him much good. He essentially worked himself to death, died without health insurance or even a bank account. The hypocritical notion of “Thank you for your service” continues today and vets struggle to earn a living and recover from service in endless US initiated wars. The best we could do as “patriots” is to end US militarism and thank the teachers and nurses and many others for their service in making our country function.

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The Dangers of Doing Away with Monsters

(RECORDED WORDS OF JOHN BRUSKIN DURING WW II)

Gert,

Monsters are roaming the earth
Dinosaurs, leaving anguish, pain, death and sorrow in their wake
That’s why I’m somewhere far away
Fighting to get rid of these creatures
So our children will never see such things
It has to be done now, right?

It’s not an easy life
We all try to keep our chin up
Millions of us
No complaining
No getting sad, you know

Don’t worry
I’m going to survive
Get that one-way ticket home 
Some day
Pretty sure

We can start over where we left off 
Like that wonderful day when we were so excited 
When we permanently joined as man and wife
The nicest day of my life 
And yours too, huh? 

Sure, we’re poor
But we’ll manage 
A little place of our own, our dream spot 
Our beautiful little baby gal Francie
Maybe another one later

And I have you. 
That’s what makes life worth living. 

So that’s it
We don’t want much
The simple things in life 
We don’t ask for more

But it’s out of the question today
And that makes me very sad
Especially after seeing the baby for the first time
She’s so cute 
She’ll be a fine girl
Like her mother is 
Like her mother always was

So be a good soldier Gert
Keep your chin up 
You are strong 
You got common sense 
You understand what’s taking place

I feel from the bottom of my soul 
This thing will be over 
We will be together and never be separated.
Perhaps it’s inevitable for many of us to go. 
We all hope and pray it don’t happen.
But if it happens
Well, you understand.
Don’t you Gert?

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