Cough, cough, cough, cough.

December 24th, 2011 1:26 AM
Christmas ’43

Excerpted from Here Comes Trouble: Stories From My Life by Michael Moore

My dad had noticed for some years that I no longer wanted to shoot guns. He had taken note of when we boys in the neighborhood had stopped playing War. I didn’t know much about his time as a Marine in the South Pacific during World War II. The only clues my sisters and I got was when he would name our dogs after battles he was in: Peleliu, Tarawa, etc. In our attic he kept some war souvenirs: a Japanese flag, a sword, and the gun he had taken off a Japanese soldier. One day, without explanation, Dad decided he no longer wanted these items in our house. He quietly went and got a shovel out of the garage, gathered together the Japanese spoils of war, and went out to the large weeping willow tree in our backyard. He dug a hole — a very, very deep hole — and buried the gun and the sword and flag under the shade of that tree. When it was all done and the earth had been restored, he stood there alone, looking down, deep in thought or prayer or who knows what. I watched from my bedroom window.

Continues.