Anyone seeking to do an
autobiographical sketch of one’s life cannot help but discover the convenience
of breaking the passage of time down into bite-size chunks – or “chapters.” In
doing this it may come as a surprise to find that some of those significant
course changes worthy of a time mark may not become historically visible until
a certain number of years have flown by. Our perspectives change with the
passage of time and the maturing of our outlook and sense of self-awareness;
just one of many reasons why I believe any meaningful personal history is a
continuous project and is never really “almost done.”
In 1953 for instance, there was an
extraordinary confluence of events in my life – perhaps more life-changing than
I was even capable of comprehending at the time but which are emotionally
exhausting even to think about now, so many years after. A year in a combat
zone where gunfire, death and dying had been seen, and smelled, and heard and
felt, and where young men died every day; where I lived in a canvas tent with
ten other men (most of us still “boys” in our teens) had just suddenly come to
an end. I was alive but I was somehow different.
In 17 hours flying time I was back
home in the U.S.A..There were no bugles and marching bands; no thank you’s and
well done’s as there had been with our older brothers. The “cool” thing was to
shut up and not say anything about the 39,000 dead, 8000 M.I.A. and thousands
of guys with missing parts and scarred souls. (We didn’t even talk about it
with each other – for about 40 years.)
Two weeks after getting home I was
married and off to a new life in the “peace-time” Air Force, 3,000 miles from home, in a strange civilian world
where I didn’t know how to fit in; a young wife, a home to fill, groceries to
buy and bills to pay and my first car to fix and keep in gasoline. Even scarier,
I was now a senior non-commissioned officer in need of fitting into an
established, rather complicated and highly structured military society, living
“off-base” in the midst of but not a part of a civilian community; no more
familiar barracks life, mess hall dining and fixed routine.
While checking into my new base on
day one, my welcoming experience was to be braced and chewed up one side and
down the other for wearing an “illegal” shoulder patch, by the biggest, meanest
Master Sergeant I had ever met. His name was Mike Rathsack, and he is the subject
of this story.
My stateside assignment was to the
529th Air Police Section at Paine A.F.B. near Everett, Washington,
and the last stop on my list of things to do that day was to sign in at A.P.
headquarters. When I reported to my new boss – the Provost Sergeant – there was
6 foot 6 inches tall, square-jawed Master Sergeant Sterling (Mike) Rathsack
sitting behind the big desk! I immediately saw my new career assignment going
down-hill right there. I knew there was no way I was going to hit it off with
this guy after such an illustrious first meeting on the base Main Street an
hour earlier. The 5th Air Force patch on my left shoulder weighed 5
pounds and seemed illuminated in neon. I never could have guessed in those
moments that this rough-as-a-cob WWII veteran was about to become one of those
“giants” that bless our lives at times of special need.
Within a month, I was called before
a promotion board, and found myself assigned as “Operations Sergeant” – essentially
“number two” to the Provost Sergeant himself – and a regular companion to a
father-like figure who saw something in me I was too immature to appreciate.
Off base, the Rathsak family adopted us and soon found us a better living space
in a duplex house close to their own in the ferry town of Mukilteo; an old
house which we shared with the
friendly Coast Guard couple manning the nearby lighthouse. Suddenly, we were
part of an expanding “family-away-from-home” and able to concentrate on our new
marriage and new life together. Mike taught me how to fish the northwestern
lakes for crappie, and the harbor for salmon, and I soon had a new Labrador
Retriever to run with his Springer Spaniel (a rather full boat load!)
Looking across the landscape of a
lifetime, I recognize Master Sgt. Mike Rathsak as a Tall Giant!
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