Story of a Father's Poem to His Son a Reminder of Sacrifice
Ventura Star, May 16, 2005
By Terry Paulson, PhD

It was almost a year ago that America lost Ronald Reagan, but his impact continues. Few leaders have grasped the power of story to touch our lives and to remind us about what we appreciate most about America. Like Lincoln a century earlier, Ronald Reagan would forgo the flowery speeches and laborious arguments on key issues to connect with the common man by using simple stories about real men and women who helped shape this great land.

For this Memorial Day, I received permission from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation to share a story and a poem that Ronald Reagan first told in 1978. In a radio address, Ronald Reagan read a letter written by a father to his son serving overseas during World War II. On this Memorial Day, separated by decades from the time it was written, this father's letter, written in the form of a poem, conveys a message no less poignant for our time. As with past wars, some of our young men and women have given their lives to spread liberty and freedom to people they do not even know. We hear the numbers and the names of those lost, but few hear the rest of the story. During World War II, one father gave us a glimpse of one story when he wrote to his son…

Dear Son:
I wish I had the power to write
The thoughts wedged in my heart tonight
As I sit watching that small star
And wondering where and how you are.
You know, Son, it's a funny thing
How close a war can really bring
A Father, who for years with pride,
Has kept emotions deep inside.
I'm sorry, Son, when you were small
I let reserve build up that wall;
I told you real men never cried,
And it was Mom who always dried
Your tears and smoothed your hurts away
So that you soon went back to play.
But, Son, deep down within my heart
I longed to have some little part
In drying that small tear-stained face,
But we were men-men don't embrace.
And suddenly I found my Son
A full grown man, with childhood done.
Tonight you're far across the sea,
Fighting a war for men like me.
Well, somehow pride and what is right
Have each changed places here tonight.
I find my eyes won't stay quite dry
And that men sometimes really cry.
And if we stood here, face to face
I'm sure, my Son, we would embrace.
Son, Dads are quite a funny lot,
And If I've failed you on some spot
It's not because I loved you less
But just this cussed manliness.
And if I had the power to write
The thoughts wedged in my heart tonight,
The words would ring out loud and true,
I'm proud, my Son, yes proud of you.

The father had signed the poem "Dad." He had walked down to the corner and dropped the letter in the mailbox. As he returned home and reached his doorstep, he was greeted by a man who handed him a war department telegram, the one that began with the fateful words "We regret to inform you."

In telling the story of the long forgotten poem, Reagan said what all of us would hope and pray for, "I am glad that I can believe his son knew he had written that letter."

How many young men and women who have paid the ultimate price have never had anyone write to them about how much they were appreciated? How many now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan have never received a statement of our support for defending the freedoms we cherish? These are our kids-America's best! Do you have any letters to write-any poems to send?

In his 1984 Pointe-Du-Hoc speech to surviving Rangers in commemoration of D-Day, Ronald Reagan said something we might want to remember: "The deep knowledge -- and pray God we've not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer and so you and those others did not doubt your cause and you were right not to doubt. We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace than to take blind shelter across the sea rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was, never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent but we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and, yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation."

On this Memorial Day, may we stay liberty's course by once again solemnly honoring those lost and cherishing the freedom and liberty they paid the ultimate promise to secure.

Dr. Terry Paulson is a psychologist, speaker and author of The Dinner: The Political Conversation Your Mother Told You Never to Have

*Permission granted from Stories In His Own Hand: The Everyday Wisdom of Ronald Reagan, edited by K.K. Skinner, A. Anderson, and M. Anderson. Ronald Reagan's writing copyright © 2001 by The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. Reprinted by permission of The Free Press/Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved.

—May we never forget how truly blessed we are!