The Patriot Post - Alexander's Column 10-28-2015

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The Patriot Post - Alexander's Column 10-28-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
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Good Bye, Old Man...
Until We Meet Again

By Mark Alexander

Oct. 28, 2015

“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.” —John Adams, 1765

Six years ago, ahead of Memorial Day 2009, I wrote a column entitled “The Class of ‘441,” devoted to my father and his entire Dartmouth class, the members of which departed the safety of their college campus in order to serve our nation in World War II.

All told, 405,399 young American men did not survive that brutal war. Two who did were my father and his wingman, whose sister my father married shortly after the war.

A few years ago, we laid his wingman, my mother’s brother, to eternal rest. On Sunday evening my father rejoined his wingman, and today I join our family and friends to bid him farewell.

I am my father’s youngest son, and the difficult task of writing his obituary this week, was mine. Since it was with his support and encouragement almost 20 years ago that I launched The Patriot Post, I believe it only fitting to honor his memory on our pages. He was a supporter in every sense of our mission advocating for Liberty2.

The short version of my father’s life was framed by this founding precept: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

But his obituary, combined with the aforementioned “Class of '44” column, more aptly tells his story — a story that will be familiar in some important ways to anyone with a relative from the Greatest Generation.

My father received the gift of life on March 3, 1923, and the gift of eternal life on October 25, 2015.

He died at his Lookout Mountain home at age 92, surrounded by family. He was preceded in death by his loving wife Harriet in 1989. He is survived by their five children and spouses, 16 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren.

He is also survived by his brothers Bob (91) and Bill (90), and a large extended family.

He was, and his family remains, very blessed with his second marriage, to Betsy, who brought into the fold two stepsons, their spouses and four step-grandchildren. Betsy stood steadfast by his side for 25 years, and he loved and adored her until his last breath.

Dad was known to his friends by his nickname “Hardrock,” and he is remembered and admired most not for his considerable accomplishments but for his depth of character and love of people. His friends were lifelong and nationwide. He was never idle and always an encourager. He was an eternal optimist, and he lived for the next sunrise.

He resided his whole life on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, the descendant of our family line here since 1782. He was a member of Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church and attended the small elementary school in our community. He graduated from McCallie School in nearby Chattanooga and later served as President of McCallie’s Board of Trustees. He was a graduate of Dartmouth College, Class of 1944, but did not receive his diploma until later, as he and his entire class departed to defend Liberty, at great cost, in World War II.

Dad was both proud and humbled to have served as a naval aviator, as had his father before him in World War I. He inherited his father’s abundant wit and recalled this advice my grandfather gave him regarding final approach for carrier landings: “Learn to sneeze with your eyes open.”

My grandfather and father said that was good advice when approaching any challenging task!

After receiving their commissions and wings, Dad and my mother’s brother flew the formidable F4U Corsair with squadron VBF-97. For his memorial service program, my father selected these verses from the Navy Hymn:

“Eternal Father, strong to save, whose arm doth bind the restless wave, who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep its own appointed limits keep: O hear us when we cry to thee for those in peril on the sea.

"Lord, guard and guide the men who fly through the great spaces of the sky. Be with them always in the air, in dark'ning storms or sunshine fair. O, hear us when we lift our prayer, for those in peril in the air.

"O Trinity of love and pow'r, our brethren shield in danger’s hour; from rock and tempest, fire and foe, protect them wheresoe'er they go; and ever let there rise to thee glad hymns of praise from land and sea.”

Dad’s brother Bob was a WWII Army officer, and brother Bill was a Marine. Together they shared a deep kinship with and love for their Greatest Generation peers, and all Patriot veterans and service personnel who followed, especially those in our family.

After WWII, Dad returned to work for his family’s small manufacturing business. He grew that business substantially and was loyal to and grateful for his many employees — “our people” as he would say. At the end of his career he managed four other companies with more than 11,000 employees. In retirement, his global business peers elected him President of Chief Executives Organization.

In addition to providing jobs for many family breadwinners, as a leader of many civic and social organizations he also devoted much time and energy to make our community a better place for all. In the last few years of his life, he and Betsy regularly prepared and served meals for those in need at our local community kitchen lunch line.

When time permitted, my Dad was a competitive sportsman. In his younger days he was an outstanding tennis player until his knees failed him, and then an outstanding golfer until his legs failed him. He enjoyed fishing and hunting. In retirement he loved to travel with Betsy. They both thrived among friends at their winter retreat in Florida.

Overall, his life was framed by his McCallie School motto, “Honor, Truth and Duty.”

We, his family, are grateful for all those who have been so helpful with him in recent years as his health was failing, and especially in the last months of his life.

On a more personal note …

I will remember my father best for his genuine love and infectious optimism, but it took me a few years to understand the depth of my old man.

When recalling my early trials with him, I’m reminded of an observation attributed to Mark Twain on fatherhood3: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

As a child at our family dinner table, my father’s positive approach to life would display in something as simple as a remark about how much he’d enjoyed his lunch. I recall vividly one evening he exclaimed, “I had collard greens today, and they were the best collard greens I’ve ever had.”

Now, as a youngster, in my opinion there was never enough ketchup on the table to mask the bitterness of collard greens and I could not begin to understand how any serving of those soggy morsels could be “the best ever.”

But as I grew older and began to better understand my father, I realized that he truly believed the greens he had that day were the best he’d ever had. I came to understand that his opinion about those greens had nothing to do with the way they were prepared on that or any particular day and everything to do with his appreciation and enjoyment of them — and many other things — every day.

I realized that, like so many in his generation who lived through the Great Depression and World War II, he learned not to assume there would be another meal or another day. He fully appreciated life, and especially the little things, like collard greens.

On this day, we are gathered to celebrate a father, brother, husband, uncle, grandfather and great grandfather, all wrapped in one. We thank God for the gift of my father, especially for his model of a grateful heart and a joyful spirit. I’m so thankful for the steadfast example he set. We pray that God would light a path for each of us to center our hearts in service to others and define our character through Him — as did my father.

Fair winds and following seas, old man! We will miss you.

“Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors.” —Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

(If you are so inclined, memorial gifts would be welcomed by the Patriot Foundation Trust4 in support of the Medal of Honor Heritage Center5. Please make checks payable to Patriot Foundation Trust, PO Box 507, Chattanooga, TN 37401-0507)

Pro Deo et Constitutione — Libertas aut Mors
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis