The Soldier's Code My Mother Keeps

"Mom, isn't it time you finally tell us what G-O-G means?"

She sat silent in the armchair in the parlor, holding a stainless steel cane across her knees.

"Please, Mom. What did the letters G-O-G stand for?"

All we knew was that it was the nickname given to her by our father, her husband, Charlie, from their courtship, before their wedding in 1941. We had seen proof in the letters my father wrote during World War II, his swirling, loopy script rendered with fountain pen and green ink.

Dearest GOG . . . can't wait till this war is done,

. . . please, don't be lonely, GOG. Remember Beaverville, and the pasture at sunset?

. . . It won't be long, GOG, till I can cuddle you in my arms . . .

. . . my silky, beautiful GOG.

Hardly a pretty word, GOG. But this was music to our childish ears. It excited us to imagine that our tall, serious, often stern father of eight once upon a time wanted to "cuddle" our "silky" mother in his arms.

The letters were bound with a wide red rubber band and kept in the "war chest," a worn oak toy box housing my father's uniform, his corporal's stripes, a billed officer's cap and various documents, including his release papers.

Also in the war chest, tucked into a faded green shoebox, was a stack of black-and-white photographs. One showed three uniformed soldiers sitting on the hood of a Jeep, smoking cigarettes. Another, two men tossing a football. My favorite was of six soldiers posing with their shirts off, flexing their biceps, a fence and a city park visible behind them. In each picture, we would search for the boy with the dark wavy hair and big nose; we would not otherwise have recognized our dad, whom none of us children had ever known to be so skinny.

Later, when we studied the war in history class, my eyes would race past the text to get to the photographs of somber troops marching over wintry roads; of soiled, anguished men loading antiaircraft guns; of ships at sea, weapons blazing. It was hard to believe it could be the same war my father was in, with all those laughing boys horsing around.