Dem
47
GOP
53
Today's memory comes to us from T.B. in Winston-Salem, NC:
One of my very favorite novelists is the legendary Tony Hillerman. He was probably also my dad's favorite novelist. When World War II started, both Hillerman and Dad enlisted in the Army, and both were recruited into the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP), which sent PFCs to land-grant colleges to be trained as officers, scientists, doctors, pilots, and engineers. Dad was interested in flying, and the Army sent him to Iowa State Teachers College to be trained as an airman.
In 1943, after the bloody invasions of Sicily and Italy, the Army found that it needed more bodies to throw at the enemy. Both dad and Hillerman were sent to combat divisions. As dad described his personal experience, one day a high-ranking officer came to address his group and told the men that they were the best and brightest ever to serve in the U.S. Army, the cream of the crop, and that therefore they would have choices. When dad got up to the table, the choices were rifle, mortar, or machine gun. As if the coincidence could not be more clear, both dad and Tony Hillerman chose 81mm mortars. Hillerman was sent to the 103rd Infantry Division in Europe. Dad was sent to the 97th Infantry Division, which was initially sent to California for amphibious training with a view toward the eventual invasion of the Japanese home islands. After the Battle of the Bulge, the 97th was almost immediately shipped off to Europe, where they fought in the reduction of the Ruhr Pocket, which had been bypassed and surrounded by forces heading toward Berlin.
My Dad's squad consisted mostly of guys who had been snatched out of ASTP. He described one of them as the most brilliant man he had ever met. On the heavy mortars, Dad and the buddy he worked with had to hit nine targets in volleys of three, at increasing distances ahead of the infantry. Dad said that he and his partner were the only pair who could have all nine shells in the air at the same time. "One other pair of guys tried to duplicate this, but they accidentally dropped one of their rounds on top of the previous one, which was still on its way out of the tube."
In 1945, Hillerman was badly wounded in Europe. Not long thereafter, right after V-E Day, dad's division, the 97th, was shipped back to the U.S. and sent to Seattle to board troop ships for the invasion of Japan. Japan had already surrendered by the time they got there, but the 97th remained in Japan for several months to serve in the army of occupation. Ironically, Dad's best friend was killed in Japan when, in a Christmas Eve snowstorm, he fell off a bridge on the way back to their barracks in the middle of the night.
Dad and Tony Hillerman were discharged from the Army within six months of each other. Hillerman became a journalist and eventually wound up in New Mexico. Starting in 1970, he wrote 18 novels about the Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and his deputy, Jim Chee. The novels all have twisty plots that never turn out the way one might have expected, and are full of descriptions of the Four Corners area and Native American culture.
Dad and Hillerman were roughly the same age. Dad died in 2006, and Hillerman in 2008, both of respiratory issues. Hillerman has a daughter, Anne Hillerman, who has written ten sequels to the Leaphorn-Chee mysteries. She and I are roughly the same age. Her style is strikingly similar to her father's.
In 2001, Tony Hillerman published a memoir of his life, entitled Seldom Disappointed. In explaining his choice of title, he wrote, "'Blessed are those who expect little,' Mama would say. 'They are seldom disappointed.'"
Thank you, T.B. (Z)