For my dad on Veteran's Day 2019
I never knew my dad. I have pictures of him and my mom together; pictures of him holding me when I was just a few weeks old in 1970, but that’s it. His mom sent birthday cards until she died when I was 10, but I didn’t grow up knowing her or the family. My dad basically became estranged from his family. Except for contact with his older brother, he just wandered away. No one knew what happened. They likely didn’t expect much of him. When a family member heard that a S.W. (full name withheld) was shot in a drug raid in 1977, his mom tried to find out what happened. She even hired a private detective but could never determine if that was in fact her son. She died 3 years later never knowing whether S.W., by all accounts her favorite and smartest child, died in such a tragic and frankly disgraceful manner. Stories are that his older brother came home while his mom was ill and confirmed it was S.W.…he knew for sure. That was 1980. In 1993 as the internet became more accessible, I tried ...