Yesterday’s post was about Mom, and today’s is inspired by Dad, on what would have been his 102nd birthday. There aren’t many left of his generation, what’s been called “the greatest.” I don’t recall Dad having much to say about that moniker, but his World War II service was a defining feature of his life, and he rests now in a military cemetery.

He was only 20 years old when he climbed into the tail gunner’s seat of a B-17 bomber and flew on bombing raids from Britain’s East Anglia to Germany and back. He was lucky to arrive when he did. Casualty rates were much higher before fighter escorts began in early 1944.

What his generation had that subsequent ones did not is a call to serve that was impossible to ignore. If I was running the country, I would require an obligatory year of national service. Not only would it help repair the nation’s infrastructure (imagine all that youthful enthusiasm and muscle power) but it would also patch up the divisiveness that threatens to tear us apart.

Such plans have been proposed, I believe, but given the other problems besetting the country, aren’t high on anyone’s list. They should be, though … and I bet Dad would approve.

(The entrance to the mess hall at Horham, where Dad was stationed. Photo courtesy One Last Look: A Sentimental Journey to the Eighth Air Force Heavy Bomber Bases of World War II in England.)