Thanks Hud for the idea.
Here’s my Dad, one of the few scanned pix I have of him (I’ve got more, but I just haven’t scanned them). RMC Robert T. Spencer, Sr. (USN, Retired) passed away on January 5, 1991 at the age of 54. He had been terminally diagnosed just three weeks prior with metastatic carcinoma. As I understand it, it’s the type of cancer which spreads like wildfire throughout the entire body once it starts.
I had known Dad as a short, skinny guy my entire life (always at 5’6” and 136 lbs.), and then at the end he withered away to the point where I could pick him up and he was as light as a feather!
It turns out that on his deathbed, he told us what really happened in August of 1958. We knew well before then he had been at Eniwetok Atoll at the time, but he insisted that he witnessed only three tests.
Try 35.
I was furious at my government for the first time in my life. It was because my dad wasn’t able to tell us the truth until the end, the good Sailor that he was (he worked on sensitive teletype encryption machines during his years in the Navy and had Top Secret clearance). It took me many years to put the pain and the anger behind me and I’m glad I did.
I wish my Dad didn’t have to go through what he did, but I understand it was for a greater purpose, as painful as it is to admit. He did this so that we could all live in freedom and not as slaves to Communism. It’s one of the reasons why I blog: so I will not have to become dhimmi, enslaved to Islam. If I can’t fight with my physical being, then I will fight with my mind and my words.
Thanks, Dad. I miss you.
Here’s a picture of the company Dad was in aboard the USS Boxer at the time of Operation Hardtack. First row behind the officers, third from the left:
