Hero Unaware

Historians see the Second World War as one of the most significant events of the 20th century. The war ripped thousands of young Americans away from their families and thrust them into a world filled with suffering and death. My father, Walter Dodd, served as a Navy Corpsman with the Fourth Marine Division during their assaults on Saipan and Iwo Jima. In his almost four years of service he wrote 314 letters to his parents. All these letters were preserved. They open a window into his thoughts as he changed from a wide-eyed country boy to an experienced combat medic who went above and beyond in the direst situations Walter's letters reveal a sharp, sometimes cynical, sense of humor. Behind that humor we can glimpse a psychological trauma that grew with the body count. Though decorated as a hero, and admired for his kindness and generosity, Walter was dogged by intense PTSD for decades. It was later in life that he achieved a measure of peace.