My Father's War Stories, as Told by Toys

Literary Nonfiction. The house was small, built on the GI Bill. In its knotty-pine kitchen, beneath the gaze of countless wooden eyes darkened by cigarette smoke, "My dad told war stories." Scores of war stories, for endless hours, for years, in unusual detail. Tom's dad was a 1919 flu-epidemic orphan. Survived the Great Depression. Survived combat in World War 2. Survived a lifetime in a factory. Survived a son who turned on him, as the Vietnam War drifted into "nuts." Survived a wife who rose to the management of a daily newspaper, then killed herself. This is one insider's perspective.