Remembering William Reeves Sr.

William Norman Reeves Sr. at 15 in WWII

I have written of friends whose fathers did some amazing things in WWII. On this Memorial Day I would like to remember my dad, William Norman Reeves Sr. "Jake". He never said he was a hero or in battle, but in 1943 at the age of 15 he enlisted in the Navy. That says something. His older brother and sister enlisted in the Navy and I sure that is why he did it.
He lived through the depression and he always like Navy food. I don't remember my dad complaining about any food. He always kept his weight down. He told me of boot camp and he took me to Great Lakes Naval Station and showed me buildings still standing from when he was there. After his death I was never able to return to the base. That is too bad.
He said boot camp was tough but he was proud to have made it through. He told me about traveling to the West Coast and being shipped to the Pacific.
I am not sure he was aware of the dangers as he traveled on a troupe ship. Some these ships were sank. But maybe he was as "scuttlebutt" went round the ship. The scuttlebutt is a drinking fountain on a ship where sailors would gather to here the latest gossip. They went to Pearl and from there he was sent to Guam. He told me of how he got over sea sickness. He was down below with most of the young sailors and he became very sick. After 3 weeks an older sailor grabbed him by the seat of the pants and told him he was going to give him he secret to over come it. He told my dad to "look at the horizon and the sickness will pass." My dad said that did it and he never got sick again.
While he was in the Navy he and it seems alot of other sailors took up boxing. My dad had fast hands and was pretty good at it. At some point he was stationed on Guam waiting to be sent to another ship when they discovered his age. At that point my dad said, "I went from seeing the world to KP duty." He hated peeling potatoes. He stayed in the Navy and it was considered to dangerous to send him back home. The Navy would wait until he became of age where he would be given another posting.

He lived in Quonset huts like these

While he was on a ship he told me one story where the captain let all the new sailors go swimming off a reef. He felt the captain had a sense of humor for all 5000 men were in a wave that went over the reef, "bare ass" was how he described it. We all got cut up pretty good. As far as I know my dad never went back in the ocean to swim. He thought I was nuts for liking to swim in ocean.
Guam he described as hot and humid and it rained everyday. He went souvenir hunting in the caves of Guam. I found out later there was still fighting going on in the middle of the island. He crawled in one cave and came across decapitated bodies. He told me "I was done looking for souvenirs, it gave me the creeps" and he said some other colorful language as I recall. He received new orders for an all out invasion of Japan when they dropped the bombs on Japan. It was always his belief that the "Japs" would fight till the end. He felt the bombs saved lives including his own.
While the war was still going on my dads brother Cliff was able to see my dad for one day. He said it was his happiest day in the service. After the war ended, he listened to on radio the Cubs playing the World Series. Listening about his favorite team thousands of miles away was a big deal. He was 17. he soon was discharged from the navy as they downsized.
From his bar experiences my dad told me, "You here anybody bragging about war and how brave they were never was in it." I read his letters and he never said one thing other than his experiences as a kid on a navy station. The war could have continued and who knows what could have happened to the kid who signed up at 15. But at 17 he was aware of how things were in the Pacific. Memorial Day isn't just abut flag raising, but remembering kids often made great sacrifices to keep our freedom and the American experience going.
One thing my father gave me was the will to get up and try again. I think you see it throughout my blog. My being handicap, really affected my dad. When I was a kid, my dad would keep walking when I fell. He told me that Dr. Hedges told him to do that, so that I would learn to get up and keep going. He told me that he never got used to my falling. He played catch with me and taught me most sports. He bought me equipment so that I was always on somebodies team because I had a bat or ball that we played with. If anybody bullied me my dad always had my back. He also helped me stand up to bullies. He taught how to box and to fight. They are different. For sure dad's method are somewhat outdated but I am who am in a large part because of him. Keep walking