If My Heart Had Wings: A World War II Love Story(9)

Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. World War II was underway.





Chapter Two


Fly Boy




M ANY YEARS LATER, MOM showed me a picture of herself and her family that was taken in December 1941. Her brother, my Uncle Ted, who had just become an officer in the Navy, was home for Christmas. He’d quit his job earlier that year to join the Navy, thinking it would pay a lot better than teaching math to junior high school kids. After a stint in Midshipmen's school, he was just wrapping up his training when, out of the blue, Pearl Harbor was bombed. There was just enough time for him to make a quick trip home for Christmas before he headed off to “torpedo school,” after which he’d be assigned to a destroyer.

Grandma, like most mothers at the time, was terrified at the prospect that her son might never return. She wanted a family photograph made—possibly the last one ever taken of everybody together—and insisted the family get dressed up and take a trip to the local photographer’s studio.

Not surprisingly, the picture that resulted reveals a pretty solemn little group. The only one who smiled even a little was Ted, who looked squarely into the camera and seemed to welcome the challenge he was about to face. Mom, a serious-faced twenty-year-old, was serenely beautiful but somehow detached, like she didn’t really believe anything terrible was about to happen. My rough-and-tumble Grandpa seemed ready to take on anything or anybody, as evidenced by his clenched fist. Only one of them, my grim-faced, stoic Grandma, seemed to understand that the war was about to take a toll on them, and maybe a heavy one. And there wasn’t a blessed thing she could do about it. The war had commandeered all of their lives.



The Ostrom Family, on the brink of war—December 1941

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“W HAT ABOUT LYNDON?” I asked. “Did he run right out and sign up for the Army?”

I’d heard that all the young guys in those days were furious about Pearl Harbor and dying to get out there and defend their country.

“Well, he did wait until after the holidays,” Mom recalled. “But right after New Year’s, I remember he went straight to the Army Air Forces recruiting station and signed up.”

Years later, I would find out it was January 13, 1942, just five weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, that Lyndon joined hordes of other young men and applied for the U.S. Army Air Forces Aviation Cadet program. He knew absolutely nothing about flying planes; in fact, he’d never even been inside one. But according to Mom, to him, being a pilot sounded exciting, fun, and a whole lot better than living in a foxhole or being stuck in the middle of the ocean, hoping your ship didn’t sink.

And while it was true that Lyndon was all fired up about doing his patriotic duty and protecting those at home, Mom confided that those weren’t the only reasons. At the time, even though he’d graduated from college more than two years earlier, he was working in the warehouse at Montgomery Ward department store with no real job prospects on the horizon. And during those last dreary years of the Depression, life in St. Paul had slowed to a crawl. For most guys, there were only three exciting things to do: drive too fast, drink too much, and try to make time with your girl. As far as I know, Lyndon didn’t do any of them.

But by joining the military, he’d get a chance to visit exciting new places, meet interesting people, and do all kinds of things he’d never even dreamed of. And, finally, his hard-won college degree would come in handy. In the military, college graduates automatically had the chance to become officers, leaders among men. Almost overnight, a lowly warehouse clerk could become someone important.

With high hopes, Lyndon threw his hat into the ring and went through a series of interviews and examinations. Within two weeks, he got the verdict. The Army Air Forces had accepted him into the Aviation Cadet program, and he was to report for basic training at Minter Field in central California in two weeks. With daytime temperatures of about 63 degrees right in the middle of winter, it sounded like a pretty good gig to a Minnesota boy.

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M OM TOLD ME THIS STORY while we were strolling under a tangle of two-hundred-year-old California oak trees at Descanso Gardens, a beautiful place we liked to go whenever Dad loosened his iron grip on our car.

“Was it sad saying goodbye to Lyndon?” I asked, wondering what it would be like to watch your boyfriend go off to war.

She wasn’t about to wallow in any of that.

“Yes,” she said shortly. “But that’s just the way it was. Practically every girl I knew in those days was saying goodbye to her husband or boyfriend.”

“So, no big deal?”

“Well, of course, it was a big deal!” she retorted. “But really, it would have been worse if he hadn’t gone.”

I cocked my head and gave her a look. At the moment, we were smack in the middle of the Vietnam War, and going was a lot worse than not going.

“Back then, everybody went,” she explained patiently. “It was expected. If a guy stayed home, people said mean things to him like, ‘What’s the matter with you ? Are you 4-F or something?’ People thought he was a wimp.”

Okay, that made sense. Nobody wanted to be a wimp.