In Memory

He saw the rise of National Socialism and the fall of the Reich.  He worked on the first atomic bomb and luckily never saw its completion.  He witnessed the evolution of rocketry, from hobby to weapon.  The birth of the jet age fascinated him no end.

He survived the bombing of Dresden and told the politically incorrect truth, that is not a part of our "history".  He saw the mass murder of the scientific laborers by the tens of thousands.  He survived the Russian onslaught against his chosen homeland, at one point, only by playing dead.

He knew starvation as he fled with four others on his team from the Russians and American forces to surrender to the British.  He knew what it was to be a prisoner of war and to be prison labor.  He learned the hard truth of what freedom really meant and at what cost.

Although, as a mathematician he only understood facts and data, and I an artist, we agreed on virtually nothing across our lifetimes, except food.  So different from me, that by second grade I was sure I was adopted!

As I stood at Fort Logan this week and looked upon that tiny plot of ground, I could not help but think of both the good and bad he had represented.  The beginning and end to so much of history.  And all of the what ifs......

But, he was my father.