by Dean Hughes
Barney swore. “They don’t have the guts to take us on,” he said. “They can go shoot up the little chinks all they want, but they know better than to take on America.”
“Back home, I worked for a Japanese man,” Wally said. “He was about as nice a guy as you’d ever know. And he used to talk about his family—who had moved to the States from Japan. They were Buddhists, and they were very kind, very good people. They weren’t anything at all like what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t know that. That’s just what this guy told you.”
“I know what kind of man he was. He was fair with me. He’s one of the best men I’ve ever known.”
Again the silence, and then Barney said, “Wally, what do you know? You’ve never been anywhere. Me and Clyde here know a lot more than one Nip guy back in the States.”
Wally decided to let it go. When the waitress came back, however, he felt bad for her. She seemed a reserved young woman, not comfortable with the atmosphere she was working in. She had agreed to return to the table where she had been insulted, but she obviously didn’t like it. And Barney certainly didn’t apologize. Wally did try to be kind to the woman, but he wasn’t sure that she noticed.
Chapter 31
Bobbi stayed to herself most of the time during the rest of the summer. She was putting in long days at the hospital, so when she did come home she had an excuse to disappear into her room. But she wasn’t pouting. She was merely trying to make the best of things and to move on with her life. Sister Thomas told her one day, “Oh, Bobbi, in some ways I envy you. You’ve already had two great adventures in your life. Two boys in love with you. Two heartbreaks. I never did have so much excitement.” And that was a turning point for Bobbi. She began to tell herself that she was lucky to have had both these experiences. She couldn’t find much to regret, except for the pain she had caused Phil, and she was glad to know she could love.
President Thomas was trying his best to do things right. He was friendly, not pushy, but he seemed nervous around Bobbi. And he could never go more than a couple of weeks without probing a little. The thesis behind his questioning was always the same: What are you doing to find a husband? And not very deep beneath the surface was a little reprimand: Don’t you wish now that you had married Phil? Or maybe Bobbi only imagined that part.
Bobbi and her mother continued to talk about Bobbi getting an apartment, and Mom kept saying she had to talk to President Thomas, but she didn’t do it. Then one Sunday evening, after disappearing with her husband into the back office for more than an hour, she came upstairs to Bobbi’s room.
“Bobbi,” she said, and she let a hint of a smile appear. “I’m going to take a job. It’s all arranged. I’ll be starting this week, maybe even tomorrow.”
“And Dad said it was okay?”
“Yes.”
Bobbi had been sitting at her desk, reading. She got up and came over to her bed and sat down. Her mother sat down next to her, and now Sister Thomas was grinning. “Are you sure?” Bobbi asked. “Did he understand what you were asking him?”
“I didn’t ask. I told him.”
Bobbi laughed out loud. “What in the world is going on around here?”
“Well, it’s not so shocking as you might think. Your dad has been fussing for months and months that Alex needs help at his office. Alex always agrees, but he never bothers to hire anyone. So I told him I wanted the job, and he offered it to me. I’ve just been waiting for the right time to break the news to your dad.”
“What did he say?” Bobbi couldn’t help laughing again.
“There wasn’t much he could say. I told him I’ll send the girls off to school in the mornings and be here when they get home. And I told him it would help Alex get out of the plant a little more often. How could he disagree with that?”
“I thought he was opposed to women working—no matter what.”
“He is. But he’s probably counting his blessings that I haven’t come up with something worse.” She nodded emphatically, and Bobbi saw how flushed she was with her own pleasure.
“Well, I’m proud of you, Mom. You’ll do a good job.”
“But I don’t think you understand what this is all about. Bobbi, in my whole life, I’ve never had a penny of my
own. Your dad gives me a budget, but if he decides he wants something, he just buys it. I’ve never been able to do that. Besides that, I’ve always asked for permission when I’ve wanted to do something. This time I talked to him as an equal, and he seemed to accept that.”
“That’s great, Mom. What are you going to do with all your money?”
“The first thing I’m going to do is rent an apartment for you. I already told your dad that, too.”
“No.” Bobbi stood up and looked down at her mother. “You said you wanted the money for yourself.”
“No, I didn’t. I said I wanted to have some money that I could spend the way I choose. And right now, I see you needing a change—needing some independence—and I want you to have it. It’s something I never experienced.”
So in September Bobbi moved to an apartment not far from the LDS Hospital. It was a cute little one-bedroom place, and Bobbi and her mother spent several evenings cleaning it. Then Gene and Dad helped move everything in.
Once everyone was gone, Bobbi sat among the boxes she still needed to empty, and she liked the idea of being on her own this way. But her mind soon turned to David, who was alone in Chicago. She wondered what he was thinking now, and she longed to talk to him. She also thought of Phil, who had gone ahead and married Ilene. The fact was, she wished she had also found someone, that her own life were more settled, but she decided not to spend this first evening in her new home thinking that way. She got up and began to put away her things.
Bobbi also had another plan. During the fall she talked to recruiters, and she decided she would join the navy right after she graduated. Her brothers had left the valley for a time and gone to distant parts of the world. Bobbi wanted her chance to do that too. She hadn’t signed up yet, and she hadn’t mentioned the idea to her dad, but she knew it was what she would do.
***
On Monday morning, December 8, which was December 7 back home, Wally was sitting outside the squadron mess shack eating breakfast. He wasn’t feeling well. The squadron had thrown a party the day before for a departing Master Sergeant. Wally had had more than usual to drink, and he was feeling the effects of that now. He was surprised when he looked up and saw his first sergeant running toward the mess shack. As the man got closer, Wally was struck with the strange look on his face. He seemed startled, maybe even scared. “The Japs are bombing Hawaii,” he shouted, and for a moment Wally thought he had heard wrong.
All the men at the mess shack stood up, automatically. “It’s bad,” the Sergeant said. He stopped in front of the men. “Everything is on fire. Lots of ships have gone down.”
“What are you talking about?” someone asked, and that was Wally’s response too. This was impossible.
“I don’t know what’s going on. I guess we’re at war. The C.O. wants us all to fall in on the parade ground.”
But no one moved. All the G.I.s stood where they were, obviously letting the idea sink in. Wally was trying to think what would come next.
“Just let the Japs try it here,” one of the men said. “We’ll show ‘em.” But Wally heard more astonishment than conviction in the man’s voice.
***
The Thomases were sitting at the dinner table, eating and gabbing about this and that. Alex and Bobbi were both home, but Dad had called and said he was held up at the stake office; the family should go ahead and eat. Alex said the blessing, and everyone began to pass the food around—pot roast, potatoes, and a dozen other things. Mom always filled up the table with relishes and pickles, rolls and preserves. Everyone was talking and laughing when the telephone sounded the Thomas ring.
Gene got up and answered it. The family was still talking, and in a moment, Gene said, “Be q
uiet.” Then into the telephone, “Are you sure?” Alex could tell something serious had happened, but he couldn’t think what it would be.
“All right,” Gene was saying, and then he hung the receiver back on the telephone and turned around. The color had left his face. “The Japs are attacking us,” he said.
“What?” Alex said.
“They’re dropping bombs on the Hawaiian Islands.”
“Who was that?” Bobbi asked, sounding doubtful.
“Dad. He said to turn on the radio.” Gene was already walking to the radio, but when he turned on the power, the tubes took time to warm up, and everyone waited. The first sound was an announcer’s voice: “Wave after wave of Japanese bombers continue to strike. Most of the ships in Pearl Harbor are burning. Some have apparently sunk.”
No one ate. Everyone listened, occasionally making a comment but mostly trying to accept the idea that this could happen. For two years every American had lived with the idea that war could break out. And sometimes speculation had brought Japan into the picture, but most of the talk had been about Germany. It had never seemed that it would happen this way.
Alex knew immediately that his life would never be the same. This meant war, and now he was sure to be drafted. He tried to think whether Germany would join Japan against America, and what would all this mean to Anna? His thoughts were racing, but behind it all, he felt a kind of nervous panic. Everything he had worried about, feared, would come down upon him now.
“What about the Philippines?” Sister Thomas asked. “What will happen to Wally?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said, but that concern had also struck him.
“The Philippines are so close to Japan.”
Alex saw the fear in his mother’s eyes. She was thinking of her son who was already in harm’s way, but Alex looked across the room at Gene, who was standing with his hands in his pockets, still listening to the radio. All three sons could end up in this. Gene was only sixteen, but who could say how long this might last?
“We’ll kick those Japs’ pants for them,” Gene said. “They don’t scare me. I wish I could join up right now.”
“Hush,” Mom said. “You have no idea what we might be in for.”
“What about the Germans?” Bobbi asked. “Will we go to war with them, too?”
Alex nodded. “I think so,” he said. “Germany and Japan have signed an agreement. Hitler must have known this was going to happen. I don’t see how we can fight Japan and let Hitler take Europe.”
“But how can we fight them both?” Sister Thomas asked. “And what’s to keep the Japanese from bombing San Francisco—or even Salt Lake? If they’ll bomb Hawaii, how do we know they won’t keep right on coming?”
“I don’t know, Mom,” Alex said. “I don’t know what they’re thinking. But I can’t picture them doing that.”
“They’re going to draft you, aren’t they?” Mom said, and tears spilled onto her cheeks.
“I think so.”
On and on the voice on the radio continued. The announcer kept giving the same information, repeating it for all those tuning in. But now and then something new would come in, and the picture was becoming more frightening. Most of the Pacific fleet had been docked at Pearl Harbor, and most of it was damaged or destroyed. The Japanese had pulled off a complete surprise, one the United States could not easily recover from. It really did seem that the country was defenseless along the West Coast.
Alex had glanced at LaRue and Beverly a couple of times, and he had seen the concern in their faces. But when Beverly began to cry, he finally realized how scared they both must be. He pulled Beverly onto his lap and held her. “Why do they want to drop bombs on us?” she asked between her sobs.
“Don’t worry, honey. I’m sure they won’t,” Alex told her, and he patted her back.
But Alex’s mind was still busy. The number he had drawn for the lottery was high, which would have kept him out of the service at the rate the draft had been going. But what would happen now? All healthy young men would probably be called up. He saw it as a picture in his mind: him slogging through mud, being shot at, watching people die around him, perhaps dying himself. And he thought of shooting at people, killing them. It was something he had tried to imagine many times before, and in his mind, those he would kill were always Germans. The soldiers would be the same young men he had known while he was there—teenagers playing soccer in the streets, students walking home from school, even young Mormon priesthood holders blessing the sacrament and passing it in their branches. He would rather fight the Japanese, if he had to fight. He didn’t know them. And now they had struck first, asking for the war that they were going to get. But Japanese young men couldn’t be so different from Germans—or from himself.
Dad came home before long. He listened to the radio for a time, and then he sat down and ate his dinner. He said next to nothing, but Alex knew he was considering all the implications.
“What’s going to happen to Wally?” Mom asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll just have to wait and see.” But he sounded worried.
Alex continued to hold Beverly and to pat her on the back. She had stopped crying, but she was clinging to him. LaRue, who looked as frightened as Beverly, was leaning against her mother, and Mom was holding her close. Alex wondered what must be going through the girls’ heads. He thought of the little children in Primary in Frankfurt. Did they have the same thoughts about the British? Would they feel that way about America before long? So many children, all over the world, were going to suffer. He gripped Beverly’s skinny little frame and tried to make her feel safe.
“We’ve been hearing about a possible second World War,” Mom said softly. “That’s what this is now.”
Alex never finished his meal. Neither did Mom or Bobbi or the younger girls, but Gene finally came back and gulped down his food, and Dad ate everything on his plate. When he was finished, he wiped his mouth with his napkin, placed it on the table, and said, “Alex, come with me for a few minutes. I want to talk to you.”
He walked to his office. Once inside, he took a seat at his desk, and Alex sat in one of the two old overstuffed chairs. Sometimes Dad held interviews at home, extended callings, or counseled young couples planning to get married. Now he sat hunched over his desk with his hands gripped together. “Alex,” he said, “this could be very bad for Wally.”
“Will the Japanese start attacking all the islands—or what do you think they’re up to?”
“I have no idea. But those bases are too close to Japan for the Japanese not to knock them out if they can. I don’t see any way he’s going to sit there and not get pulled into this thing.”
“General MacArthur has been over there for years, training the locals to fight. Maybe Japan won’t dare try an invasion.”
“I’m hoping the same thing. But even if the Japs don’t try to take the islands, they’re sure to attack Clark Field and the other airfields and ports.”
“It’s nuts, Dad. What makes the Japanese think they can take on the United States?”
“We’re not ready, Alex. They’ve knocked out most of our fleet. Japan may be a small country, but they’ve been building a huge navy, and now they’ve grabbed us by the throat. I think we could be in big trouble.”
“Just the islands, or here, too?”
“I don’t know, Alex. But if Hitler should finish off England in the next little while, and if we can’t mobilize fast enough to handle Japan in the Pacific, we might have to sign treaties and let Japan and Germany and Italy divide up the world among themselves. Isn’t that a pretty picture?”
“A month ago I thought Moscow was about to fall, but the Russians are holding on. Maybe Hitler’s taken on too much, fighting in Africa and Russia and England all at the same time.”
“We’d better hope so. I’m afraid the winter is slowing the Germans more than the Russians are. Moscow might fall quickly in the spring.”
“If England and Russia fall,
Hitler won’t stop. He’ll join with the Japanese and come after us. Those countries would never be satisfied until they had all the resources of a big, rich country like ours.”
Dad nodded. “Evil is trying to take over the world, Alex. That’s what it comes down to. And the responsibility to stop it is going to be on our shoulders. I’ve been as stupid about this as anyone. I just kept thinking we could stay out of it.”
Alex thought he saw where all this was leading. But Dad took him by surprise. “Alex, maybe it was meant to be that you’re operating our plant. Everyone is going to be called on to serve. But you’re already in the middle of the effort.”
“I don’t know, Dad. You can run the operation—or Henry Rosen. Young men like me are going to be drafted.”
“No. The military can’t start taking more people than it’s ready to train. And not everyone will go. I don’t see why any one family has to send all its sons.”
“It might take all of every family’s sons if we’re going to fight Japan and Germany.”
“Maybe. But Alex, you have a purpose in this life. I’ve known it since the day you were born. You know what Joseph Fielding Smith said about you.” Dad hesitated, placed his hands flat on his desk, and looked into Alex’s eyes. “Today, when I got the word, I said to myself, ‘I have three sons. What will happen to them?’ I thought of Wally, and I knew he was in great danger. And I thought of having to send you now and maybe Gene later. But then I had a feeling come over me when I thought about the position you hold at the plant. I just don’t see you as a warrior. I see you as someone who will do his part by serving here, as someone who will be preserved for higher purposes.”
Alex wanted to believe that. But it sounded self-serving, too convenient. “I don’t know whether the draft board will look at it that way, Dad.”
“I know some of those men. I can talk to them and make sure they understand your position. The plant is just starting to roll. If someone tried to take over—especially Henry—I hate to think of all the problems that would follow. Soldiers are worthless without weapons, and you’re the one putting those weapons into their hands.”