World War II (Part Two)

My father’s orders from the base where my father never did finish basic training sent him to that hot spot Albuquerque, New Mexico, to study to be an engineer. This wasn’t a completely irrational decision, because my dad was a man of great mechanical aptitude. I’ve always been envious of those abilities because they totally bypassed me. Changing a light bulb is rather high tech as far as I’m concerned.

My dad spent two years learning to be an engineer at UNM. He had a great time and had a rare opportunity to learn a lot about not only New Mexico, but West Texas and Arizona and Utah as well. Having come from flat, cold, overcast northern Illinois, the mountains and sunshine of the desert were a new and pleasant experience for my dad.

My dad spent two years there and had almost completed his degree in Engineering when new orders came.

As a child, it was embarrassing for me to have to listen to my friends talking about their fathers’s war time experiences and seeing their bronze stars and purple hearts. During 1942 and 1943 when many men were fighting in the South Pacific and North Africa, my father was a college student. Out of shame and self-preservation, I kept my mouth shut and didn’t say anything.

Years later, after I had finished school and was practicing law, one day one of our senior partners and I had lunch. He told me his war story, which amazingly was similar to my dad’s in this regard. “Mike,” as everyone called him, turned eighteen right after he graduated from high school. So on his birthday, he went down to enlist. The military sent him to Northwestern University to study Engineering. He graduated and received his commission in June, 1945, so he never went further west than San Fransisco.

But Mike did have a good story to tell. One of his professors had really made him work hard to pass several of his courses. Since Mike’s aptitudes lay elsewhere, this did not surprise him. Shortly before graduation, this professor sat him down and asked,

“After you leave the service, what are you planning on doing with your life?”

Mike replied that he wasn’t entirely sure if he was going to go into the family business (retail furniture) or go to law school. The professor looked noticeably relaxed at the news. But the professor, being a cautious engineer, covered his bases by saying,

“If for some reason you decide to work as engineer, please promise me that you won’t ever tell anyone that you learned Engineering at Northwestern?”

Mike agreed that he’d keep this a secret, which further relieved the professor. But, ever vigilant, the professor added,

“Mike, if you have to tell them where you received your degree from, will you promise that you’ll at least never tell anyone that you studied under me?”

Mike crossed his heart at the request, which made the usually solemn professor smile. Then the professor shook his hand asked Mike to make sure that he asked him to write a recommendation for law school when the time came. Mike agreed.

After our lunch was over, Mike showed me a copy of the professor’s recommendation. It said that any school would be glad to have Mike in his classes, since Mike was a man of unrelenting character and dedication. The letter added that Mike had somehow managed to receive a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the vigorous and demanding program at Northwestern despite having no natural aptitude whatsoever for the subject. The letter concluded that only a man of truly great character could have done what Mike had done at N.U. Obviously the letter worked, because Mike was accepted at Harvard Law.