Roger Auge II: My Father the Military Hero

On Father’s Day when I was growing up, my Dad would play golf with some friends, do some work around the house and sit down me, my mother, brother and two sisters for dinner.  Dinner usually consisted of standing rib roast, mashed potatoes and peas or string beans and, of course, iced tea.  Dad would talk about golf which bored my mother and two sisters to pieces.  My brother, still a mid-seventies golfer today, loved the golf gab.  

The calm, normal family event on Father’s Days in the fifties and sixties contrasted greatly with Father’s Days my Dad spent in 1943-1945 when aboard a Coast Guard destroyer escort in the Atlantic.   The Father’s Days of 43 and 44 reflect my father commanding his ship across the Atlantic on convoy protection duty.    

June, 1945, the war in Europe ended and my father’s ship navigated the Panama Canal and headed for the North Pacific and the Aleutian Islands off Alaska.   I was three that summer.   By the time I was ten or so and gained some appreciation, my Dad’s pleasures were simple.  He cut grass, fixed things that broke, taught me how to camp put in a pup tent and went to work.   I do not recall the gifts we gave him, probably neck ties or a tool, but I do remember the dinners.  The golf talk and the standing rib stand out, but so does my father, a dignified Coast Guard commander who passed away in 1998.