By Andy Sacks, W8PIX With editorial assistance by Robert Nickels, W9RAN, Ann Sweet, Joel Thurtell, K8PSV My father, Abraham Sacks, joined the U.S. Army in 1941. He and his three brothers were the first in their family to be born in the United States. He felt he had a patriotic duty to shoulder some of the responsibility to defend and protect our country. Where he was living in Brooklyn, this spirit was widespread, almost contagious. In New York City, 885,000 young men joined the service in the four years from 1941 to 1945. In no way did he view himself as a hero, but Abe was the last born of his siblings, and possessed that extra measure of ambition and determination, so often present in the youngest kid in the family. Abe was the only member of his family to become an U.S. Army officer. Told to my sister and me as we were growing up, his handful of war stories were simple, brief- sanitized. |
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We had heard the many uses to which he put his steel infantry helmet. Even his granddaughters, the five girls born to me, and my sister, knew that he had employed it to do more than protect his noggin. He used it as a wash basin, a cooking pot, a pillow, and a stool. It was never used as a toilet.
My mother had a war story of her own, a favorite describing a different type of cultural combat.
Married to my father and living with him while he was stationed in Arkansas, the Brooklyn girl of 25 years, went into a small grocery and asked to buy some sour cream. The owner looked up at her and said, "Ma'am, when our cream goes sour, we tho it out."
Once I was young man and had demonstrated "responsible character," my father told me that a few days before he was scheduled to report for his first day in the military, he and a buddy bought some steaks and a bottle of good whiskey. They wanted to have one last hurrah before their lives would change.
"I don't remember much about our celebration, but two days later I woke up to find a raw steak under my pillow," my dad told me.
These tales are almost the complete oral history of my father's time in the military. Occasionally, he would add a knowing remark about a place name like Strasbourg that would show up on the television news, letting us know he was familiar with that part of Europe. But unexplained, and never detailed, were the four years that were part of his army life. There were clues, and there was evidence that in the army, he was not just sitting around peeling potatoes on KP duty.
What's the story behind those eight pairs of fine leather women's gloves stashed among his effects and papers from Europe? They were always too small for my mother's hands.
What's with the gigantic red, white, and black Nazi flag folded up neatly in his army trunk? What about the pocket notebook where he wrote French place names and arcane two letter codes, EY, PW, following double digit numbers?
And how did he know about the Grundig and Hallicrafters companies, and the radios they made? About wire antennas and grounding? Was the army the place Abe learned enough about radio to teach his son about shortwave listening and the world above 1700 khz? Maybe.
I thought I had nearly retired after 50 years working as a journalist until Electric Radio started publishing some of my work this past June. Those stories focused on four men, amateur radio operators my age, and their pathway into the hobby. I liked doing the reporting, the research and the writing. And my friends, on and off the air told me they enjoyed my work too.
But what about telling my own story? How did I find a pathway into the hobby, and who led me there?
That would be the guy you see on the cover of ER magazine #406, Abraham Sacks. Now I suspect that he encouraged and helped me pursue radio as a hobby when I was 11 and 12 years old because he had been in the Signal Corps. But he never described how and what he did with radios then. Not even a peep.
Talking this over with my wife, Ann, she suggested that perhaps his letters might demystify this part of his life.
"Letters?" I asked.
"Yes, the letters he wrote home to your mother while he was overseas. Your mother tied them all together in neat bundles with ribbons. We have them."
This story then draws on what historians and archivists call "original source material," the 654 letters my father typed or wrote by hand from his various outposts between 1941 and 1945. His handwriting is difficult to read, but Ann eventually learned to decipher 95% of it.
I am only the narrator. Excerpts from his 654 letters will tell the story, in Abe’s own words.
(One thing I knew even before opening the first letter, is that my dad was not given to embellishment or exaggeration. All this stuff is true.)
My mother had a war story of her own, a favorite describing a different type of cultural combat.
Married to my father and living with him while he was stationed in Arkansas, the Brooklyn girl of 25 years, went into a small grocery and asked to buy some sour cream. The owner looked up at her and said, "Ma'am, when our cream goes sour, we tho it out."
Once I was young man and had demonstrated "responsible character," my father told me that a few days before he was scheduled to report for his first day in the military, he and a buddy bought some steaks and a bottle of good whiskey. They wanted to have one last hurrah before their lives would change.
"I don't remember much about our celebration, but two days later I woke up to find a raw steak under my pillow," my dad told me.
These tales are almost the complete oral history of my father's time in the military. Occasionally, he would add a knowing remark about a place name like Strasbourg that would show up on the television news, letting us know he was familiar with that part of Europe. But unexplained, and never detailed, were the four years that were part of his army life. There were clues, and there was evidence that in the army, he was not just sitting around peeling potatoes on KP duty.
What's the story behind those eight pairs of fine leather women's gloves stashed among his effects and papers from Europe? They were always too small for my mother's hands.
What's with the gigantic red, white, and black Nazi flag folded up neatly in his army trunk? What about the pocket notebook where he wrote French place names and arcane two letter codes, EY, PW, following double digit numbers?
And how did he know about the Grundig and Hallicrafters companies, and the radios they made? About wire antennas and grounding? Was the army the place Abe learned enough about radio to teach his son about shortwave listening and the world above 1700 khz? Maybe.
I thought I had nearly retired after 50 years working as a journalist until Electric Radio started publishing some of my work this past June. Those stories focused on four men, amateur radio operators my age, and their pathway into the hobby. I liked doing the reporting, the research and the writing. And my friends, on and off the air told me they enjoyed my work too.
But what about telling my own story? How did I find a pathway into the hobby, and who led me there?
That would be the guy you see on the cover of ER magazine #406, Abraham Sacks. Now I suspect that he encouraged and helped me pursue radio as a hobby when I was 11 and 12 years old because he had been in the Signal Corps. But he never described how and what he did with radios then. Not even a peep.
Talking this over with my wife, Ann, she suggested that perhaps his letters might demystify this part of his life.
"Letters?" I asked.
"Yes, the letters he wrote home to your mother while he was overseas. Your mother tied them all together in neat bundles with ribbons. We have them."
This story then draws on what historians and archivists call "original source material," the 654 letters my father typed or wrote by hand from his various outposts between 1941 and 1945. His handwriting is difficult to read, but Ann eventually learned to decipher 95% of it.
I am only the narrator. Excerpts from his 654 letters will tell the story, in Abe’s own words.
(One thing I knew even before opening the first letter, is that my dad was not given to embellishment or exaggeration. All this stuff is true.)