Translations:Chapter One Trey/66/en

The United States was nearly two years into the Second World War, and many of my father’s friends and most men under age forty-five who weren’t already fighting were preparing themselves for war. In the sky above Bremerton floated huge barrage balloons aimed at foiling an attack from Japanese dive-bombers. Down the hill at the Bremerton shipyard the USS Tennessee and surviving ships from Pearl Harbor were repaired. After graduating from high school, my dad joined the Army Reserves, which allowed him to go to the University of Washington until he was called up for active duty. That call came at the end of his freshman year. In June 1944, a week after hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops pushed their way onto the beaches of Normandy, my dad reported to basic training in Arkansas.