Remembering My Grandfather

My grandfather and great-grandmother

My grandfather, West Point class of 1910

Brigadier General F. S. Strong, Jr.

My son and myself with Kevin's great-grandfather on Super's last visit to Oregon from Michigan in 1984 at age 97.

We grandchildren knew our grandparents as Sugar and Super. My paternal grandmother, Marjorie Ward Strong, died suddenly in 1970. Given that, like my mother, she had suffered with a narcissistic illness, I'd never felt close to her. Following her death, however, is when I was able to grow my relationship with my grandfather.

There are so many memories which fill my heart with gratitude, love, inspiration, and comfort. After Sugar died, I would drive to my grandfather's home on Orchard Lake and spend time together, just the two of us. After my move from Michigan to Oregon in 1975, Super began to travel to visit us. The first time he came was after my father's sudden death on November 13th, 1975. Afterwards, when my grandfather would hear from my mother that my brother was missing again, Super would call and let me know. We both worried that John was off trying to muster what it would take to end his life, which he did on January 30th, 1978. And more than my mother ever was, my grandfather was there for me.

Super was the first one who told me that I have a writer in me, which meant a lot coming from him. And he comforted and encouraged me in the early years of my sobriety, telling me of other family members long gone who'd also been alcoholic. And my grandfather tried to impart to me some wisdom, which has long taken hold and inspired me to truly claim the name Strong.

Frederick Smith Strong, Jr. liked to think of himself as a "maverick." I smile as I think of him and the adventures he took on at age 90 after reading Steinbeck's Travels With Charlie. Fritz decided it was now or never, got in his car, and did a 10,000 mile solo trip around the country visiting friends and family. He continued to drive that car until age 96. And he would walk up to a mile a day well into his 90's. Super was super.

I thought of my grandfather yesterday. Veteran's Day brings up many thoughts of Brigadier General F. S. Strong, Jr. I thought of his 1910 graduation from West Point, how he was top of his class, and how no one surpassed his grade point average until the 1970s. I thought of how he'd taught Eisenhower, knew Patton, and served in both World Wars. And I remembered our family burying Super at West Point to a 21 one gun salute on his 99th birthday on May 16th, 1986.

I also reflected on my grandfather's words about the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and his torment and outrage regarding how incredibly unnecessary and criminal these atrocities by our own government had been. And I remember the last interview with my grandfather done well up into his 90s and Super's words about how our nation must never initiate military action in the Middle East. He knew the catastrophic impact that would bring. And he was spot on.

There is so much that would horrify my grandfather today, very much including America's endless wars. Brigadier General Frederick Smith Strong, Jr. was in deep alignment with the warnings and wisdom of his former student when President Eisenhower stated that, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

And my grandfather echoed the words of President Eisenhower when he warned, "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together." 

Being a true maverick and fully understanding the unfathomable costs of war, Super would also have agreed with Howard Zinn, another veteran of World War II — “World War II is not simply and purely a ‘good war.’ It was accompanied by too many atrocities on our side—too many bombings of civilian populations. There were too many betrayals of the principles for which the war was supposed to have been fought.... Yes, World War II had a strong moral aspect to it—the defeat of fascism. But I deeply resent the way the so-called good war has been used to cast its glow over all the immoral wars we have fought in the past fifty years: in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan. I certainly don’t want our government to use the triumphal excitement surrounding World War II to cover up the horrors now taking place in Iraq."

I feel my grandfather's wise, strong, and loving presence with me now. His picture sits next to me when I write. And I know that he is rooting me on as I name war as terrorism and name peace as the path to peace. I know that Super would be 100% behind my outrage at how the dark money fueling the military industrial complex has infiltrated both major political parties. Although a lifelong republican, he would find today's Republican Party totally unrecognizable. I could go on...

My grandfather was not a perfect human being. He had his foibles. We all do. That said, it is his strengths, his wisdom, his vision of a peaceful nation which inspire me and lives on in my heart, in my writings and my activism, and in all the ways that I strive to do my part to make a difference within my family, our nation, and with all my relations.

Thank you, Super. I love and miss you. And you live on forevermore within me and all whose lives you touched. ❤ Molly