Today is a truly unique day for me. You see my best friend/hero/father will be honored in a mini-series. Not just a mini-series but a big one Masters of Air. No you won’t know the actor that plays him, I’m actually fb friends with the young man that plays my father. That fella flew from UK to Bethlehem, PA to meet some of my family that lives up that way. To get to know some about my dad. The man he gets to represent in the show. The man who is my hero. My father will not be a main character in this show. I’ve watched Band of Brothers and the Pacific. I’m familiar with how characters are introduced and some you may only see for 30 seconds

I

Don’t

Care

I get to see what my father tried his best to describe to a 14 here old kid in high definition, by one of the greatest directors of my time.

To meet my father you would’ve never known he was a WWII vet. Other than the permanent limp he brought home with him from a large caliber shell he took in his calf, while being a sitting duck in a ball gun turret of a B-17 bomber- Paddlefoot Proxy, he’s affiliated with a couple of B-17s if my memory serves me. sorry I haven’t brushed up on my dad’s war history in a bit. I want this show to captivate the shit out of me and o know it will.

My dad flew in the “Bloody 100th”. I won’t go into detail about his missions because Spielberg is gonna take care of that for all of you. That little ball turret he was in, if you’re a fan war statistics, your average life span was 37 seconds. Not minutes, not days, years. Shorter than the 400m world record and if you were unfortunate enough to get vaporized in one of those there was no time for mourning. They’d hose you out and have another to take your spot. Even worse is if they lost any landing gear the ball turret underneath the carriage would get crushed upon landing. I’ve been inside one of these turrets. And I thought my heart would explode. I’m walking proof that trauma can be hereditary. I have mild claustrophobia and it takes an act of God to get me in the sky. My dad would ride any ride at Six Flags or Carowinds. The only thing he wouldn’t get on was the parachute drop. That’s cool dad! I’m not getting on that fucker either.

My father was unique. If he suffered major trauma, which he had to have on a level I hope to never understand, he never showed it to me. He was careful when describing his time in Germany. Not sure if it was to protect me or him. My dad had two expressions on his face. He was either smiling or looking at you like he was about to hit you. Listen, I get my face honest. He laughed loudly but never raised his voice at me unless he was calling me home for dinner in that Holly Springs neighborhood where I’d go visit him every weekend. He’d talk about his experiences overseas but only if you asked. He never wore a hat that represented his Air Force background or any paraphernalia other than a POW license plate, if you wanted to see all the medals he almost died for he kept them in his closet next to his golf shoes in a cardboard box that was probably issued to him when he retired. He never took them out but by god I did. Every weekend. They were in cases. I only ever took one out one time and pinned on my t shirt when no one was looking. I immediately took it off. It made me feel weird. Like I was breaking the law. I was 8. I remember one late Sunday afternoon when my dad was taking me back to my mother’s I said “Dad! When I graduate I want to join the Air Force just like you.” I could visibly see my old man wince. Like I poked him in his side. “Son, do whatever your heart says. But I think the Gangwer’s have bled enough for this country.” That’s all he had to say about it. He patted me on my knee, lit up a Winston Red and kept driving down 85 like nothing was said. I now keep his medals encased on an armoire in my bedroom. There are only a handful of things I would fling myself into a burning inferno for, my family (fucking duh) my pets and my dad’s medals.

My old man never really laid a hand on me. Yeah I got spanked by him a time or two but my feelings hurt worse than my ass. He never had it in him.

He loved a good scotch, cigarette and a dirty joke. I inherited all three from him but managed to put two of those away over time.

He cooked breakfast every weekend. Biscuits and gravy were my staple and they still are to this day. I’d wake up to my old man on his third cup of coffee, spectacles riding on his nose, working the Sunday crossword with a Winston dangling from the corner of his mouth. White v neck undershirt tucked in his boxers with his robe barely tied around his waist, slippers. Ron gave zero shits. The man had seen some shit. Lost his first wife right after the Korean War and had to raise his two daughters on his own. Just seeing the love on both of my sisters’ faces when they talk about my father is proof enough that he was just as good of a girl dad as he was to me. I am the last Gangwer of my line. My father treated me as such. My sisters on my dad’s side are respectfully 10 years and 20 years older than me. So my father had three kids 10 years apart. His youngest daughter also had three children 10 years apart. He inherited a handful of kids when he married my mother and then by a big fat surprise came me. My parents would divorce 8 years later.

He owned a nightclub in the 70s the Cock and Bull. A huge pub/disco bar off of old Augusta rd. I’ll go more into detail about his club another time. The stories surrounding that club were as engaging as his war stories. The club would close in the late 70s, pretty much bankrupting my dad in his 50s. Bikers gave his bar a bad reputation. I had a healthy dislike for bikers growing up. He would work a few service industry management jobs before retiring. I can recall him coming home wearing a paper hat and name tag from his management job at Weiner King and I wanted to grab that hat and burn it. It was the first time I recognized that my father was tired and getting old. I was too proud for him. My dad, war veteran, hero, fucking badass was wearing another uniform. One that didn’t fucking belong. He was almost exactly to the day 50 year older than me. I never really got to experience the dad throwing the ball to the son moments. My dad was half crippled from the war and almost 60 when I was playing baseball. I made it a point to always be in the best physical condition I can be. I want my daughter to always see me as strong. Want to know how trauma can affect you even 40 years later? I lost my businesses and two years later started selling hotdogs. It got in my head. I saw my old man in that hat. And then i saw me in that hat. I sold my hotdog trailer the next year. Can’t retire selling $3 glizzies. Also $3 hotdog < $100 charcuterie box. Do the math. Also to this day I refuse to wear a name tag. The only job I had to wear one was the Hyatt. I was written up numerous times for not wearing it.

Dad loved to golf and played darts too. I’d play Galaga and pinball while he played darts. Smoky old pool rooms were our jam. I could’ve given a shit less. I was hanging with my dad.

When he did talk about the war(s) he often talked about how the German doctors saved his leg when he was shot down. My dad spoke German and pretended to be one when he was found and captured. He spent 13 months as a POW. Fortunately for my father he didn’t experience some of the hardship in the other concentration camps. He didn’t speak highly of the Germans it was mostly business like. He spent most of his time in a hospital and was fed three meals a day. I have the letter my grandparents received when he was MIA including correspondence with another family member when they believed him to have died and then the elation they must’ve felt when it was discovered he was in fact still alive just in the hands of the Nazis. Still hard to believe for me to that this was just one generation ago.

He never talked about Korea so I never asked.

He smoked a lot. He drank but I never saw him drunk. If he was he didn’t behave in such a way that I’d notice. I definitely didn’t inherit that from him. In his 60’s he had terrible acid reflux that combined with his chain smoking made him cough uncontrollably. Sometimes he’d had to sit down until the coughing attack subsided. It always made me nervous. One night he coughed so hard for so long he lost oxygen and passed out. I thought he had a heart attack and I screamed for my sister (she was a nurse) and when we ran back into his room he was sitting in his chair like nothing happened. The cigarette didn’t even dropped from his hand. He was just as surprised as we were. He was getting older and started to look fragile to me. People aged differently back then. The smoking, drinking and Jesus the fucking trauma this man went through puts years on you. I was just remarking to my wife about a photo I have of him. It was the last photo ever taken of him. I mentioned that he was probably only 10 years older than me in that pic but he looked so old. Granted it’s a polaroid flash in a bar I never really told anyone this but ever since the day he passed out from coughing I knew my dad wouldn’t be around much longer. He had no long term illness, he never got sick he just looked tired. For a long time when the phone rang my mind would auto jump to “something has happened to my dad”. This went on for about a year until my sister called my mom up on a Monday night. Just from the tone of my mother’s voice I knew something was wrong. My dad had fallen outside of his little hangout and hit his head unconscious. By the time we got to the hospital it was discovered he’d had a massive stroke. He had just dropped me off home the day before. He’d never wake back up.

Obviously he’s been on my mind a lot this week. I’ve known since April 10th 2022 when a historian reached out to me on fb message to let me know they were making a mini series and my old man was to be represented. What a fucking honor.

It was suppose to be released last year. I’ve been waiting a long time. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to watch this in front my family. My daughter has never seen me cry. If she’s present she will. And she’ll get to tell all of her friends about her grandfather that she’s only met in pictures will be on TV this week.

I doubt you’ll see me on social media until I’ve digested this series. I feel like I’ve been waiting for this my whole life. If you have AppleTV you can watch is as of 9pm last night I believe. It’s the only reason why I’ve had it for the last 2 years.

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,

And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.

Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,

I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.

When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose – Randall Jarrell