In October this year it was 25 years ago that I started my columns on the Back Page. About 5,000 columns in total. Which column would I most like to see reprinted now that I’ve started the next 5,000? To conclude this year full of war misery, I without hesitation choose ‘So Long Son’, a column from March 19, 2003.
Now that the war against Iraq is about to break out, I am reminded of the most moving column I have ever read. The writer is Howard O’Brien, an editor of the Chicago Daily News, who wrote a daily column from 1932 to 1947. On January 12, 1945, O’Brien wrote a column under the title ‘So Long Son’ about his son Donel, who had been sent to Europe as an officer with the American troops.
O’Brien begins this way: “The box was delivered by express the day after Christmas. The children thought it was a delayed gift from Santa Claus, and they jumped up and down clapping their hands. They thought it was a doll. The box was the right size for a doll, but I knew it wasn’t a doll. No puppets are coming from the Army Effects Bureau, Kansas City Quartermaster Depot. Moreover, I had received a letter.”
O’Brien continues: “Apart from the children, no one wanted to open the box; so she went to the attic where she remained out of sight for days, but not out of our minds. One Sunday afternoon, when I was home alone, I took a large pair of scissors and cut the steel band that tied the box shut.
The box was packed as he would have done it himself – the jackets and trousers neatly folded, the socks, handkerchiefs and underwear hastily crumpled together.
On top was the custom-made going out uniform, still as fresh as the day it came from the tailor. He had been so proud of this extravagance, admiring himself in the fitted jacket; and he looked so handsome holding his long fingers around his wasp waist, the buttons glowing like fire against the dark green. He was given so little time to be proud.
In the corner was a pair of officer’s shoes, almost new. His summer gear was even less worn. He saw no summers in England. His work was done before he could hear the lark or see the meadows ‘knee deep in June’.”
O’Brien then describes in detail how he takes all the items, including a watch and an unused diary, out of the box. He does not say what exactly happened to his son.
“Then I sat there staring at the box that all those things came with. It was such a small box to hold all the laughter and all the tears, all the hopes and fears. So much cheerfulness and tenderness, so much generosity and joy, so much talent and curiosity, so much masculine beauty… It was hard to believe that it was all gone, like the song of a bird in the twilight, there was only a pile of clothes and a torn paper bag. It was unbelievable that from a great adventure in a faraway land all that was left was a quarter and a watch that no longer worked.”
Howard O’Brien died of cancer in 1947, three years after his son.
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