My Father...
Raymond W. Graves Jr.
My father is Raymond W. Graves Jr. He was born in Los Angeles, California on the 2nd of March in the year 1921. To his parents, he would be the eldest of the two children they would have, but, he was not either of their eldest children they had.
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My father's father is Raymond W. Graves. He was born in Scituate, Rhode Island as were at least 8 of his previous generations. My grandfather was married Before getting with my grandmother, and he had 3 children before he did, two daughters and a baby boy that my dad didn't ever get to know... Harold Raymond Graves was his name.
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My father's mother is Florence Elizabeth Humphreys. She was born in Quebec, Canada. My grandmother was also married before getting with my grandfather, and she had two daughters, my aunt Ethel and my aunt Florence.
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My father's baby sister was born just over a year after he was, Sarah May Graves is her name. She was the last of my grandparents children.
My father grew up in Inglewood, California, with his parents, his mother's elder daughters and his baby sister during the Great Depression. My grandfather's parents brought out the first Rhode Island Red chickens out to the west and grandpa utilized them by selling their shit to farmers as far away as Arizona, so overall he was gone more than he was home, leaving my father as the "man of the house" at a Very early age.
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My father went through school, and worked when he wasn't in school plowing fields for local farmers so to buy food for the family. If he was lucky he said, he would make 6 cents a day plowing 5 fields which he would get bread, milk and on such a good day, a little bit of ice cream for the family. About the age of 5-6, my grandfather made my father learn auto mechanics, and once he did, would often times take my dad along to shovel the shit, work on and even drive the truck... grandpa was a pretty bad alcoholic from what was told and ultimately only when dad would go would the family see little of any had from his "career".
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His sophomore year in high school, dad joined the California Army National Guard, the only one in fact that was both a state and federal National Guard. He signed on for 3 years, and jumped 3 ranks as well as attained "platoon leader" status within a year and a half... that's when dad graduated from Inglewood High School, and asked for an early discharge from the guard, hell-bent on enlisting in the US Army which he did as soon as the honorable discharge was approved.
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Upon enlistment, dad Insisted he be destined for the Asiatic/Pacific theatre. This was agreed and where he was sent as of the spring of 1940. There my father met and fell in Love with a young Filipino woman and we Believe he even married her over there. Together they had a son born before "World War 2" officially broke out and was pregnant with their second son. She and the one boy were quickly put into a POW camp for the Filipinos "known to be in association with the american soldiers"... that is where their second son would be born... "The Mansion" POW camp.
My father's first assignment in the now "official war" was to secure Clark airfield, but as soon as he got there, he and the others came under extreme almost immediate bombfire from above leaving no option but retreat leaving Clark bombed flat and my father earning his first Purple Heart for the bomb dropped within 300 yards of his head and exploding his ear-drums, an 8% "Service Connected Disability."
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Without time, resource or medical care accessability, my father and his unit went straight into the Battle of Luzon... and ultimately ended up in Corrigidor as well before he was declared Missing in Action (MIA). Within a few days of that status, it would be confirmed that my father was in fact instead taken Prisoner of War (POW ) from his MASH unit hospital "bed" by the hands of the Japanese.
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The primary POW camp my father was housed in on the Philippine Islands was called "Billibid", but too he spent time in "Stadium: camp too as it was the "hospital" the Japanese had make-shifted in their poor effort of caring for and tending to the prisoners needs. While in Billibid, my father did various labor duties as a POW from loading and unloading ships to gardening and being worked slave labor tasks and duties as they arose.
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For 2 years and 10 months, this would be his life and home... until the day they decided to ship him off to Japan.
My father, along with literally hundreds of other prisoners, were crammed onto a hellship named the Totorri Maru. The few day trip took 2 Months as the ship was so battered dad said he was surprised it even floated. He said it was constantly breaking down and ultimately they spent more time in dock then they did traveling the sea.
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Upon his arrival to Japan, my father said he was loaded onto a train and shipped high up into the hills where he was forced to work in the oar mines. He said a few times he got caught and beat for having snagged a piece of coal that had been dropped in the mine. but that overall, other than being real cold at night, he got used to the conditions.
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From there my father recalled being moved to another camp, one we have yet to aquire the name of, where he and others were kept in bamboo cages high in the trees. He said it was -50 degrees and that even the guards would only come out briefly every so many days to send up a bucket of rice to them and to have the prisoners bring down and bury the prisoners who had died. Dad said they each had one blanket, but that when the guards would come for the count, the blankets of the dead were also taken. Dad said sometimes he remembers having had 5-6 blankets before they'd come take them away.
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Eventually my father would be transferred to what was called "Osaka Main Camp #1", though before as well as during his inprisonment here, he would be sent to the stadium camp in Japan as well, which like in Philippines was their make-shift "hospital" camp for the prisoners. Overall my father while prisoner suffered Mainly from Beri Beri ( a heart disease) at Least 2 maybe even 3 times he said, and also malaria also a few different times he said... dad said he actually literally Died from each of them at least once (he thought from the Beri Beri Twice) but insisted that the Japanese used "experimental treatments" and "brought me back to life from the dead", though why or how they did he said he didn't know or understand because from that first time they did, he said he felt he was dead and just operating his physical body as like would an auto-piolet option for a plane.
While my father was being housed as a POW to the Japanese in Osaka Main camp, the American government actually and literally Bombed the camp "FLAT" and While the prisoners were literally actually In it! They were evacuated and all taken to stadium camp and then from there after a few days again he was transferred to another camp temporarily... ultimately though he and some of the other prisoners were taken out into the jungles and made to Re-build a new POW camp to replace Osaka Main which ultimately they distinctify as "Chikko". This is the camp my father would soon be repatriated from in an unauthorized POW rescue operation by another POW's brother who flew a chopper and would go on to help repatriate some other prisoners from camps until he could be shipped out back to the United States.
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Dad was about 185 when he was taken POW, and weighed about 74 pounds he said when he was repatirated and got up to about 85 pounds by the time he weighed in in Washington state, his main stop before being put on a ship for San Franscisco. It wouldn't be for Years until he would get Half of the medals he Earned while in this war, and literally Decades before he'd even get his POW medal, though he has still YET to be given the Purple Heart and other medals he is owed from that service, and too, it would be over 50 Years before he'd get the recognition for his true Service Connected Disability rating for it.
Dad continued his military service, mainly in the US Army but too, he was in the Army Air Corps when they first formed them. He earned Sgt. 1st class Before voluntarily entering into the Korean Conflict, not counting the 3 ranks he lost when he was taken POW that was Never rectified. As with in WW2, dad's MOS was in the 31st Infantry, but this time for Korea he was in the Armored division meaning he drove tanks opposed to being a grunt as he was in WW2... a dogfacee as they were called.
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To hear dad talk of Korea, it was more like being at a summer camp than was WW2. He was acting Lt. in the field and basically ran the entire platoon, in addition to doing all the mechanics on all the armored vehicles. He was pulled from the field and sent back to Osaka, Japan for language school where he learned Korean... he already spoke Filipino and Japanese and learned Korean within just a few short weeks, then returned to the field and his unit. The second time my father was pulled from the field during this war, was when they had him act as a UN Diplomat, which ultimately didn't come to fruitation and again he was returned to the field.
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Ultimately the final time dad was pulled from the field was due to a thumb injury he had suffered in between the two wars... they were concerned it would hinder his performance all of a sudden he said, though he said it hadn't thus far. After several attempted operations on it from the US field docs and the Swiss, he was sent back home stateside which really disappointed him not being able to be allowed to finish out that war. We have YET to get all the medals he's owed from This war issued to him either.
My dad's military service experiences also includes two times he was sent to Camp Desert Rock Nevada, also known as Nevada Test Site. According to him, he had to first take a class of some sort, and then he was put out at "ground zero" while the government dropped sequences of different types and amounts of bombs on him so he could "study their explosion patterns." One of the projects he was in that they Admit to is called "Operation Upshot Knothole" though the tests my father spoke of in depth about out there are not this operation they admit he was involved in, we are Still trying to get more information on the others.
In 1956 my father finally discharged out of the US Army for good, but his service continued until 1962 when he ultimately left the military for good from the Air Force Reserves. During this service my father had remarried and had two sons, RayJ and Michael. He had also worked briefly as a teaching professor for ITT Technical Institute, and had obtained and maintained Both his commercial and non-commercial piolte's license. He had finally come to establish his "career" too before he discharged out for good, which was working for the US Department of Defense's Aerospace program And had helped to design, develop and build the F-14 fighter Jets!
For the next 28+ years, my father would earn and climb his way up to the position of Quality Assurance Representative of the DOD. Among the projects he was most prided for were the Apollo's (he was involved in them All from planning to construction and execution of them), and the Space Shuttle Program, which he was building the Challenger and Columbia shuttles when I would go to work with him as a child, but he also designed and built things like naval ship engines, weaponry of all sorts, and developed the gas masks still used by the military for chemical warfare to date, just to name a few and give you an idea as to the broadness of the things he worked on believing his efforts were for the protection and defense of we and our land, rights and freedom.
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In 1975, his son RayJ died from a heroin overdose and we ultimately lost not only him but we also lost hiss daughter forever too as ultimately she would later be killed on graduation night while riding home in the back of her friends car and be ejected out of the sunroof when the rainy weather would smash the car into a tree - she died on impact. A year and a half later, her mother too would die from drinking and drugs trying to cope with the loss of she and my brother. RayJ was 21 when he died, his daughter and I were 2 1/2 years old... and Michelle was just turning 18 when she died... but I wouldn't learn of her death until after losing dad which was in 2006, I learned about Michelle in 2007 from her maternal grandfather.
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Dad had officially retired until they blew up the Challanger shuttle, he stormed back LIVID as he Instantly KNEW it was the result of their lacking to replace a 3 cent "O-ring". He worked another year and a half until they insisted he wear a tie while working, which he refused and ultimately retired his final time.
In 1969 my mom and dad met and started getting involved romantically with one another... problem was, he was still married to his wife Maxine and living in their family home. It wasn't until late 1972 that my dad and his wife Maxine got divorced, when she found out about he and my mom and finally agreed to consent to a divorce - dad had tried several times before but she always refused to entertain the idea. Just about the beginning of 1973 my mother got pregnant with me, and long story short of it, my parents were officially married about 3 1/2 weeks after I was born - I was literally actually at their wedding!
By 1981 my dad's son Michael, who had just married in 1979 and had a newborn son in November of 1980, would become President of a new upcoming oil company in California called Lerner Oil... they were even giving Texaco and Uni-cal a run for their money. Michael decided to embezzle money from the company and move up to Oregon before it was discovered. He financed a house and a restaurant up there as dad had sent him to chef school and he wanted to run his own restaurant. He named it the Nickelodian Cafe in Silverton, Oregon.
This would prove to be the downfall of Michael and ultimately cost the family the last of our male descendants as my brother would ultimately be convicted of attempted murder on his wife, which is a whole other story in itself so is all I will say about it here as it was Very Dishonorable to our family what went on and what he did. Ultimately he was convicted to 15 years in Oregon prison. After over 2 years, my father would finally attempt to begin forgiving Michael and trying to be there as a parent for the only son he had left in the states.
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Michael's wife ultimately divorced him and remarried, quickly having her new husband formally adopt my nephew stripping him of our family name... Georgie was 2 1.2 when we last saw or had word of him, until a year and a half after he was killed in an accident on the freeway in southern California... 2002 we forever lost him.
In December of 1985 my father announced that he was moving my mother and I up to the state of Oregon... mainly because his only remaining American born son was in prison up there, but also too he insisted it was for the sake of my future as well... I still have a hard time believing that given all it's ultimately cost me future-wise, but it's something we'll never fully know or prove I suppose.
Ultimately we lost my father in August of 2006... because he was a "Threat to National Security" because of his "training", the fact that he and I owned "multiple firearm weapons, dangerous vicious dogs, and are medical cannabis patients." He had pneumonia that they REFUSED to treat because he had a few tiny spots of cancer that they VA records confirm wasn't even active. ultimately the people medically treating him Confirmed to he and us that they were instructed to not treat him and to let him die, and that's what they did.
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Since then, we continue to get the VA to correct his records and issue him the medals and recognition owed him. If this is ever accomplished, he will then supersede Audy Murphy's place in US history as my Dad will be the most decorated soldier in the least amount of service time and in addition to all the medals he is owed, he will then be honored with the Presidential Service and Silver Star medal and we will have him re-interned but this time into the ground of Arlington National Cemetery opposed to him being in the wall there as he is now since D-Day 2006 when mother and I interned him.
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My mother and I are to be buried there with him, she as his wife and me because I was born his disabled dependent child. It is the highest honored option entitled to my dad for his service to this nation as far as his forever legacy here upon our mother world, and I am Beyond proud of him and ALL he endured and accomplished throughout his lifetime.
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My dad was and remains the biggest HERO I've yet to have the privelege of knowing and having in my life, he is My hero and for him, I spend the rest of My life trying to come as close as I can to filling his honorable shoes. He is my heart and my life... and not a second of each day that goes by do I not think about and miss him... and love him beyond measure. My hope is that he has found peace, has been reunited with our family, and that I can make him proud of the person he made and raised me to become. Thank you for caring Enough to share this summary of his life with me.
Dads siblings from his father all passed before he even knew they were his siblings, though he did get to meet and spend some time with the two elder sisters from his father's when he was about 7-8 he said, though he wasn't told even then or after that the girls were his actual sisters! Of the siblings he knew, his baby sister Sarah may died first, from emphazema in her 60's. Next his favorite of the elder sisters from his mother, Florence passed away in Alaska when she was in her 80's, and finally the eldest of his mother's daughters Ethel passed in her early 90's from emphazema also. Sarah had a son and a daughter but all I know is that her son also passed, when or from what I don't know. Ethel also had children, 4 I think, 2 boys and 2 girls, one girl died from brain cancer but the rest are alive and well as far as I know, and having families of their own. Florence wasn't able to have children due to medical reasons from a young age.
A tribute page has been made in honor of my father on facebook, please click the link immediately below to see it.