Uncle Arthur

Uncle Arthur

When my uncle Arthur went off to war, his sister, my aunt Martha took a whole roll of film with her Brownie camera. Most of the shots were of Uncle Arthur standing still and erect in his Navy uniform, like one of Grandmother’s Christmas nutcracker soldiers. But the picture I like best is the one of him seated in a green wicker chair from the porch, brought into the yard to make a more informal or maybe more familiar picture. Even so, Uncle Arthur maintained as much of his military persona as he could—squared-off shoulders, crossed hands on crossed legs, like a pipe cleaner man arranged just so. In the photo his glasses and mustache make him look years beyond the barely 19 he had accumulated, and I think the glasses were just for effect. He probably thought looking like a grown man instead of a boy would get him more dances with girls at the USO.

My uncle Arthur was the crown jewel of the Hunter family. I don’t know that he was any brighter than the rest, or more polished, but he was clearly cherished by his brother and sisters and my Grandmother and Granddaddy. He was the baby, not yet set on a specific course through life. That was still to come after this War was over.

I wonder sometimes why Uncle Arthur volunteered for the Navy. Maybe to avoid being drafted by the Army. Maybe to “see the world” as the Navy recruitment posters promised. Maybe to please Uncle Sam who told everyone that “Uncle Sam Wants You.” It couldn’t have been to please his family. Although none of them were actual pacifists, there was no military tradition in the family either. Perhaps Uncle Arthur though he needed to serve in order to hold his head high in his future life. And he needed that, as he was expected to be the one who rose beyond the farmer’s life and made something of himself. He’d already had one year of college, something none of his older siblings had been awarded.

So I like to look at Uncle Arthur’s picture taken in the side yard of Grandmothers house, just before he shipped out on the USS Indianapolis, bound for the island of Guam from San Francisco. I like to imagine what he would have been—a teacher, a banker, a salesman, a father, a husband, but most of all, my Uncle Arthur.

And he would have been, too, if the telegram had not arrived just a few weeks later.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Hunter,
I regret to inform you that Arthur Ryals Hunter, Jr. is missing in action and presumed dead. STOP USS Indianapolis torpedoed by enemy forces and presumed lost as of this day. STOP Deepest condolences. STOP Signed, Secretary of the Navy

I feel as if Uncle Arthur is an unfinished and never-to-be finished story in my life. And I’m sure that every mother, father, brother, sister, cousin, aunt, uncle and friend of a military person killed in action (isn’t that a quaint euphemistic term) feels the same way. The picture now is all the legacy we have from Uncle Arthur, that and his dusty Purple Heart, awarded posthumously. But what a cherished picture it is.