![]() “I was one of the older guys at the camp at that time,” my dad says. Not a typical life lesson for a young girl in Greenwich, Connecticut. No wonder my father used to tell us, “You cannot let evil roam unchallenged and that freedom is always worth fighting for.” It is mind-boggling that such young people were being made “combat ready,” but if you grew up in Poland, you always had to be ready for war. The new Eaglets organization was designed to instill patriotism in Poland’s young people, and more to the point, to prepare them to fight and die for their country. Throughout history, Poles always had to fight to survive. The “Eaglets,” formed in 1933, were based on a group called Lvov Eaglets, who fought against the Ukrainians right after World War I. I would later locate a book about the Young Eagles, which would provide both for my dad and me great historical information, as well as a few surprises. “We had to encourage them at a young age to believe that ‘Poland will be free.’ ” “Teaching boys survival and combat techniques.” “What exactly were you doing at the camp?” Why had he built such huge walls around his past? Did he have something to hide? Or was this just the unspoken trauma of war? I’m astounded that he never discussed-not with me, not with his wife, not with his employers - that his youth was spent dodging death, fighting to save his country. Men who go completely quiet about everything they saw or did during the war. Not “Ryszard Kossobudzki from war-ravaged Poland,” but “Richard Cosby, American citizen,” a man not unlike many in America’s “greatest generation”: disciplined fathers, who want their children to succeed, their wives to love them unquestioningly, and their employers to respect them. Had I, for example, made a career of asking questions because my dad never answered mine? Did I become a journalist because my father left me always wanting to know more?Īm I so social because my dad never was, for fear of people asking him about his past, the history of his life? The one thing that’s certain is that I suddenly realized that by the time I was born, the harbored secrets of my dad’s life had already transformed him into someone else. Is this normal in parent-child relationships? Do other children not know much about their own parents’ early years, the time “pre-me”?Īnd deeper still, do other children know anything of their parents’ triumphs, their tragedies, their fears? I had found the key to a locked chest of my father’s secrets, and perhaps to myself. ![]() ![]() As I sat next to him, I was forced to acknowledge that I never knew much about him at all, especially about his formative years. ![]() In a few hours and two dozen questions, I had learned more about my father’s past than I had garnered in my entire life. ![]()
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