For Father’s Day, William Damon tells the story of how a set of inherited golf clubs helped him connect with the father who abandoned him before he was born
For most of my life, I had no interest in learning about my father. On a stateside leave from the German front in 1944, he had married my mother, impregnated her and returned to the war. He never came back. Until I was in college, all my mother told me about him was that he was “missing in World War II.”
The diplomat answered yes, he did know Damon from their days in Germany and Thailand. My father had joined the Foreign Service in Germany after his discharge from the army and, having divorced my mother, soon married a “delightful” French ballerina, the diplomat said. In the 1950s he was transferred to the USIA branch in Bangkok, where he and his second wife became close to the king and queen. The diplomat also noted that my father was a “great golfer.
What I discovered surprised and relieved me but also filled me with regret. There was much to admire. At the end of the war, he was called on to testify as a witness at a high-profile war crimes trial, and accounts from the time show that he had acted with courage and integrity. He then had a notable career promoting democratic values in cold-war Germany and Thailand. He started a second family with wonderful daughters who are now my treasured half-sisters.
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