I Should Not Be Here and Neither Should You

I SHOULD NOT BE HERE AND NEITHER SHOULD YOU

By John W. Kropf

I should not be here and neither should you. The odds are against it. Think of the circumstances, the people that had to meet, create families and survive to start your generation. They had to contend with wars, natural disasters, sickness and disease. You find yourself dangling at the end of a long string of descendants that overcame these catastrophes through the centuries.

We all have our reasons why we shouldn't be here.

The course of history and civilization could have been starkly different if certain individuals had not survived against the odds.

Ludwig Beethoven was the eighth of nine children, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and his mother carried tuberculosis. Beethoven's father was an alcoholic who had a difficult time providing income for the family died when the future composer was only three years old while his older brothers did not survive infancy. The Beethoven family was left deserted and destitute yet the young boy survived in the face of poor odds to become the world's greatest romantic composer.

During WWII, Navy pilot, George Bush, flew 58 combat missions. Only three months after his enlistment, the young pilot was forced to ditch his plane a sea and was soon rescued by a US Navy destroyer. The next year, his plane was severely damaged attacking Japanese installations on Chi Chi Jima. The crew was forced to bail out and he was the only member to survive. With Japanese destroyers in the area, he waited several hours in his survival raft until he was rescued by an American submarine. 50 percent of his squadron did not survive the war. The odds of surviving not one, but two airplane crashes at sea during wartime are enormous. Yet, the young pilot's survival lead to two future American Presidents.

I think of the odds of my survival in the two generations before me. My paternal grandfather enlisted in American army in WWI and was sent to France. He was trained as a part of the experimental Balloon Corps to become the "Eyes of the Army" observing the Kaiser's troops in France. The balloons were filled with inflammable gas and were tethered in stationary positions, essentially sitting ducks for German pilots who engaged in balloon busting. When attacked, the defenseless observers had no choice but to parachute from their burning fireballs into the front lines of the fighting. This was the early days of parachute technology and parachutes were stored in canvass tubes hung over the side of the wicker baskets. From his journal, Grandpa reports being forced to bail some one dozen times. Each time his parachute worked. Others were not so lucky. Balloon observers had among the highest fatality rates of any group in WWI.

Then there is my maternal grandfather who nearly met his end through the simple act of enlisting in the Army in WWI. He left his studies at California Institute of Technology to enlist at Angel's Island in San Francisco Bay. The volunteers stood in formation outside in the Pacific fog and mist for 10 hours. He came down with pneumonia by the time he arrived at Camp Arthur in Texas. Army doctors misdiagnosed him with influenza which was then raging through the country in epidemic proportions. This meant he was ordered confined to an Army influenza sanatorium where he was nearly certain to catch the highly contagious disease. His family received a telegram telling them their son was gravely ill. Through the persistence of his parents and private doctors, the diagnosis was corrected, he avoided the sanatorium and was properly treated for pneumonia. His doctors informed him however that he should not expect to father children.

When he later met and married my grandmother, they tragically lost their first baby who died the day she was born. For the sake of her health, my grandmother's her doctor advised my grandmother not to have more children. My mother was born five years later.

The odds of my nonexistence were compounded by my father. He enlisted in the Navy in WWII.  While the U.S. war in Pacific raged against Japan, he volunteered as a Corpsman, like the balloonists of WWI, the Corpsman suffered the highest fatality rate of any group during WWII. Corpsmen were assigned to accompany the Marines as they landed at Iwo Jima, Okinawa and the other Japanese island strongholds. Dad's group placed him among those American forces that were scheduled for the November 1945 invasion of Japan. Ironically, the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not end the risk to him. The Navy sent him to Bikini Island where he witnessed the specter of two atomic explosions during Operation Crossroads. The next day, he was sent ashore with a expeditionary group to observe the aftermath. Whatever residual radiation he was exposed to risked his ability to become a father.

Despite the odds, my sister and I are here. We have four children between us.

Everyone has personal "what if" stories of why and how they should not be here. For me, I'm just thankful that twists and turns of fate allowed me to you tell mine.

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