Memorial Day 2016: Conversations in absentia

Second column, second from the top is my dad's name.

IT HAS BEEN 43 years since my father died. He was a major in the U.S. Army. About this time every year, with the near convergence of Memorial Day and Father's Day I wonder about the man I never really got to know.

I regret never having conversations with him, adult to adult. I realized - belatedly - there's so much we had in common but we never had a chance to talk about them.

There's a bronze plaque in a California town listing the names of the survivors of the Bataan Death March who chose to settle in that town and build a Filipino/American community. My dad's name is engraved on it along with 53 of his friends and comrades. 

A little over a week from now, we, in California have the opportunity to exercise one of those privileges for which many  men and women sacrificed their lives -- the right to vote. 

The least we can do to honor those sacrifices is to register ourselves and exercise our right to vote.

Here's a posting I wrote a year ago about Maj. Melchor V. Diokno.

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