Over P. J. Clarke's Bar by Helen Marie Clarke

Author:Helen Marie Clarke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2012-01-16T16:00:00+00:00

John Clarke, new officer at the New York Police Department – 1936

an army instructor at a base in the States. A few months later, his youngest son, Ray, received his draft notice and had to give up attending Manhattan College. Ray was also headed for the Pacific Theater.

The night of the sendoff for Charlie, Uncle Paddy said, “James, you need to stay brave and be glad that all your sons are not going to war.” My dad's occupation as a police officer was protecting him from the draft. Uncle Tom was studying to become a Jesuit priest, and all religious men were exempt from fighting. As a New York City fireman, Uncle Jim did not have to serve in the armed forces, either. Jim had affiliated himself with the Catholic Worker House in lower Manhattan, started by the famous pacifist Dorothy Day. Under her influence, Jim declared himself a conscientious objector, but it was his freman's job that protected him from the draft.

Before he died, Uncle Joe sent me a packet of letters he had saved that were written to him by my father when Joe was in the army. These dozen letters penned between December l942 and April l943, when Dad was thirty years old and Joe was twenty-four, are an example of my father's brotherly concern, in this case for Joe's health as he advanced through army officer training school in New Jersey. Dad wrote: “Joe, we want to send you whatever you need—Helen and her mother have made a large care package for you.” Dad always ended his letters to Joe by saying how lucky the

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