When I hear of someone passing away in their 80’s, my automatic response usually goes something like this, “Oh, so young.” And then I remember, that’s actually quite a bit older than the average age of death. My father, Lieutenant Colonel Julian Richard Campbell, died last Monday. He lived to 103.
The survivor
Dad thought of himself as a survivor, and you’d be hard-pressed to argue the point.
On one occasion, as a pilot in the US Air Force, he navigated his Martin B-26 Marauder to safety after being hit by enemy fire. On another mission, he flew a small plane through a monsoon. Fearing for his life and that of his passengers, but inspired by a longing to see his girlfriend again (my mother), he made it through, and his passengers thanked him for their lives.
He would later suffer severe depression, likely a case of what we now call PTSD, and conquer it just as he did the mortar fire and the monsoon. He retired from the Air Force with honors in 1970, ending his 27 years of service.
After living through bombing missions in WWII, air transport service in Vietnam, a direct hit by a tornado to our home in the ’70s, and a house fire in the ’80s, he claimed that raising a house full of headstrong daughters was the toughest tour of all.
Looking back, I see he really was a survivor.
The elder
As a know-it-all teenager, I might have complained about a man who just didn’t understand anything. But nonetheless, he supported me emotionally and was always a source of encouragement.
In my later years, I saw Dad as a learned elder. While working as a real estate agent in his post-military career, he told me once that he viewed his job as a way to help people. He chose to always work hard for his clients, sometimes at the expense of bigger profits. I never forgot that lesson and admired him for it. In the end, he did quite well for himself and visited his good fortune upon his daughters, his church, and those he held dear.
Later, Dad would grow to love golf. His peers seemed to think it lowly to walk the course and carry their own clubs. Dad insisted upon it all the way into his 90s. But he played many more rounds than his golf cart-driving contemporaries.
Looking back, I see that he actually did understand some things.
The hero
As a young child, I would have described him as a hero.
I remember trembling as he held me while we watched a storm roll in. Instead of learning to fear volatile weather, I came to enjoy a grand episode of thunder and lightning. To this day, I am soothed by thunderstorms.
When I was five years old, I had the misfortune of discovering the hornet’s nest situated in Grandma’s climbing tree. I froze in terror while the stinging creatures pummelled me. I will never forget how my father ascended that tree and brought me down.
Looking back, I still feel how valiant he truly was.
I am most amazed that of those 103 years, for 101 of them he was healthy and happy. But the loss of my mother, a couple of falls, and COVID all took their toll. His last two years were a challenge.
I celebrate that he has surmounted his final, most difficult mission.
I’d like to think that Dad is in my mother’s arms. Recently, he wondered out loud to me if that would happen, and said that none of us really know. I told him I firmly believed it would. And I do, in some form or another.