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Articles: Moral Stories | My Father's Gift
- Mr. Kiran Ravuri
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“The Western Front ran from the North Sea to the Alps—475 miles—and thou- sands of miles of trenches were dug on both sides as the armies pushed forward and were driven back. The farther west we walked, the more trenches we found— still held in place by sandbags. My father explained that every front-line trench was 7 feet deep so that a soldier could walk standing up without getting hit by snipers.
“He told me how, one time, he was talking with three other soldiers and, after he walked away, a shell fell where he’d been standing, blowing those men apart. And of Christmas presents arriving for soldiers who’d already died, so the gifts were opened and shared by the living.
“But in the midst of all the misery, there was hope. On December 24th, on both the Eastern and Western fronts, one side would start singing Christmas carols, and the other side would often join in. Eventually, a local truce would be called and these mud-covered men would climb out of the trenches and walk into no-man’s land to sing and drink and exchange souvenirs. That gave the enemy a face, and he turned out to be just another tired soldier who wanted to go home. Sometimes it took the officers eight or nine days to get their troops to start shooting again.
“I began to understand where my father had been and what he’d done. This quiet baker from Nizkowice, not yet 37 years old, had fought in two wars for three different armies, and he’d killed and nearly been killed. And now, every day he was walking from sunrise to sunset to make sure that I wouldn’t repeat his life.
“He told me what he’d heard and read about America. ‘If you own a piece of land, no one can take it away from you,’ he said. ‘And if you have an idea, a good idea, you can grow rich.’
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