Sgt Hoff

I remember snuggling into my dad’s chest, feeling the waves of exhaustion wash over my little body as he read the classics. Not many people have listened to Little Women, The Hobbit, and 20,000 Leagues by the time they were 8, I did. But my story doesn’t start here. It starts before my dad was born. It starts with the death of a soldier. I’ve never been to war and I’m maybe the wrong person to tell you; but there isn’t anyone else. On an unknown date, between 1942 and 1945, in one of the many trenches ripped into the European landscape died a man I know nothing about.

War movies try to capture the pain that accompanies real war but fall short. Epic battle scene set to a score, with brave men charging into battle, cut down in bloody spray. But this was real war. Battles mapped out in 1 or 2 hours on the screen drug on for days. Soldiers hunkered down in trenches, bodies rotting sometimes feet away. Odor wafting up from the rot, the hole in the ground that served as the latrine, and the unwashed bodies of men was overbearing. The food was stale, not enough, and cold. The sand and dirt ground into the cracks of the uniforms and chaffed against the flesh. The sweat that ran down the body was salty and burned the red tender creases. When the temperature dropped at night, the moist clothes clung to your skin like a blanket of ice. All the while, the enemy hunkered down a mere 150 yards away.

This is where my grandfather, Sgt. SJ Smith found himself, next to Sgt M. Hoffman. I don’t know what they were doing at that moment. Perhaps they were talking about all the things they missed at home, or maybe they were on watch, scanning the dead zone between the trenches. It doesn’t really matter, what does matter is Sgt. Hoff saw something in “No Man’s Land”. Something he thought was worth dying over. Whatever it was, he charged over the edge of the trench into “No Man’s Land”. I don’t think he reached his goal; enemy fire tore through his torso and he crumbled. What could Sgt Smith do? Leave him to lay out in the war-torn field, cold, alone, wounded. I don’t think it was a conscious action—I think many great acts in war are reactions of selfless men in seemly no-win situations. SJ jumped over the edge and amid the gun fire, managed to drag Hoffman back into the fetid foxhole. Laying him across his lap, I can only imagine the horror as SJ tried to piece back his shredded torso. My father once penned the story’s end as his father had told him, “When he held my name’s sake in his blood bathed lap and told Hoff, “you’ll make it” still screaming for the medics. SJ did not scream, no, he never screamed, he bellowed and shouted but there he admitted that he had screamed. Sgt, Melvin Hoffman told dad, “Steve I’ a goner, just name your son after me.” SJ did not shake or tear up, but here almost twenty years on his body shook and his eyes still teared.”

Hoffman died on that field, his eyes glazing over, leaving Sgt Smith to carry on. 1948, the war 3 years past, new life entered Sgt Smith’s story. A mischievous little sprite and they named him Melvin Hoffman. This is my dad. I think where your name comes from holds weight. Being named after a soldier who gave his life for his country, that individual carries power into the world. My father certainly has. Like Sgt Hoff, he has passed on his incredible power to the next generation. He gifted me with one of the most crucial keys of my success.

I could scribe hours of entertaining stories about how this little boy became a man. Ones that still cause me to laugh so hard I cry. How he blew up the chemistry lab or kidnapped a teacher. Paint pictures of adventures with dynamite. Or illustrate exactly how to make and fit a human flying contraption to your oldest brother. Of which, the maiden flight would also be the final flight. One amazing flight. I could also spend equal time on the stories that I can’t find a voice to speak out loud, for fear that my soul would splinter and fall from my body with the tears I won’t cry. How he must have shaken with shame, guilt, and pain at the death of his sister. His internal battle that raged, his childhood trauma taking shape in the form of heavy-handed treatment of his teenage children, and the difficult journey to end the violence. Growing up in extreme poverty, eating oats for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And not that he would ever get it diagnosed… but growing up as an autistic child in a world where autism didn’t exist. Yes, his life has had its equal hardships.

Somewhere in the middle of his life, his 8th and last biological child was born. He chose her name from a small flower in Hawaii and the sunrise. She was me. I was frail and sick when I was born and would battle that fragility for many years. My dad never treated me like I was frail and never let me act like a victim. I was as stubborn and daring as he was. I wanted nothing more than to be “normal”. But I would never be. When I was 14, I wanted a job. I hated to be involved in the things most teenage girls liked. I wanted to work in construction with my dad. My brothers had all worked construction with him, and I saw no reason I couldn’t. He wasn’t full time in the construction field but would get jobs to work late nights and weekends. Before my first day he took me to breakfast at a small diner in our little town. As I wolfed down my toast and hash browns he dropped his voice to his low, ‘this is serious’ tone. He told me that he was not going to make any exceptions for me because I was a petite 5’4” girl. In fact, if I wanted to be respected on the construction site, I would have to do more than the guys. I would have to work harder and smarter than them. He explained that they would almost always underestimate me, and that this was my greatest advantage. I didn’t answer him really. I probably just nodded, shuffling my last few bites around on my plate, avoiding eye contact, and the conversation moved on to a lighter topic. My dad always seemed to understand, long before my autism was diagnosed, that my lack of response to serious conversation wasn’t a lack of listening. But in that moment my dad instilled a belief in me that I could work smarter and harder than anyone else he worked with. In that moment I decided no one would ever out work me. My great success in life, is a testament that no one ever has.