Funny. It just gets so imbued in them. My dad just looked the part, he was called on every year to do Memorial and Veteran's Day speeches for the town. It was where he grew up, and as a reserve officer after WWII at the age of 21, he was the Post Commander for VFW in town. Sheesh. What was I doing at the age of 21...not that.
He still fit into his uniform perfectly. Here he was on Memorial day in 1995, when he caused a stir by saying (on the anniversary of the dropping of the the atomic bombs) that it was war, and if we had more, earlier, we should have dropped them! (The local papers did what the media does with those kinds of statements...
When my dad retired and we settled down and I made friends, they are all extremely intimidated by him (not because he was mean or wanted to be intimidating) but because he was so serious and quiet.
Rarely spoke.
All my friends, until the day he died referred to him not as "your dad" or anything like that...
They called him with obvious respect: "The Commander".
I loved it. They would call and say things like "Were you able to borrow The Commander's car?" (He drove an enormous, rust pitted and dented cream yellow 1973 Buick LeSabre that looked similar to the image below (with more rust pits and a few dents) and me and my friends were going to spray paint it haze gray, put navy-style numbers on the bow, paint a name in black on the stern, and affix a couple of cleats to each front fender...:)
We didn't, because we weren't 100% sure he would laugh...but it would have been an improvement, we thought!
I so wish we had done that...we still laugh at that memory now.
How I miss my dad.