Submission Pre/Viewer
Grandpa's RoomTerrance Hammons service race
I dropped my backpack on the bed and sat down. I hadn’t been in this house since my freshman year of high school. Dad moved us to Houston for a fresh start after Mom died, and I hadn’t missed Liberty Grove.“Corey, sorry you got the spare room, bro,” my cousin Ernie said from the hallway. I was supposed to be named after our Grandpa, but Uncle Matthew beat my Dad to the punch. Honestly, I felt fortunate not to be burdened with bearing Grandpa’s name, an impossible standard to live up to.
“Hey, y’all beat us here. To the victor go the spoils,” I replied. And to the losers goes the ghost, I thought. We were never allowed in the spare room when Grandpa was alive, and we always joked that it was haunted.
“Man, it’s hard to believe the old man’s gone. He probably gave Death a scathing critique on how he took him into the afterlife,” Ernie chuckled.
“Something like, ‘This is a poor effort, young man. If you’re going to do it, give it your all’,” I mimicked Grandpa, and we laughed.
Grandpa always forced us to volunteer for charities around town and inspected our work to ensure it met his standards, which it rarely did.
“You’re not going to the viewing?” my cousin asked.
“No, I have to figure out this essay for the history department,” I sighed.
I had struggled to formulate a topic for the graduate application essay. Ernie went on to entertain me with some of his fraternity adventures before leaving me to settle in.
Pictures of a younger leaner, Grandpa, in uniform decorated the walls. He wore a thin mustache and a small afro, unlike the clean-shaven, cropped hairstyle of the Grandpa I’d known. He’d never spoken much of his time in the Army, nor had my father. The pictures showed a different side of him. They displayed more smiles than I’d ever seen from Grandpa. Another photo showed Grandpa and a group of men saluting a white officer in a fur pile cap, tan overcoat and pants that looked far too clean and crisp for a war zone.
At the foot of the bed, an olive green trunk with “Captain Miller, Earnest” stenciled on the top caught my attention. I’d seen the trunk many times but never dared to look inside. It creaked when I opened it, releasing the musty odor of old paper and leather, an earthy smell. Inside the lid was a picture of Grandpa and Grandma. He wore his Class A uniform, and she wore a lace wedding dress. They both smiled, his a toothy grin, hers more subdued.
A leather portfolio stored newspaper clippings and letters. The Chicago Defender’s headline read, “Labor leader pushes to integrate the military.” It credits A. Philip Randolph with encouraging blacks to boycott registering with the Selective Service or enlisting until the branches were desegregated.
The Baltimore Afro-American announced, “President Truman desegregating the military.” A clipping from the Pittsburgh Courier showed General MacArthur visiting Korea to inspect the troops of the 24th Infantry Regiment. It was the same picture displayed on the dresser.
The portfolio also held a framed certificate whose header read “The United States of America.” It stated it was issued to Grandpa by the president for “gallantry in action.” There was a medal in a small box, a bronze star hanging from a red, white, and blue ribbon, with a smaller silver star inside the bronze star.
The Chicago Defender had a photo of Grandpa standing next to Thurgood Marshall. The caption described Marshall's work to clear the names of soldiers who had been unjustly court-martialed during the Korean War. The more I read, the more layers were revealed.
A letter in the portfolio from Grandpa to Grandma declared his love for her. The letter read, “I hope you understand the need for me to strike out and try to establish something for us. There is nothing in Liberty Grove for me but you, and I believe this is the best opportunity for me to become the husband you deserve.”
As I uncovered each item in the trunk, a sense of awe and sadness washed over me. This was a side of Grandpa I never knew.
The following morning, when we ate breakfast as a family, all I could think about was what I had uncovered the night before. I felt a deeper connection to the man I’d never understood. The contents of that trunk had shown me a different Earnest Miller, one who’d faced incredible challenges with fierce determination.
During the service, it was clear that other people knew the version of Grandpa I discovered; person after person described his impact on their lives. One of the soldiers in his unit said, “Capt. Miller stood for right. He spoke truth to power, damn the consequences.”
At the repast, my cousin sat beside me and said, “I don’t know who those people were talking about, but I never met that Earnest.”
But I had. Listening to those eulogies, I realized that the man everyone spoke about had always been present. He was strict about how I made the bed, critiquing the strength of my handshake, correcting my diction, demanding honesty no matter the discomfort and facing challenges head-on. The discipline and the insistence on excellence were his ways of preparing me for the world. A man of action, this is how he showed his love.
Back in Grandpa’s room, I stared at the trunk and the relics of Grandpa’s life. Inspired, I made a decision. My application essay would focus on Grandpa’s unit, the 24th Infantry Regiment. It would be the start of me honoring his legacy and the legacy of men like him.
