Missing--Illinois

Missing--Illinois

There was no band, no flag, no ceremonial. It wasn't even dramatic. A car honked outside and he said: "Well, I guess that's for me. . . ."

He kissed his mother and held out his hand to me. "Well, so long," he said. I took his hand but all I could say was, "Good luck."

The door slammed and that was that --another boy gone to war.

In January 1942, Howard Vincent O'Brien, Chicago Daily News columnist, wrote this simple story of how a father feels when he says good-by to a soldier son. Before the year was out, millions of Americans felt that they knew slim, tall (5 ft., 11 in.) Donel O'Brien, 20, a fresh, handsome kid with wavy blond hair and a quick, Irish grin. For twelve years, Howard Vincent O'Brien had been offering Daily News readers a pleasant column of unspectacular introspection called All Things Considered. The morning he said good-by to Donel, Columnist O'Brien caught the public where its heart is. His "So Long, Son" column stuck. Readers' Digest reprinted it. So did a score of lesser magazines, newspapers, house organs. Throughout the U.S., the farewell to Donel was read aloud to women's clubs, schools, Rotary luncheons, radio listeners. Melvyn Douglas, Walter Huston and the Treasury Hour scattered it over the networks. With frankly sentimental fingers, Father O'Brien had twanged a universal string:

"I went then to my room. On the wall was a picture of a little boy, his toothless grin framed in tawny curls--the same boy who had just taken my hand and said: 'Well, so long.'

"Not much time, I thought, between the making of that picture and the slamming of the front door. Not much more than a decade. . . .

"Well, Curlyhead--you're a man now, bearing your bright new shield and spear. I hated to see you go out of my house and close the door behind you; but I think I would not have halted you if I could. I salute you, sir. I cannot pretend that I am not sad; but I am proud, too. So long."

On his 23rd birthday, the Army Air Forces' Lieut. Donel O'Brien, navigator, was reported "missing in action" after a bombing raid on Germany.

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