Missing The Boat: War Stories of Thomas Alan Dirkin

54 “What do you mean?” He replied, “Son, too many things happened to me in the war, too many times to have been a coincidence. I always was in the right place at the right time or not in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone was looking after me.” Certainly, this was consistent with the thinking that life’s pathway is beyond chance. Victor Frankl, a German psychiatrist, wrote in his memoir “Mans Search for Meaning” of similar guidance that was above chance that happened in his life experiences. Frankl survived four German Nazi death camps, including Auschwitz. Frankl also proposed that we cannot avoid suffering, but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. My father was a spiritual man groomed by the depth of his experiences in World War 11. In addition to the perceived lack of value of organized religion, he also held religion and ideology responsible for the vast majority of wars. He held a disdain for the Church’s historical collusion with political power systems and the garnering of wealth.