If you don’t think there are stories everywhere, read this one.

I’m standing by the Protect Marriage Illinois petition-gathering table at State Senator Chris Lauzen’s Porky Picnic when a man walks up with a hat I have never seen before.

It is obviously a military cap.

It says,

It has a dragon in the middle.

I asked what it stood for.

Bob Moga told me the sad story of his older brother, who was serving in the Asiatic Fleet when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

There were 48 ships in the fleet.

The Japanese tracked them all down and sank them.

His brother, Rome Mogo, was on the flag ship, the U.S.S. Houston.

It was sunk in the Battle of the Java Sea.

Bob’s bother was one of the sailors who perished.

Those who survived went to the River Kwai. You remember the movie about the bridge.

I asked if he had served in World War II.

Bob told me he served in the Korean War.

He showed me his brother’s faded black and white photograph, still in his wallet after all those years.

He told me his son looked like his brother and showed me a wedding picture.

He said his parents never got over the lose of their son. They either are in their 90’s or lived to their 90’s. I’m unclear on that.