The war stories of
M/Sgt Philip Ingraham

Part VIII: After the War

My Uncle Phil moved smoothly from military to civilian life, taking up residence with Bea in Painted Post, New York and working at nearby Corning Glass for the next 20 years as a lab technician.

Bea went to work for the Ingersoll-Rand corporation in Painted Post, N.Y. and stayed for 33 years. She spent 26 years in the Cost Department before taking early retirement. In her last seven years, she worked for the director of industrial relations, first as his private secretary for two years and then his executive secretary.

Phil and Bea lived in several apartments in the decade following the war, and then in 1955 decided to build their own house, at 175 Deerland Avenue:

They still live in the same house, which is as neat and tidy inside as out. “It is located in a wonderful neighborhood,” Bea says, “and we would hate to ever leave here as we have great neighbors and have no complaints whatever.” They have been members of the First Presbyterian Church of Painted Post for 56 years.

Phil and Bea legally adopted Sandi — who had changed her name from Sandra — in 1982, choosing Ingraham as her middle name. In that same year, Sandi married John Slater.

No one goes through life without trauma, sadness, and sometimes tragedy; Phil and Bea have had more than their fair share in recent years.

Phil had a serious electrical accident at work in 1975; both shoulders were broken and muscles in his arms and chest were ripped apart by a powerful electrical shock. He has a prosthesis in his right shoulder and a plate in that arm. He officially retired in 1976.

One of the darkest days in Bea and Phil's life came on Nov. 10, 1997. Bea lost her mother, Mildred Jackson, on that day. Mildred was 94 years old; when she died at 12:30 p.m., Bea, Phil, and Sandi were at her bedside. Then, unbelievably, at 9:30 p.m. that evening, Sandi suffered a catastrophic stroke and died three hours later. She was 53. "We loved Sandi as we would have if she had been our own daughter," Bea says. "We had some wonderful times together and we wouldn't trade all those great memories for anything."

At the left, Sandi Ingraham Slater and Mildred Jackson, photographed at the Hilton Hotel in Corning, NY, in 1990.

More problems were in store. In 2000, Bea was diagnosed with a fast-growing brain aneurysm. Pre-operative tests showed that Bea had also suffered a mild heart attack, but surgery could not wait: surgeons repaired the aneurysm in an eight-hour operation, but her prognosis was poor: the surgery had probably caused severe and permanent brain damage.

Then came post-operative complications, including a collapsed lung, blood clots in the lung as well as both legs, and an onset of exceptionally high blood pressure. Three times Bea was taken to the ICU, and three times she went home. A miracle had occurred, or perhaps several miracles, and by Christmas she was on her way to a complete recovery. Today Bea shows almost no sign that the aneurysm ever existed.

Bea's illness naturally caused a great deal of stress for Phil, whose vision had become severely impaired over the years by macular degeneration. During Bea's hospitalizations, Phil had to stay with friends.

Next, it was Phil's turn again, when in 2006 he developed a serious iliac aneuysm that required minimally invasive surgery (although "minimally invasive" in this context is a bad joke). Months later, as of this writing in December, 2007, he still deals with the aftermath of the surgery.

Bea and Phil continue to live at home. While Phil's eye problems present a serious handicap, and Bea is also having some eye problems, they are still able to enjoy many activities and continue their friendships and communication with family. In September, 2007, they celebrated their 65 wedding anniversary:

Phil and Bea Ingraham in September, 2007, on the occasion of their 65th wedding anniversary.

Military service for most young men, especially in time of war, defines much of the remainder of their lives. Although Phil was not directly involved in combat in the Pacific, he was unavoidably exposed to the havoc it wreaked on combat veterans. One experience in particular left him with an indelible and troubling memory, and strong feelings about the insanity of war. In his recording, he offered these final thoughts:

When I left Guadalcanal, my commanding officer needed me in a hurry to go to Efate in the New Hebrides because of a shortage of men there in our particular line of work... He was willing to take any form of transportation that the U.S. Army Air Corps was willing to throw at him, and he called and said that the only thing they had going was some wounded going out that afternoon, and they would be stopping at Efate....

The plane was loaded with men whose minds had snapped in battle. There must have been at least 20 men, in terrible shape. I'll give you an example. One of the men was stretched out on a litter, and he looked over at me and he said, 'Who are you?' 'Well,' I said, 'I'm a fellow soldier. I'm on my way to Efate.' 'Oh!' he says, 'You're lucky! You're talking to Harry James, the trumpet player!' Others were unconscious, in a state of suspended animation, men mumbling things over and over. There was nothing phony about these men. They were in bad, bad shape.

I've often thought that that was the capping climax in my feeling: Here was a group of boys, they've all got parents, even though they're going to go home sometime, to what and with what, with broken-hearted parents, wives, sweethearts, all for what?

Now I'm not questioning the war at all. You have to come down to earth and say, well, common sense says we were hit and we had to hit back, and that's true. I'm not going to deny that a bit. But I do say to myself, What were the circumstances many, many years ago that triggered this sort of thing? What kind of story has the other fellow got to tell about his reason for being in the war? The Germans, the Japanese, what have you, and I often got to thinking, Wait a minute, I don't think that fellow wanted to go to war any more than I did. In fact, I'm sure of it. It's foreign. It's foreign to anyone....