This brief excerpt from the book “Mistreated” tells the story of my father’s life and his heroics during the Battle of Normandy. As the world remembers the 75th anniversary of D-Day on June 6, 2019, let’s take a moment to reflect on the bravery and sacrifices of the men and women who fight to defend our freedom …
My father, Jack Pearl, was the youngest child of poor immigrants from Belarus. In the early part of the twentieth century, his parents fled the pogroms of Russia, though not together. Each sailed to the United States looking for a new life. There, they met each other and married. My grandmother crossed the Atlantic as a teenager, alone, with only the name of an aunt as reference. She arrived in America completely naïve about the realities of this new land. Unable to speak a word of English, she had assumed everyone in America spoke Russian and that the streets were literally paved with gold, just as those back home had promised.
My grandfather picked up some English before arriving, helping him land a pair of jobs in New York City to support his new family. He was a tailor, like many immigrants of his generation. He’d bring home leftover scraps of garment, piecing and sewing them together at night into new clothes for extra income, all in the tireless pursuit of the American dream.
At home, my grandparents spoke in Yiddish, making plans for the future, trusting always that in this country anything was possible. If they had little else, they had each other and their family. As parents, they held firm to the conviction that if their children studied hard and took advantage of the opportunities of this great nation, the future would be bright. This was the world my grandparents knew, equal parts hardship and optimism.
In the early twentieth century, however, hardships weren’t just economic. Health care in the era before vaccinations meant doctors could do little to prevent or treat some of the most life-threatening diseases.
My father’s only sister, Mary, died from measles at age six. Although he was too young to remember her, my father talked often about the grief Mary’s death caused his family. Losing a child is one of the most painful events a parent can experience, and it would haunt my grandparents for the rest of their lives. In their day, when life was guaranteed to no one, there was little time to mourn. As my father and his brother, Herbert, grew up, they honored their parents’ wishes. They studied hard in school and worked multiple jobs during nights and weekends. Both went on to pursue careers in health care.
My uncle Herb took to medicine and became a general surgeon. My father gained acceptance at Columbia University en route to dental school at New York University.
Shortly after earning his dental license, my dad enlisted in the 101st Airborne to fight for the Allies during World War II. As a captain in the army, he could have asked for a safer assignment, perhaps caring for new recruits on this side of the Atlantic. But that’s not who my father was.
As a member of the “Screaming Eagles,” my father parachuted behind enemy lines in the Battle of Normandy. There, he and members of his unit were captured by the Germans. Inside a truck transporting a dozen or so American soldiers to the closest Nazi prison, my father led a daring escape. For two days, he guided his unit through hills and forests in the dark of night, hiding beneath the brush at daybreak, promising each other they would survive.
The soldiers were eventually reunited with their battalion, returning to America not long after. Radio stations across the country aired stories of the unit’s bravery. My mother, so proud of her husband’s heroic efforts, obtained a copy of the story on vinyl. When I was a child, she played it for me on the phonograph in the den. Growing up, I had no doubt my father was a great man.
After the war, my dad opened his dental practice in Queens. A few years later, he and my mother bought a home in the suburbs of Long Island, and together they raised a family. Jack Pearl, the son of poor immigrants, the war hero, the successful dentist and loving father, spent his life working hard to fulfill the American dream that his parents had begun.
Throughout his life, he earned the esteem we as a country ascribe to the “greatest generation.”
“Mistreated” was written in loving memory of my father. All proceeds from the book benefit the global nonprofit Doctors Without Borders.
