Dad and I sat on that couch for most of the afternoon. A conversation that I had expected to last only a few minutes, covering selected memories of his service years, actually began on the morning of December 7, 1941, and ended with his return from the Pacific campaign to his boyhood home in Ojai, California.Between lunch and dinner that cold day in Bieber, California, I learned more about my dad than I had ever known in stolen summers that spanned...