The recent Ken Burns series "The War" was the highest-rated program on PBS in seven years, and I was one of those loyal viewers.

I am one of those children of a World War II military man, although I knew him simply as my daddy. My pride in his significant bars and stripes -- and sacrifice -- came later. Much later.

I never fully understood the war even though I lived through it.

My father was not unlike many soldiers who come home from war and don't talk about it. On the other hand, being young, I never asked. I was 12 when he left us. I was 17 when he came home to stay.

I do wish I had been old enough to have more patience with my daddy when he came home.

Are there others out there like me? Wishing they had done more, said more?

Mr. Burns' interviews in the small towns could probably have been conducted in any town in the country, and I include Uniontown, Pa., where I was born and raised. Many of my classmates left high school to enlist. My neighbor's son was an officer in the Navy, so handsome in his uniform. A friend's sister was a WAVE. She wore a cute hat.

That was "The War" to us. Seeing handsome men in uniform, watching movies with stories to arouse our patriotism, never seeing the reality, not fully understanding War Bond drives or newsreels in all those foreign places.

My father was in the reserves, and shortly after Pearl Harbor he was called up to serve, eventually being sent to the South Pacific with the First Evacuation Hospital.

Where's that? I had no idea. Daddy was away. That's all I knew.

My sister and I knew my mother was a pushover and would be far less the disciplinarian. We were right.

That was "The War" to us. We liked our "sorority house." We went on with our lives. Daddy was just away.

I was seldom allowed to make fudge, due to sugar rationing. Gas was rationed, but we walked almost everywhere in our small town so I barely noticed. And I didn't drive.

I seldom noticed my mother's loneliness or her brave attempt to run the household alone.

We were encouraged to write letters by my mother, who wrote to Daddy almost every day. She cried at times. I didn't really know why.

Could I get a new pair of skates? That was my concern.

There was a report my father had been found hanging in a tree in New Guinea's jungles. Where was New Guinea?

The town newspaper had called my mother to ask her if she had received a telegram informing her. She hadn't, and it turned out not to be true.

What had she felt that day when I came home from school and found her sobbing? We were told, and we cried too.

Finally "The War" was over. Daddy was coming home after five years.

Almost the first thing I asked was if he had brought me the watch he had promised me for my birthday, which, other than a live Koala bear, was the only thing I had ever asked for.

My father was a quiet, good-natured man, but he also laughed a lot before "The War."

When he returned, he was pensive and somewhat distant. He wanted to tell us how much he loved us, how much he appreciated our letters, how big we had gotten, how good it was to be home.

Where's my watch? He did bring it for me, even though he had been through hell. That was my daddy.

He took time to explain it was a watch like the nurses wore, with a second hand and a leather strap. It took forever. I was impatient.

"Thank you, Daddy!"

And off I ran to show it to my best friend.

"The War" is about extraordinary men and women who experienced and helped to win history's most devastating conflict.

My father was an extraordinary man. I never told him because I didn't know it then.

Now I am just two years younger than he was when he died at age 80. He never forgot "The War."

I've never forgotten his presentation of that watch. I wish I had thought to keep it. I wish I had been old enough to recognize its value.