I have a love/hate relationship with this article.
I really don’t want to write it because it means saying goodbye to a special friend I have seen every day for almost 20 years.
Yet I love writing this because I have such affection for this man, who has lived more lives than I can imagine. A Black man born in a tumultuous time, a WWII soldier, then a policeman, then a security guard, a father, and now great grandfather. His life should be a Netflix documentary.
How do I know this? A group of friends and I have walked past the Belle Meade Island guard gate every morning for two decades. And like a warm hug, Julius lifts that gate for us. He doesn’t have to. We could walk between the wooden gate arms, but he’s that kind of a man. He wants us to know we are seen. In his earlier days, if we decided to walk an extra lap and came back late, he'd come looking for us to make sure we were okay. He did this for everyone. You knew that if Julius was at the gate, you were safe.
He just turned 100 and until Aug. 15, he's still the 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. guard – and captain – as we call him. He’s like a grandpa to all the local island kids who grew up seeing Julius on their way to and from school, always greeted with a huge smile, wave, and, “How ya doin?” You can tell he really wants to know.
That smile belies a life many of us can simply never even imagine.
His father was killed laying lines for FPL. In order to support a family that was suddenly fatherless, Julius enlisted in the Navy and signed his salary over – not to his bank account, but to his family. He served in WWII for six years on the USS Arizona and the USS Mervine in the South Pacific. It was a segregated vessel, where he was relegated to the literal “bottom of the boat.” He watched grown men fall to their knees in agony as they marched into Hiroshima and saw the utter and unimaginable devastation. He was passed over for leave he'd earned. He pulled a Japanese soldier from the waters of the Pacific and was called a racial slur for the rescue.
Home from the war, in uniform, he tried to get change for a $100 bill he'd earned and a white bank teller called the police on him. “How'd you get that money?” she wanted to know.
Years later, he lost his grandson, a military medic, in Iraq. His biggest regret, he says, was his divorce.
For all these moments, he says simply, “That hurt me so bad.” He doesn’t need to say more.
It's impossible to not feel heartbroken that the world could be that cruel to him, and many like him. But a pity party is the last thing Julius wants. “No one would blame you if you were an angry man, Julius,” I've told him. He laughs it off. He chooses, he says, every day to see the good in people, even when they are unkind. You sense that when you spend time with him. I told my kids since they were young, “You have met a hero. Don't ever forget it.”
He'd disagree with that word. He'd tell you he's not a hero for fighting in a war, maybe not even for not missing a single day of work in 30 years.
I disagree.
When I fly the U.S. flag at my house, it's for people just like Julius – men and women who don't celebrate the “me” but celebrate the “we.”
In July, neighbors and friends gathered to celebrate his pending retirement and his 100th birthday, read a City of Miami proclamation with his name on it, and dedicate the guardhouse to him. And after all of that, after 100 years, a war, a lifetime of challenges, love, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, do you know what he said?
“Well, I don't really know what to say, but, I hope I have served you well.”
Served “US” well.
Of everything he could have said in that moment, he wanted to know if we'd gotten our money's worth.
Oh, Julius. We got so much more than a reliable security guard. We got a friend. And there will never be another friend like you.
When wearing her work hat, Lisa Mozloom is a media and presentation training coach and PR practitioner at The M Network, but at home she is a woman passionate about raising three teens and loving her husband.
(Lisa Mozloom)
Lisa Mozloom