I found this letter in Los Angeles' other paper, The Daily News, today and thought it worth passing on before it's gone forever.
I met Doohan 30 years ago, at the bar of a New York hotel where he was the guest of honor at a "Star Trek" convention. We were chatting over beers when another Trekkie asked him for his autograph. I vaguely noticed something odd in the way he held his pen, but it was the Trekkie who shrieked, "Jeez, Scotty, what happened to your middle finger?"
"Oh, that," he said. "In the war, I was under fire, diving for a foxhole, and I was so glad I made it, I gave the enemy the finger...and they shot it off!" He told it like it was a joke. I was stunned to read in his obituary that this took place during the D-Day invasion of Normandy, and that he was shot six times. What a modest, as well as charming, man.
Henry C. Parke
Van Nuys
Beamed up safely.
A man of duty, honor and good cheer, not only in fiction, but in fact. Rest in peace, Mr. Doohan. Well done.
I'm not even a legit trekkie, but I read his autobiography and enjoyed it thoroughly.
ReplyDeleteThere was a little more to the Juneau Beach story in This Week: in addition losing the finger, Doohan was shot four times in the leg and once in the chest. But that bullet, which might well have killed him, was stopped by his cigarette case. And they say smoking's bad for your health.
ReplyDeleteGodspeed, Scotty. Mar sin leibh an drà sda.