Some of my earliest memories as a kid in the early 1950's were the World War II veterans. Some of those guys were still wearing their uniform caps and coats; and every time we visited a relative, they'd be a 8 1/2 x 11" framed portrait of a son in uniform prominently displayed in the living room. And sadly, sometimes that picture; and old memories wers all they had left of that individual's life. As a kid, I don't remember those veterans talking much about their experiences; and even when I got older and asked questions, they still had little to say. I had one uncle, "Uncle Babe" (short for Nathanial; go figure?) who piloted a LST during the D-Day invasion and participated in the first wave. He never had much to say about that day, but did speak of a few things he witnessed; the carnage on the beach, LST's receiving direct hits from the German 88's, and the bodies of floating GI's drowned when the LST they were assigned to dropped them too far from the beach in deep water. I had another uncle, Uncle Troy, who served and fought in Italy; and was twice wounded. A couple of years before he died, I talked with him a long time one Sunday afternoon about his wartime experiences, and being wounded. He fought at the battle of Monte Casino in Italy in 1944; and oddly, one of the comments he made was that he didn't understand why D-Day got so much press when the fighting was so much harder in Italy? I'm certainly not in a position to judge, just found the comment interesting. He recalled some of the things he witnessed there and told me that there were many times when both sides would agree to a short truce; and during those times both sides would gather up their dead and wounded, and he talked about bodies being stacked like "cord wood". He said there were many times during these truces when German and US troops would actually meet and "fellowship" with each other. GI's would trade chocolate and cigarettes to the German troops for things they had; and that, with the exception of the language barrier, he found them little different from himself. But once those temporary truces ended, both sides got back to the business of war and resumed the killing of each other; he said it made no sense! His first wounds came from shrapnel as an 88 shell, designed to explode above the ground, hit him in the shoulder and leg; the guy next to him was decapitated. As soon as he recovered from those wounds, he was sent back to the front; and shortly afterwards was shot in the right leg by a German infantryman, the bullet breaking his leg bone. As another GI dragged him to cover he made eye contact with the guy who had just shot him from about 30 yards away, and then he made this amazing comment to me; I hold no hate towards the German who shot me because I knew he was just a regular guy who didn't want to be there anymore than I did; that he was forced to be there because he had no other choice. The people I grew up with, those survivors from the Great Depression and WWII; are the toughest,most independent and resilient people I've ever known and I am proud to have been privileged to have lived in the world they sacrificed to preserve. This generation of people should NEVER be forgotten.
