quote: | Originally posted by Silky Johnson
Omg. Shit like this gets a person right in the feelings.
My sincere condolences to you. |
Thank you, Jenny. I'm on vacation the week after next, so the wifey and I are going to go visit her and take her out to lunch, if she's up to going. If not, we'll just chill at the house and maybe walk around the farm a little. There was a picture of my grandfather by his casket. He was in his US Army uniform...he was just 19 years old. I know we live in very different times, but I couldn't help but look at him and think, "most 19 year olds today can't even hold down a job, balance a check book, or make a monthly car payment...and there he was, removed from a tiny little country town in the mountains of TN, and thrust into one of the worst battles of WW II." I know if I had faced the same at 19, I would not have had the bravery and mental capacity to handle it as well as he did. Pa has...well, had...a GI blanket given to him in the Army. He would often take out that blanket, unfold it, and hold it up. In it was a bullet hole. While in a fox hole, a bullet had passed through his pack, and thus the blanket, and killed his friend next to him. It took many, many years for him to be able to tell that story in its entirety without breaking down. I don't mean to go on and on about him, but I simply have unending respect for him...and not just him, but that entire generation. American, British, French...any man, woman, or child, who was thrust into that horrible situation of trying to end a type of horror, war, and tyranny, the likes of which the world had never seen before...and with no clear notion that it would end in their lifetime, victorious or not. When they were termed "The Greatest Generation," they were called such accurately. Every year fewer and fewer of them are with us. It humbles me to my soul. Thanks for listening to my "rantings".
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