I read through it for the second time. I was not in the military, so I will not attempt to know what any of you went through, nor will I try to thank you, because it is only words. What I can say is after reading your posts I am proud to be an American.
As for talking about the war with my father (WWII) it just never happened. He died when I was 21, so I wasn't really an adult with him. My father worked for American Airlines, so we traveled a lot when I was a kid. On a sidewalk in downtown Dallas in the early '70s, my father ran into a man I did not know. They talked for a bit, then hugged and said goodbye. I asked who the man was, and he said a friend from the war. My father never hugged me and I don't recall him ever hugging anyone, including my mother. Somehow that answers questions I may have.
For the past few years, I have been working on family history. I have uncovered quite a bit of military history. I received my father's military records (about 2") from St. Louis, In addition (some I knew, some I didn't) I have a cousin KIA in Viet Nam, mother's two brothers wounded in Korea, an uncle wounded WWII, two great uncles KIA WWI, maternal grandfather WWI/Career Naval Officer, great, great uncle killed on July 3, 1863, at Gettysburg. The flag he was carrying is in storage at the Massachusetts State House. He is buried about 100' from where President Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address.
To make this more complicated, my two sons' grandfathers fought in WWII on opposite sides. My father-in-law turned 16 in July of 1944 and went right in the German Army and went to Berlin where he became a POW for the remainder of the war. My wife's grandfathers, one KIA, one wounded POW, another uncle KIA. In 1956 my inlaws, a young German couple came to Massachusetts. They were sponsored by and lived in the home of a Jewish family.
