Had one of those little minutes that had a big impact.

[Shawn R. L.]

I was driving somewhere yesterday and noticed a frail little old man slowly walking along. He had on a soldiers cap and a jacket. The jacket said - 101 Airborne Bastogne. Once young, tough, full of piss and vinegar and saving the free world. Now a quiet little fellow walking down the street in our podunk little city. For some reason it choked me up......


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bastogne

 

[ScottRadom]

Hey, I bet he loves living in California where he never has to see that kind of weather again!

Truly, the greatest generation.

 

[starchaser1]

shawn it happens to me sometimes.
I visit a home for ex servicemen and women every month or so. My grandfather was placed there 10 years ago and when he passed i could not bring myself to stop going so now i just go and sit and listen, and do abit of gardening for them, plus sneak the odd pack of smokes in for them . I just wish they were looked after better they all diserve ower respect and admiration

 

[Dragonsreach]

I know what you mean

Last surving Btritish \"Tommy\".
Harry Patch

My Great Uncle George was killed on the Somme on his 16th Birthday, having joined up under age, like so many others.
As a great uncle myself you will understand what kind of impact that has on me.

 

[A Luna]

I exactly know what you mean Shawn. There is no generation that I respect more than my grandfather\'s (he\'s turning 90 in a couple of days so you got an idea of what generation).

 

[Infidel Castro]

I\'ve lost all mine my grandfather was a veteran of Burma. Alas! A difficult place. he spoke about it all with great humour though, and never mentioned the grim bits.

 

[aapjeBOB0]

my great grandfather ( yes i have known him till i was 10, im 16 now) was in the dutch resistance and when we went through his old house (my great grandmother now lives in a ritrement home) we found a thompson and some grenades made me go: \"damn what an awesome bloke\"

 

[War Griffon]

I have lost most of mine as well, one thing my father would never talk about though was a lot of his war memories as he was with the Royal Engineers (first in last out) he did let the odd funny out though especially after I had been to Malta and Gibraltar for the first time in his own way he was asking me how it had all changed compared to what it was like back then.

He helped build/cut a lot of the tunnels in the rock and build the undeground hospital and runway. His favourite tale was of the runway and how, when they were extending it they used to have a crane at the one end to pick the spitfires up out of the water when they landed so they could dry them out and put them back up again.

Its great to just go along to the various RNA\'s etc up and down the country and even take part in some of their events as the stories to get told are awesome

 

[Mosch]

As a German my family \"fought\" in the second world war because they had no choice - just the women mostly, as the men were all working in the coal mines. Some stories were told... life was harsh and brutal, obviously. And oftentimes short. I remember when my grandmother told me what she had experienced. She was a member of the red cross and tended to wounded soldiers in the field. One time she, one of her friends and an officer were send to scour an area for survivors and/or dead soldiers. There was no fighting over this area anymore so they thought it was save. Obviously it wasn\'t - something, I think an artillery grenade, landed quite close to them and shook the jeep so much that both the women, wo were sitting in the back, passed out. My grandmother was awoken seconds later when the officer shook her and wet her face. He carried her down the way and made her sit near a tree, then went back for the other woman. My grandmother saw that he reached into the back of the jeep when a second grenade landed - this time on the jeep or very close to it. She said the debris were so small and burnt that she could not make out which part belonged to officer, friend or jeep.
She did not look particularly happy when she told me this.

Or this one thing that my grandmother\'s sister told me.
She was captured by the russians, I think, and since she spoke the language a little she was given a little slack (also because she was a woman, I suppose). She was still a prisoner of war, working with many other Germans under russian orders. When productivity decreased she was told to ask the workers what the problem was. She told them that many were sick and could not work very hard, so the russian overseer told her to gather up the sick people and bring them into \"the doctor\'s office\".
You can probably imagine what happened... after she led them all into the building the russian overseer took her aside and sat down with her. He called in some russian soldiers and had the German prisoners shot on the spot, then told my grandmother\'s sister to clean the room. They provided her with a wheelbarrow for the bodies and watched while she worked. When she tried to take the first soldier\'s ID she received a rifle butt to the head and was told to leave everything on them.


Now I made myself depressed....

 

[Shawn R. L.]

My grand parents on my dad\'s side lived in Albany CA during the war, near Berkely. My granddad built Liberty Ships in the Kaiser shipyards. My grandma told the story of how the troop trains would go through their backyard and she would have a whole stack of sandwiches made up and send my dad out to run along the train and give the soldiers sandwiches.
. My granddad was known to be one of the best metal workers and one day the gov. shows up, says \'Mr. Lux, we need you to make this thing, it has to be PERFECT and YOU WILL KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.\" He made \'it\', got on with whatever he was doing and after the war he get\'s a certificate from the gov. thanking him for his contribution to helping make The Bomb. From the 40\'s till he died in the early 90\'s no one ever found out what \'it\' was.

 

[Torn blue sky]

Yeah I have a lot of time for the old boys, always happy to say hello and have a chat! Get some cracking stories out of them! When I tell them i\'m ex mil too they take to that, and I guess we have that sort of bond.
I always make a point of welcoming back any of the guys and gals I see at train stations or airports these days. No one seems to give them much of a second glance but it goes a long way in morale!

I think the most memorable story my granda ever told me was when he was advancing over the brow of a hill in germany somewhere. All of a sudden he came face to face with another troop of german soldiers....

They both bolted the opposite way lol

The old man also had a troop mascot in Aden in the Oman way back in the 60s when we were fighting the \"secret war\". He was a Para at the time (Airbourne).
Anyway, this little monkey used to follow them everywhere, they fed it rations and looked after it; It became a part of the family. So much so that it had its own little parachute they made ,and it loved nothing more than jumping off the water tower with it lol

 

[NGArtStudios]

Being Polish, my grandparents would talk a lot about life during the occupation. The interesting thing was they never had anything bad to say about neither the Wehrmacht or SS troops stationed in Cracow. It was mainly about how fairly well they were treated. When the Russians came on the other hand it was a completely different story.

 

[Arma]

That\'s awesome, Shawn. I would have stopped to have a chat, I reckon.

Isn\'t Band of Brothers about the 101 too? I remember one episode (early in the series) about Bastogne.

I\'ve really gotten into WWII modelling lately and more than the modelling, I\'m enjoying studying history much more than I did at school lol

TBS: That\'s hilarious!

 

[PegaZus]

Since we\'re telling interesting stories, might as well share my family\'s. Paternal grandfather never really talked about it. Oh, he was nowhere near the front. He was an aircraft mechanic in Oklahoma. They brought in broken aircraft, and he patched them back up. I guess the most interesting thing was that he\'d been given muster orders for the west coast. Since he\'d been a mechanic for years, he and the other guys knew that they were to be beach fodder for the invasion of Japan. So, I\'m probably alive because the bomb kept my grandfather from dying.

Maternal grandfather was a Navy pilot, but never saw any front line stuff. He was what I would call a route pilot. Start out in California and fly the broken aircraft to Arizona and Oklahoma (where he may or may not have gotten into a fight with my other grandfather at a USO dance over my grandmother). Then, it was up to Kansas where he get into a brand new aircraft and fly them to New York. The thing is, these new \"aircraft\" were target drones! So they had really cheap plywood seats and minimal instrumentation. But they had fun with them. The group of pilots would play \"Follow the Leader\" to pass the time. He says that they all buzzed the Statue of Liberty once, then high-tailed it out before any higher ranking official could tear into them for it! lol

 

[nick232]

ifit wasn\'t for the second world war half of me wouldn\'t be here, my grandad was English, and my grandmother was German!

i find the second world war the most interesting time in history. the first world war depresses me.

 

[gohkm]

Never knew my maternal grandfather; my paternal grandfather didn\'t go near the frontlines, either, sort of.

During WW2, the Japanese invaded Singapore. They had a bad habit of dragging PoWs out to Changi beach, and then shooting them. Other unfortunates would then be shanghai-ed to clean the beaches after that. Sometimes, the clean-up parties got shot, too, or subjected to torture.

My paternal grandfather got conscripted into a clean-up crew several times. He didn\'t get shot or tortured, but there were several times when the guys ahead and behind his shift caught Japanese attention. Talk about luck! He never spoke of it, just the occasional grunt about how terrible the Japanese occupation was, and we all knew better to ask.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by Torn blue sky
I always make a point of welcoming back any of the guys and gals I see at train stations or airports these days. No one seems to give them much of a second glance but it goes a long way in morale!

Doesn\'t hurt to them a smile and a nod of appreciation at the very least.
The more Mr & Mrs Average show respect the more it shows up how shoddy our Govt\'s respect for their troops is.

My dad was a Military Policeman (Redcap) in the 50\'s and has some tales to tell, one of the best is trying to break up a Barfight with some Highland regiment squaddies all on his own. He downs one and then has to square off against (as he tells it) about a dozen angry Jocks.
Bar goes silent then the jocks all decide to line up against the wall. My dad turns round expecting to see the rest of the Redcaps.
Nah only three Ghurkas standing behind him smiling.

 

[Kombi]

My grandfather served in egypt, I think. There\'s photos of him on top of the sphinx.

He raised my father\'s family of ten children on nothing much at all. He sold firewood. He passed when I was a very small boy, I don\'t really remember him too well, but every year on rememberance day I raise a glass in his honour.

Men of his generation had the backbone to stand up when it mattered. Reflecting on my own qualities, I\'m not certain I\'d measure up quite as well.

 

[airhead]

Old man that lived across the street and everyone in the neighborhood called \"Granpa Jesse\". We asked him what he did in the war. \"Drove a wine truck around Italy.\" That was all we ever learned.

Best friends Dad. We were all watching \"A Bridge Too Far\" (I think) one day at his house. His Dad was having a beer and watching it with us. Towards the end of the movie they are all moving across a bridge and one guy on foot is the last one across. Col. P looks at us and says \"That was me.\"

If I\'m at lunch and see a young enlisted, I\'ll tell the waitress to send me the bill. Still paying it forward.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

An old fellow who used to live down the street from me. He flew unarmed P38\'s doing photo recon for D day. Get him talking about the 38\'s and he\'d get a twinkle in his eye - \"Oh man, the POWER those things had.\"