I thought it would be appropriate for people to post their own war memories, or those involving those close to them. As for myself, I have no memories of war first hand, but many in my immediate family fought in several wars, particularly WWII, and from that epic conflict comes a small and I think poignant story involving my grandparents and three of their siblings which we only learned about at my grandfather's funeral. As with a great many Canadians, ( at least) 5 of my grandparents brothers went over to Europe to fight. At the time they left, my grandparents weren't married, or even dating seriously. They had been fighting over in Europe for years, but my grandfather was turned down for service because his government job was deemed too important. Back in Canada, during the war years, he met and began courting my grandmother, and ( this was a shocker to find out) they eventually decided to elope. Now my grandparents were right out of Norman Rockwell, so finding out they eloped was a stunner in and of itself, but the war connection is the real story. Two of my grandmother's brothers were literally in the ships, waiting ( there was a day long delay) to go into D-Day, and to pass the time they stsrted going through mail they had received and the one from home, a small farming town in Ontario, informed them that their eldest sister had run off and gotten hitched with a fairly well known man from another local town now working for the government. As with many such companies, this one was largely made up of people from the same general area, and after reading about their sister's marriage, they got up, walked down to another local man they knew ( not well, to say hello, etc.) and informed him that they were now all brothers. My grandfather's brother, on board also waiting to go into D-Day had not gotten any word yet, and this was the first he heard. The three of them all went into the D-Day invasion as new brothers, and fought alongside one another. Thankfully, all of them survived. As I grew up, despite my interest in the subject, none of them would ever talk about their war experiences aside from generalities, and after seeing Saving Private Ryan, I understood why. Reading about such things, even studying them as I have, does not really bring home the experience like seeing it, even in recreation. So I understood why my uncles never found the words or desire to communicate their experiences. But they did, at my grandfather's funeral, communicate this one, I think very moving story which gives a glimpse into the experiences of men at war that those of us who haven't seen first hand can only vaguely understand. That's my memory of war; probably a happier one than most. Members of my family were lost in WWII, and others were decorated, but these three found new brothers on the eve of one of the greatest and most horrific days in of the war, and whether that helped get them through it alive, or merely added to the experience is unknown, but it sure makes a hell of a story.
I used to love hearing my grandpa tell stories from his Marine days in the Pacific during WWII. He was in the Battle of Midway. I went and visited him at the Veterans Cemetary in Houston today. One of my last memories with him, before he got sick, was when we went to downtown Houston in 1991 to attend a 'welcome home' type parade for the Gulf War I vets.
My grandmother, though she didn't fight in the World War II, helped run an internment camp during the War. Though most of the camps only held men, her camp also had several single women and families, and also included some Germans rather than just those of Japanese descent. I always thought it was interesting that my grandmother never questioned the need for these camps in the later years of her life. She even thought it the height of kindness that she let some of the Japanese held there to plant and tend a garden. None of my relatives have ever fought in a war, as far as I know (my grandfather was too young for WWI and too old and sick for WWII. My father enlisted during Vietnam but never left Texas). But I know we've all been very thankful for those who have gone and fought.
I can only relay my Father's vague recollection. He was 7 when WW2 ended, and was living in a tiny town called Southern Cross in Western Australia. All he remembers was that people were dancing in the streets when they heard it was over.
I have absolutely no memories of WWII, but I can tell you this, we built one heck of a monument in DC. Come check it out.
The only one I have is of my father. I was 7 when he took off for his second tour of Vietnam. His first, I was only 5, so the ramifications of what he was doing didn't really hit me. BUT! His second tour I remember somehow that "this was not a good thing and I didn't want him to go!" So much so that I threw the biggest fit you ever saw a 7 year old throw. It literally took my mother, grandmother and grandfather to keep me from jumping into the car with my dad as he got ready to deploy. I was a screaming fool, lashing out, fighting everyone, it got very violent. My dad had to literally push me away from the car and I remember tears streaming down his face. To this day I remember that...
Not a memory of war, but a weird true story. A second cousin of mine (my Mom's first cousin) enlisted in the army in 1943. He was killed in action in 1944 at Anzio, during the invasion of Italy. Apparently, this second cousin was the "spitting image" of...me. I saw pictures of him about 10 years ago, and we do look very much alike. Anyway, when I was 2 or so, my family went to a family gathering at a cousin's apartment in New York. I was in a stroller, and my Mom pushed me in (this was in 1963...nearly 20 years after my second cousin was killed). When my Mom's aunt, the mother of the second cousin who was killed, saw me in the stroller, she freaked out. She began screaming and crying uncontrollably, saying "that's my baby! that's my baby!". It took everyone in the room a half hour to calm her down.
My grandfather, who is still around, was stationed in the Phillipines as a Navy captain. After Pearl Harbor was struck, the Japanese launched an invasion of the Phillipines. My understanding is he and his shipmates left the ship they were on and took to the land to try and defend Corrigedor. Of course, the Japanese had overwhelming numbers and eventually captured the territory but not without facing some fierce land resistance. My understanding is my grandfather fought at a place called Monkey Point. My understanding is he fought bravely and killed several Japanese. My grandfather was eventually captured and forced into a prisoner of war camp. He was not on the infamous Bataan death march but was on another march. He spent four years as a POW where he basically lived on very little food. I was told he lived on a cup of rice a day. I could not begin to sum up the conditions he experienced during that time. I don't know a lot about his experiences because he never talked about them with me. I do know he is very proud of his service. I also know that there is a documentary filmed showing MacArthur greeting the POWs right after they were liberated from the camps that comes on the History channel and the like ever so often. In those moments, there is my grandfather...a sickly stick figure who weighed in the low 100s...smiling and shaking MacArthur's hand. It is very surreal to watch that on film.
My dad's adoptive father fought in the Pacific. Literally signed up before he was drafted. Carried a flamethrower and talked about the horrors of sealing up populated caves with fire. Then shot a Japanese soldier from his foxhole on a rainy night, seconds before the Japenese soldier was to plunge a bayonet in the hole. Brought home a Japanese dog tag that I still have (made of solid wood)....and a little funky bracelet made from metal from a crashed Japanese fighter with a shell glued on top. Was on a boat in the Pacific, on to the next island, when the news came over about the bomb drops and the end of the Pacific front. Scary stories. My wife's mother's father was in Europe...at the Battle of the Bulge. He still can't talk about a lot of it. Starts crying when he does. Says he nearly froze to death. Recounts playing dead a couple of times so as not to be killed by Nazi troops. Says that when he came back on a boat he saw the Statue of Liberty...and had a very surreal experience of thinking he was dead...not being able to contemplate that he was actually still alive, because he couldn't understand how he would have survived all that. Particularly when so many of his buddies were killed. The heroism from such normal people in the face of what I would call pure evil is staggering to me.
My Grandfather was in the Army Airforce in the Pacific during WWII as well. I have his wings he wore in battle on my desk. My father died in Vietnam before I ever got to meet him.
My dad was in the Air Force for 'nam and was a kid in what was Germany (is now Poland) during WWII. Needless to say I call him Forrest Gump with an umlaut over the u. He has thousands of war stories, but I guess I should start with the first. WWII had just ended and the Soviets were pushing all people back into Germany; and since our family was originally from Koln (which they had just moved from some 5 years prior) it was decided that they would be sent back there. Now mind you, my grandma had two children and one in the oven. So the family was marched by Soviet Troops, along with other families, back to Western Germany. He said along the way they had nothing to eat, would often raid farms when the troops weren't looking, and basically scraped by an existence. My Uncle was born on a wagon somewheres South of Munich. Eventually the family made it back to Koln, which had been bombed 95 %. They lived in a stairwell next to the Koln Cathedral, and my dad has basically never met a meal he didn't like, simply because of all the meals he never had when he was young.
One of my Grandfathers is buried in France. My Aunt has his medals from both the United States and France in a case on her shelf. My other Grandfather had 8 of his buddies killed by a mortar when it nailed their foxhole. He left with shrapnal in is body all over. They still have to go in and remove a peice now and then when it works its way to the surface. He was in North Africa at the time. He had already lost a toe, and taken a shot to the head (grazed him). 3 purple hearts. My adoptive Grandfather (the one that married my Grandmother later, actually the only one I grew up knowing) was in the Pacific. He was pretty well educated and could type well, so he was too "valuable" to fight. He was made a front line clerk that would send messages and stuff. He didn't see any real fighting, but had lots of buddies who did. One of my grandmothers riveted Mustang wings (the plane, not the car).
I have several recollections. I remember in Somalia, I was a young first sergeant, TAD to an infantry unit in California, had my stripes only a few months and yet I thought myself the baddest warrior of them all. I later found out how stupidly arrogant I was and how little I really knew. Anyway, we're doing this operation in the Mog and I hear this crack-crack and then a whizzzzzzzzzzzzz sound right by my ear. The first thought that went through my head was "that one was helluva mosquito," but no, it was a sniper. I rolled over and crouched behind the wreck of a car, yelled at my men along with the LT to get the hell down and I scanned for the sniper. I saw the glint off something and I saw him in a second-floor window, clutching a rifle. The dumbass had sunglasses on. I aimed, made his image fuzzy in my sights and ripped off a three-round burst in his general direction as my men did likewise. I saw him drop the rifle, slump and fall out of the window. Mind you all of this happened in like 15 seconds, but yet it felt as if it were a day-long event. I didn't come out of it until my lieutenant told me "Good shooting, sarge." I realized right then that everyday was a gift and how lucky my stupid ass was to not become one of the first casualties of what would later be a bloody failure. When I went to the Balkans, embarked aboard Kearsarge after returning to the East Coast after my TAD stint with the Hollywood Marines, I was a bit more seasoned, but nothing could have prepared me for the rescue of Scott O'Grady. When O'Grady's F-16 went down, I was part of the TRAP crew intended to pick him up. The waiting for any word on him seemed as if it took forever, but when we got the word, I was pumped. We boarded the CH-53 Echo helos and took off, bound for enemy territory. The mortar team I was a part of got out and set up a perimeter to protect the rescuers as they snatched O'Grady. The corpsmen grabbed him, we boarded our helos and left. However, the Serbians decided to lob some AAA and SAMs our way and I got a ride that makes anything at Six Flags seem downright slow in comparison! I was scared ****less and I hurled my cookies three times before we got into safe airspace. After that day, I never lived down my "Buick" nickname, as in Bew-yick....!!!! But it was great to be part (albeit small) of a great rescue and proof that when you need something done, call the Marines.
