In my father and grandfather’s little wholesale plumbing supplies business we had.
Grandfather - immigrant, Clerk, Edgewood Arsenal, WW1
Father - Chemical Warfare Service, WW2, got very ill and wasn’t allowed to deploy to Europe
Driver - US Navy
(One short time driver - US Army Europe, drove captured Germans to POW camps. Drove SS off of cliffs).
Salesman - No. Africa, Air Force or Army
Salesman - US Army 1950’s - tanks
Sales Rep. to us - one was tanks, 1950’s
Another One was an ordnance armorer - England
Hebrew School(3) teachers - Auschwitz - never spoke about it
Hebrew School teacher - US Army, camp liberator, told us a little
Delicatessen store owners - Auschwitz and Poland woods
Deli staffer - Auschwitz
High school teachers - WW2
Junior HS teachers - never spoke about it
My present day Dermatologist - Father - 1 of 2 Death March survivors - Lithuania
His mother - 7 slave labor camps, escapee
My Dermatologist - born in a DP camp
My uncle - Army Judo Instructor, Aircraft maintenance officer- got his back broken during work
Most of my early neighborhood served WW2 - didn’t talk about it
We were lucky grouping up. We lived amongst the “quiet heroes”. Many of today’s kids have no “heroes” unless they had someone in their family who served in Desert Storm, OIF (my son and son-in-law), Afghanistan or Kosovo (again, my son-in-law, whose son was a Marine too).
My father-in-law, WW2 - Saipan, Eniwetok, Kwajalein, Iwo Jima
“We lived amongst the “quiet heroes”.”
Yes, we did. My father (Army) and his brother (Navy) were two of them. We kind of knew many were around us, but it just wasn’t spoken of. I remember noticing men that limped, or had a gimpy arm, or were very hard of hearing.
As to an unexciting life growing up for us kids — those vets were thankful to be home safe with a wife, some beer in the fridge, a job, kids, and TV to distract their thoughts. They weren’t after any ‘thrills’; they’d had plenty.
Our WWII vets are fading away now, mostly gone. We their children are left to remind others of their sacrifices.