[Gay State Conservative]

My Dad was an essential civilian employee during WWII...he designed and built missiles for the Navy. So I didn't get any war stories from him...other than stories about the missiles,which were very interesting.

My SIL's Dad,OTHOH,fought in Europe and was wounded.At his funeral she told me that he *never* spoke about it to anyone.

I've heard it said many times that that's the way is usually is with combat vets...if they talk about it at all it's only with their brothers-in-arms.

[I got the rope]

my wife’s granddad and I spoke about his time in Europe with the 36th infantry. The battles and being captured by the germans and held prisoner for almost 2 years.

he was 85 years old at the time and no one the family...not even has son had heard those stories he was telling me. We both served in the Army. You are right. Sometimes the only people vets can talk to are other vets.

[Chainmail]

On the other hand, there are combat veterans like me, who sometimes feel compelled to talk about our war and our experiences - sometimes even on this forum.

I remember going through this routine when I was in OCS, after my time in Vietnam, and I was telling my fellow Candidates about a particular experience and one of the Candidates told me that "real combat veterans are silent and don't discuss their experiences - look at that other Candidate (a former sergeant who never said anything to anyone) - he is quiet about his experiences - who knows what he may have seen".

I realized that nobody wanted to hear about my experiences, so I stopped telling them anything.

When we graduated and put our officer's uniforms on for the first time, I got wear my ribbons - which include a Bronze Star with "V" and a Purple Heart - and the silent former sergeant had just one ribbon: the National Defense Service ribbon.

It all depends on who you are and how your experiences affected you.

[Portcall24]

One of the reasons the VFW was started after WWI was because the combat veterans needed a place to share without judgment. An elderly friend told me about their experience in the 1950s in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. A number of families and friends would gather after church on Sunday for a dinner. After dinner the ‘men folk’ would go out on the porch to relax, smoke and share stories. Often it turned to their experiences in WWII. The women would stay inside with the window open to get a breeze inside the house. They say while the men were talking and sharing their experiences, the women were silent. Because they were listening to stories shared by their loved-ones. Stories that the loved-ones did not feel appropriate to be shared with their wives and daughters.