Posted on 06/06/2024 11:00:50 AM PDT by Leaning Right
I post this story once a year, usually on June 6 or on Veterans Day. I’m putting the story in the Comment box because I’m not sure of the formatting here.
If anyone has a similar story, please share it.
Back when I was in my 20s I worked security for a major university. One of the campus cops - I’ll call him Bill - was older than most of us. He was also fat and slow.
Bill didn’t look anything like those slick cops you see on TV. Some of the younger campus cops made fun of him. Bill never said anything back. He just took it.
Well, one day Bill brought a briefcase to roll call. He didn’t say a word. He just opened up his briefcase in front of us. In that briefcase were citations and rows of medals. Bill was an Army Ranger who landed on D-Day.
Nobody made fun of Bill after that.
The last day of our honeymoon in 2000 we were in Paris...i had no desire to see Paris rather i wanted to go to the D-Day beaches. On a whim and knowing i’d probably not be back we got on a train to Caen, rented a car and did all the D-Day beaches and museums.
It was an unreal experience.
Had a childhood friend. His Dad was a gruff man. A quiet man, got angry quickly when kids stepped out of line. Liked to drink on weekends. He provided well for his family, but he put the fear of God into us kids
As young kids, we would sneak into their attic and look at his Father’s war memorabilia, in a box buried under junk in a corner. My friend was SOOO afraid we would be discovered.
I remember some of the items clearly - a bronze star, two Purple Hearts, a German SS knife of some kind, his Army graduation photos, and photos of Mr. Clark as a skinny 20 year-old, somewhere in Europe - with his unit, humping a machine gun, riding atop a Sherman tank
As a kid I thought - “this stuff is cool as hell, it ought to be on display in the living room”
Only later it become clear to me - his Dad wanted it hidden in the attic, and wanted a clean break between that time, and his later days as a suburban father and real-estate agent.
During the war in Afghanistan, I decided to volunteer at Walter Reed Hospital.
They put me on the Amputation Ward.
My respect for our military men and women went through the roof and is never coming down!!!
“his Dad wanted it hidden in the attic, and wanted a clean break between that time, and his later days as a suburban father and real-estate agent.”
When I was growing up, everyone’s Dad was a WWII vet. They never ever talked about it. Quite a contrast to today. I really wonder which way is healthier.
Not uncommon for Our Warriors from that Era. My Father was Army Air Corps in WWII and He was very tight lipped about those days. I know that He was a Flight Engineer in C-47/C-54 and that's about it.
Oh yeah- while on KP He learned that the Hams were so salty from the curing process and the way to fix that was cooking all the Potatoes with the Ham and that would draw the salt out of the meat and flavor the Potatoes.
This was posted by another FReeper years ago under the title “You could have heard a pin drop”, as one of several stories. I neglected to save the screen name, or I’d give the credit due.
Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on. “You have been to France before, monsieur?” the customs officer asked sarcastically. Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously. “Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.”
The American said, “The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it.” “Impossible. Americans always have to show their passports upon arrival in France!”
The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained, “Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
I vote for the "talk to people who ask to hear about what you experienced" side.
It helps somewhat - particularly if the people you're talking to come from similar experiences. But I believe that keeping everything in the past and avoiding it is the fast track to suicide or submerging yourself into drink or drugs.
I knew some WWII vets who talked about their experiences - a tanker who led his tank platoon through the Bocages of Northern France, a girlfriend's dad who landed in the initial waves on Omaha Beach (had five wooden bullets in his leg and crawled up to a crashed German staff car and looted the glove box for souvenirs), and of course, my uncle who flew a P-51 750 miles one-way from Iwo to Japan (and had three kills), and one Stuka pilot (!) and two former German POWs who were sent to camps in the US and they all seemed healthier to me.
My father also was Army Air Corp. He was on New Guinea and was there on Leyte island when MacArthur waded ashore and said “I have returned”.
He was injured twice in the battle for the Philippeans. Returned home on a hospital ship.
Dad told us lots of stories but never told about the battles. Except that a Jap had smashed all of his top teeth out with the butt end of his rifle. He was shot in the head and in the lower abdomen. Which became infected. Requiring six weeks in the hospital/ship.
Great story!
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=542692334169601
This is my wife’s Grandfather. We were in Normandy 2 years ago. He was an incredible man.
salt tatters...
My grandpa Stan landed with the 4th Infantry Division. He was wounded by indirect fire the next day while pushing inland. The war was over for him. He spoke very little of it until going back for the 50th anniversary.
In college I had a photography professor who was German. His story of DDay was slightly different.
He was on a V1 crew. After they were staffed and bombed, he said, “We hauled ass out of there and didn’t stop until we hit the Riviera.
He was an 18 year old kid who got drafted off the farm. He said he couldn’t wait to surrender…”but not on D Day. It did not look like they were friendly.”
As a kid, all of the neighborhood Dads were vets. The quietest jumped into France. He knew the guy who got hung up on the church. It’s something how the biggest bad asses are usually the ones you wouldn’t suspect.
Yes, a great one. Wish I knew to whom to give credit.
Years ago, as a deacon at our church (I was around 30 years old at the time) I went and visited an elderly couple at the nursing home. The wife was very talkative while the husband sat slumped quietly in his chair with a sleeveless t-shirt on.
A break in her talking gave me the opportunity to comment on his anchor tattoo and try to get him involved in the conversation - he hadn’t said anything after our first hello and hand shake.
“So your tattoo - were you in the navy?”
Wife: “Harry was a Higgins boat driver.”
Me : “Oh - the landing craft.”
He looked up at me with his head cocked - “Hmm - not many people know that.”
Wife: “Harry was at D-Day.”
He didn’t say anything. I just got up and shook his hand without saying anything. “Thanks for your service” seemed lame.
After that he started talking quite a bit. The family that he raised, the small businesses he owned over the years, etc.
I was 13 and visiting my dad, everyone was asleep and I was watching “The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944)” on the little TV in the living room when my dad walked in front of the TV in his underwear heading for the bathroom, he stopped for a moment and said ‘that was my ship, the Marblehead, we had to leave him and our wounded in Java (as their barely floating ship fled the Japanese), later FDR mentioned the Marblehead and that journey in one of his fireside chats.
If not for peeing I may never have known about the USS Marblehead.
I had an uncle who landed on Normandy on D-Day.
The one comment that I remember him saying was that they all thought they were all going to die that day.
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