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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRemembering my Grandfather on this day....
Last edited Mon May 25, 2015, 05:00 PM - Edit history (1)
I have fond memories of the gentle old man. I grew up watching him and my uncle glued to the sofa watching the Detroit Tigers or Lions lose. He was at Omaha and later lost three toes to frostbite while on sentry duty during what's now called The Battle of the Bulge. He never talked about it but a Bronze Star and Purple Heart did it for him. After the war he reenlisted and worked in a mail room in some base in Germany. Upon his return to the States he resumed his old job as a conductor on the Grand Trunk until his retirement. When he died at the age of 92 he received a quiet military funeral at Fort Custer in Battle Creek, Michigan.
I'm looking at the burial flag now thinking of his service. And thinking of how hard his life must have been to go through all of that while concealing that he was gay. He never lived to see the change.
Warpy
(111,276 posts)and was attached to the RAF as a civilian engineer. He wasn't drafted until 1944, after he'd been through North Africa and was sitting in Italy during an air raid. He always supposed they were just tired of paying his civilian salary.
His favorite war story was of a pilot who went off course during the Blitz and bombed a field of Brussels sprouts. Since they'd been eating them 3 times a day during the Depression followed by war rationing, the papers were full of trying to find out who the pilot was to award him the Victoria Cross for getting rid of a whole field of them.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,637 posts)Beautifully done, my dear Spitfire...
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)CountAllVotes
(20,876 posts)& recommend.
Wilms
(26,795 posts)And your grandfather.