Posted by Sherman in Idaho [108.162.246.20] on Wednesday, June 21, 2017 at 11:34:12 :
The last WWII vet I know died yesterday, a couple days short of turning 90. Nicest grumpy old cuss I ever knew. Told me his father married one of the "upstairs gals" (This being Wallace). Skinny-dipped in the creek as a boy, so when the war came he joined the Navy. Sold coal and dynamite all his working years until the railroad tore up his siding and he built an R.V. park where the coal bunker had been. Had a good long life, but getting old is hell. It's weird to think the WWII men are all gone now. Lost the 2nd-to-last a year ago, also just short of turning 90.
I think of my dad's B17 stories I grew up with. I have artifacts -- a curling celluloid ID card, Army Air Corps cap, navigator's computer, silk escape and evasion map, and a couple of .50 cal shells. He told war stories all the time until one day he must have just gotten them all out because he stopped and I couldn't get him to tell any more. All those men with all their war stories and then all their long, quiet, hard-working lives building our America. And now the last one (at least in my world) is gone.
Follow Ups: