LEST WE FORGET

I clicked on JR's story and realized today is the 90th anniversary of the day. 90 years. And I wonder if we've learned anything ...

I talked about the Second World War to my grandfather once, as I recall. He didn't like to talk about it, but he acquiesced because it was for a school project. I have no memory of the things he told me and I'm sure I lost the cassette tape many years ago.

By all accounts, however, he was a different man upon coming home from the war.

My other grandfather, as a farmer, didn't have to serve.

My most clear memory of veterans is of marching in the Remembrance Day parade as a Brownie and Girl Guide, standing in the cold rain (some reason, it always rained on R.D. when I was a kid), and watching the tears trickle down the faces of the old fellas as we honoured the dead with a minute of silence.

 

I had the WWII conversation with one of my grandfathers a few years ago. Boy, it wasn't anything like I was expecting. Instead of battlefield tales, I got stories of romps with local women in England and France.

I asked him if he shot a German and he said he didn't think so, but he did remember shooting at one - along with dozens of other troops. He was only on the battlefield long enough to get hit with a piece of shrapnel and sent home.

That piece of shrapnel stayed in his back until the day he died (before it was dug out and kept by one of my uncles). He used to gross us all out by showing the wound to us.

 

My grandfather once told me the story of the day his ship was hit by a torpedo during the Korean War. He was standing by the rail, smoking a cigarette when he saw the trail coming. He said it hit the hull just below the surface about 15 feet toward the bow of the ship from where he was standing. Amazing story.

When I joined the Army, many of my supervisors were Vietnam vets. My platoon sergeant -- a young private who's company was the first up Hill 937 -- told me stories that would make your skin crawl. They lost 120 percent of their soldiers in those 10 days.

I can't even fathom that.

 

I seriously disliked Flyboys. It was evident he didn't have enough information about the airmen, the centerpiece of the book, so he filled the rest with dumb stuff. I don't need a lecture about how the Japanese thought it OK to torture prisoners and annihilate the Chinese because the Americans screwed over the Indians.

Was The Longest Winter very good?

 

Despite the different title, it will always be Armistice Day for me. That's what I learned from my grandfather, who was in the Argonne Forest when the guns fell silent that morning.

Absolutely.

 

For Pop.
My oldest brother.
My 2nd oldest brother.
Uncle Laurie (short for Laurence).
Uncle James.
Uncle Bob — who spent three years guarding a weather station in Iceland during World War II and then survived the hell that was the Cho'sin Reservoir in the Korean War.
Uncle Ray.
Uncle Donald.
Uncle Joe.
Uncle Ski (KIA Korea).
Uncle Pat.
Uncle Jack.
Uncle Terry.
My grandfather.
Butch. Lou. Paul and Paul. The Bear. PJ. Gary, my hoops teammate at the Y. And hundreds of others I've been so incredibly fortunate to have met over the years.

 

Like many of us, I have family in Iraq.

I thank and salute them, and hope and pray they all come home soon.

 

RIP to my grandfather, who served in WWII and helped raise me as a boy.

There doesn't seem to be a grave in the tiny prairie cemetery where he is buried that doesn't house a vet from one of the world wars.

But they still managed to muster a full honor guard for his funeral, and the flag that draped his coffin is on top of the bookshelf as I type this.

I miss you.

 

So you're saying it looked like he picked the wrong week to keep smoking?

My dad was also in Korea, where he was wounded twice. He later served for 12 years with the reserves at home, and retired as a master warrant officer and company sergeant major.

Thanks, Dad.

 

Huggy Jr. was a wreath bearer in a Remembrance Day ceremony at his school. Thought that was great for him to be involved, even if he didn't know his great-grandfathers who were in the British and Canadian navies respectively in WWII, a grandafther who was in the British army in Korea and a great uncle who fought for Montgomery's 8th army in WWII and landed in Normandy.

I knew a lot of guys who were involved in peacekeeping roles with Canada in places like Cyprus, Africa and Bosnia.

To all those who served, and continue to serve, thanks.

 

I just realized that every Veterans Day during Bush's Presidency has been one in which we are at war, a mark that will never be topped.