Just another guy.

[Caldwell]

I wanted to write this because I'm nineteen, I have a nice life with nothing out of the ordinary. I get angry over a video game and worried about college.

 

At the age of nineteen, my grandfather was watching bullets whistle past him while he manned the twin fifty cals. mounted in the tail of a B-24. His first day up, he was assigned to a B-24 that still had blood on the controls from where the previous gunner had been shot. He made friends that died the next day when their planes spiraled down engulfed in flames. Upon completing his thirty-fifth mission, he was allowed to return home. The day after he got off the plane, it went missing.

 

He's mostly deaf now from those guns going off by his ears and he is starting to forget things, but he still remembers everyone that he flew with to this day. I'll never forget what he told me when I asked him about the war, "We were just kids doing our jobs. Didn't matter if we died or not, we had a job to do and we did it." It's not very profound or nothing that I haven't heard, but when he said it, he sounded so nonchalant, made it sound as if staring down death in an aluminum crate every day was ordinary. In my mind, he will always be a great American hero, but to the rest of the world, he was just another guy.

 

If you have any relatives in the service or just someone you would like to share about, please post it.

[My_Other_Car_Is_A_Tank]

Ironically enough, I have a great-grandfather who served with the Japanese. He died. I know nothing about him, not even which branch he served with. But I lost, so it's not something I can be proud of. I always feel somewhat guilty every Veteran's Day.

[Camo68]

It was a different generation, and a different way of coping. My grandfather was the same, though there was only so much he was willing to share from an emotional perspective.

 

One quote that has stuck with me though that does put things in perspective was from Kith Miller a famous cricketer (sportsman) responding to a question about pressure in an international cricket match “Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your [edited], cricket is not.”.

[Linnart]

I'm close to you in age OP, 20 in fact, and my Grandfather has served during the war as well. He had joined up in early 1944 then sent to the Ardennes where he participated in the Seige of Bastogne. The division he served under was the 15th Panzergrenadier Division. A few years after the war, my grandparents had moved to the United States and became naturalized citizens. He does not talk much about the war only in generalities of places he's been to,

 

Luckily our family still has him with us as he lives nearby us in Florida. I know there is a lot of angst towards German veterans, but he is a good man.

[Aduial]

I'm close to you in age OP, 20 in fact, and my Grandfather has served during the war as well. He had joined up in early 1944 then sent to the Ardennes where he participated in the Seige of Bastogne. The division he served under was the 15th Panzergrenadier Division. A few years after the war, my grandparents had moved to the United States and became naturalized citizens. He does not talk much about the war only in generalities of places he's been to,

 

Luckily our family still has him with us as he lives nearby us in Florida. I know there is a lot of angst towards German veterans, but he is a good man.

Yeah, i think it's a mistake to have harsh feelings to those who served in the Axis armies during WW2. Most of the military men were just doing what they were told to do. 

[Vekta408]

Ironically enough, I have a great-grandfather who served with the Japanese. He died. I know nothing about him, not even which branch he served with. But I lost, so it's not something I can be proud of. I always feel somewhat guilty every Veteran's Day.

 

​For what it's worth, my grandfather had friends who served in the Japanese army. During one of the battles he was apart of in the south pacific he bumped into him on the battle field. They didn't fight. He didn't say much else about it. As far as the enemy went he gave me the impression that he understood his friend was just trying to survive the fighting like he was. Like Caldwell's grandfather...just doing their jobs for their own country or their own personal reasons. Both sides did horrible things. The important thing is to remember our grand fathers for what they stood for, at least in our own minds.