I was raised by two vets. My dad and my grandfather. The below photo is my dad, who served in what was then called the Army Air Corp prior to and during WWII. He was stationed at Fort Richardson near Anchorage and then at some secret base in the Aleutian Islands “keeping an eye on the Russians” and eventually the Japanese as well. Eventually, he ended up in Okinawa, where he served until the very end of the war. I have pictures of him in Alaska and Okinawa, but for some reason, I love this photo of him sitting backward on a chair looking like he’s Liza Minnelli in Cabaret.
I also grew under the roof of my maternal grandfather. He’s the one on the ground in the middle in the next pic. He served in France during WWI as part of Company I, 128th Infantry, 32nd Division of the American Expeditionary Forces.
He was awarded the Croix de Guerre (The French Military Cross) which was awarded to soldiers from France or their allies who “distinguished themselves by acts of heroism involving combat with the enemy”. My grandfather was cited for “single-handedly capturing a German machinegun nest”. BAD ASS! You never would have known it from the gentle, good natured Schlitz and Milwaukee Braves loving man I knew as a child.
A short time later in the war he was wounded, taking shrapnel to his leg and head, as well as sustaining some permanent hearing loss. While he mostly recovered, years later he would lose his eyesight, something my family always suspected was a long-term result of the head injury. His inability to work after that is how my parents and mother’s parents ended up sharing a home for most of my childhood and how I essentially grew up with four parents.
Nary a day goes by when I don’t think of them, but understandably, Veteran’s Day is always a good day for me to reflect on what they both meant to me and what they did for their country.
