It’s been almost a year since my grandfather passed away. He was just a few days shy of turning 90 years old. Like many men from his generation, my grandfather served in World War II; he was stationed in England, then in Italy, and then in northern Africa on the Mediterranean.
It wasn’t until I visited him one summer as an adult that he took me aside and finally shared some of his wartime memories with me. As we flipped through a photo album of hundreds of pictures of him and his fellow soldiers as very young men, boys really, he would point and mention how this person was a great lad but didn’t make it home, and this other man was as brave as they come and a true friend to him. My personal favorite photo: a row of 5 or 6 young soldiers, my grandfather included, buck naked in the desert except for the hats they held covering their you-know-whats…the Mediterranean is in the background.
There was a newspaper article describing how my grandfather had survived an enemy attack flying overhead by taking cover behind a cactus. Another article in the paper was a letter he had written home to the people of Dover, Delaware; you could sense his sadness at being so far away. A third article was accompanied by a picture displaying my grandfather in a hospital robe. He had contracted malaria while in Africa, and suffered relapses for years after returning home.
This Memorial Day weekend my grandfather is dearly in my thoughts. I’ve always had great admiration for him, but his absence has somehow made me even more aware of how amazing he was.
Thank you, Grandpa, for enduring all that you did. I am really missing you today and am so proud of you.
To all of our veterans and military personnel serving currently, thank you. I truly can't fathom what many of you have been through, and I thank you for doing what I'm incapable of.
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