At the golf course today

[reddogge]

I walked by the car an older couple got out of and noticed his WWII sticker. On the putting green I mentioned the sticker and asked the gentleman if he fought in the big one and he said he did. He was a radio operator/tail gunner on a B25 in the Pacific Theater and flew 39 combat missions, mostly bombing and strafing. His plane also flew escort for the Japanese delegation for the signing of the surrender. He was a genuinely nice man to talk to. He was 91 years old. He said a lot of his friends didn't survive the war.

Our group was behind him on the second nine and he walked with a spring in his step and played pretty fast for a man of his age. In fact his group played faster than the 4 bozos in front of us on the front nine who didn't have a clue.

A great honor to meet and talk to him.

 

[Deputy Dawg Gone]

There are just not many of those left. They were our heroes. Still are!!

 

[Rastoff]

My next door neighbor is 91. I love to sit with him and just chat in the afternoons. He was a belly gunner and flew 6 missions over Germany in WWII. I just can't remember the plane though.

 

[JJEH]

My wife's Grandfather was an ammo guy (linking the belts together) and one of her uncles was was belly gunner as well, b/c he was short.

 

[reddogge]

He and his wife got paired with two other ladies and the two ladies didn't have a clue as to how to play fast and keep the thing moving. The vet and his wife played smarter and faster at their advanced age.

 

[arjay]

I had an uncle in the 10th mtn division.Hated the snow and cold and managed to transfer out.They sent him to the South Pacific.He never talked about it.My aunt told me he made it through without a scratch.I didn't buy it.

 

[george minze]

Truly the Greatest Generation.....Not to down play those who serve now...It is not their fault we can't seem to make up our minds why and when and what to fight....It is not those who go into harms way that have a problem it seems those who sent them can't agree on anything these days.....God bless.....Semper Fi...

 

[BearBio]

While I was in SoCal, we rented a house from a friend. The neighbor was a soft-spoken kindly man and we became pretty good over-the-fence friends. Woody, our landlord, had been born in the house we rented and grew up knowing "Andy". One day Woody and I got talking and he told me "Andy's" story.

One of Andy's earliest memories was standing next to his older brother defending/holding a bridge against retreating panzer SS in Hungary. His brother died and Andy was 12.

In 1956, Andy was part of the Hungarian Uprising. He was arrested and imprisoned. He escaped and fled to France. In the process, he had to kill 2 Red Guards. Somehow, in the process, he broke is back and spent a year in a French hospital. Emigrated to Quebec and eventually to British Columbia, where he met his wife (Ironically, she was from Quebec). The moved to SoCal and became US citizens. Andy once told me that was the proudest day of his life.

And, lest we forget: I once had a Jewish boss. He told me he remembered hearing Hitler speak at his school before WWII. He was in England when his parents wired him not to come home. I met his mother and noticed she had a 6 digit tattoo==a number preceded by an "A".

Some served in other ways!

 

[arjay]

Most of the adults I knew growing up had been civilians in the war in Europe.I have a neighbor that was born somewhere in Eastern Europe.Under Stalin's rule his mother was murdered and what was left of his family fled to Germany and spent the war there.My mom was a kid during the blitz,she rarely talks about it..My father was in Switzerland waiting for the invasion that never came.When Patton started to move,he and some friends began smuggling american fliers out.They knew Hitler was beaten.