He passed away 10 years ago and this picture's a few years older than that but I'm still proud of him. My grandpa was in the US Navy during World War II and fought off the USS Yorktown. Not a lot of his crew came home and even fewer are left today.
As navigator he led his pilot and himself on bombing runs over Iwo Jima.
He attempted to help out a commanding officer on R&R once but was told to "f--- off". The commanding officer was sunning himself on the beach while intoxicated. The commanding officer was court marshaled for damaging government property when he return to ship with his second degree sunburn and was sick. I think my grandpa probably chuckled.
His ship ran out of fresh water and the country bumpkin from the farm in Nebraska knew it was silly to drink salt water and was one of the few of the crew who did not get sick.
His squadron was returning from a mission and the lead pilot took the group the WRONG way back to the ship. My grandpa quietly convinced his pilot to take the lead and get the group of planes back to the ship. It worked.
Those last three stories he told me about, the bombing runs over Iwo Jima I didn't know about until we packed up his dresser two summer's ago at Grandma's house. We found his flight log book. Perfect handwriting, detailed without being wordy. 'Flight to "so and so" today. Bullet damage to right wing.' Yeah, scary!
So take a moment today and the rest of this week after Veteran's Day to remember those who fought for us and those who are fighting. Cherish the stories they told you and take a moment to consider what they didn't tell you. These young men and woman did things most of us can't even consider doing.
For them...THANK YOU!
For Grandpa...MISS YOU! Take care of mom, will ya?
No comments:
Post a Comment