On 2014-07-25 20:48, wrote:

> I don't think ANYBODY's dad spoke about anything to do with WW II. My
> uncle had what we now know as PTSD. My dad just talked about how
> nice the locals were; how grateful, and how he liked their food. It
> took my wife's uncle 60 years to talk about Iwo Jima, where he had
> been in the weapons company of the 28th Regiment. The 28th's Easy
> Company supplied the men that raised the flag above Mt. Suribachi.
>


All my friends had all sorts of grandiose stories about what their
fathers had done during the war. All my father did was work on ground
crew, servicing Spitfire and Hurricane fighters, and that he spent the
last year of the war in British Columbia. At least, that is all he had
told us.

It was not until I was almost 18 that I learned that there was much
more to that. A guy from Denmark contacted him wanting to interview him
about his war time experience. It turned out that he had been a flight
engineer (co pilot) in a bomber and on his 19th operational flight the
plane was shot down over Denmark. He was the sole survivor of the crash
and is documented as being the first Allied airman to escape from
occupied Denmark.
The reason he was in BC was that that after having been in contact
with the Danish Resistance, he was not allowed to fly over Europe again.
He was sent out there as a flight instructor.

On Fri, 25 Jul 2014 21:01:55 -0400, Dave Smith
> wrote:

> All my friends had all sorts of grandiose stories about what their
> fathers had done during the war. All my father did was work on ground
> crew, servicing Spitfire and Hurricane fighters, and that he spent the
> last year of the war in British Columbia. At least, that is all he had
> told us.

I think the ones who do the least talk the most. One of our friends
who can't stop talking about the Viet Nam war was something akin to a
typist. In college, I had a friend who carried the body bags off
airplanes. He said he knew what condition the body was in if the bag
sagged or not.

--
All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt.