My grandfather had the most frontline time of anyone in WWII. He could not talk about it at all. The reporters and History channel used to come around and try to get an interview from him. He would just go out to the garage and fire up the lawn mower so they would leave him alone. I didn't learn much about his unit until after he passed and I read the book written about his unit and could understand better why he couldn't talk about it. I do remember him and my dad arguing about war at night when they thought the rest were asleep.
There are more stories like yours than many would understand... it may be a rare thing for one generation to truly understand their parents or other’s experiences. It can happen, sometimes. I speak from the long rather dumb at times fumbling journeys of my own. And that has truly touched those that I touched and should/could have done better and different had my own father not been crippled in heart and soul by his survival of being a prisoner and the Bataan Death March. I know little of his experience personally....one evening he was crying talking to his Mom, my Grandma Bessie, a great elemental woman who lived and raised him in the STICKS and high plains of Pie Town, New Mexico ...Cowboy raised, cattle/horseback. He said a couple of sentences to her of his imprisonment and cried. I remember the short story of 4-5 sentences. I was very young, he was an alcoholic, we didn’t connect, he loved us I know but I didn’t learn many things about more than just that. There’s too much in just a space to put to words here. So, I’m trying to say I have slowly understood more from sources, my life, a book...”Unbroken” about Japanese prisoner treatment and its culture behind it, the effect on different men. What is currently showing now, “The Last Full Measure”, is one of the best, in one film, story that is of one instance of valor, and expands into a full scope of lives it touched spanning over 30 years until a certain, for those...measure of healing, something not all receive or graced to experience at all. The movie is a must watch, for everyone that will, it will unfold the hidden pain and crippling effect battle does leave inside, daily guilt, regret, and sorrows, memories, unending until maybe somehow something...someone does, shares, cares. This does not say it all. You simply must see it ....and, be ready...be ready. There are so many each veteran’s life touches how it does, it does not stay to him alone. Even if he never mentions it, it is there inside, always, coloring his choices and ability to live life, their life. Just watch, period.
