Another form the Greatest Generation Leaves us

[Tony Meola]

For those of you that have seen The Band of Brothers, one of the members of Easy Company has died at age 90.

http://xfinity.comcast.net/blogs/tv/201 ... _phillyitn

[Rawleigh]

They are slowly fading away. My Godfather who bought my boat new is 88. He was a Bosuns mate in the Pacific on a Destroyer Repair Ship. He was a 20mm gunner with one kamikaze to his credit and ran a landing craft at Okinawa.

He was stranded Okinawa for three days during the Typhoon after his ship sailed without him while he was ashore getting the mail. He, his bowhook and engineer spent those three days huddled in some rocks because the Japanese were still in the caves. After the storm passed two armed Japanese in full uniform came out of a nearby cave and approached their location. He killed them both with a Colt 38 revolver. He credits God with directing his aim, but his crew credited him with saving their lives! Needless to say his shipmates were surprised to see him when the ship returned waiting for them with a sodden sack of mail!

I knew that he was stranded on the island during the storm, but he did not reveal the fact that he had to kill the Japanese to any of us until last year. He came home and found some druggies ransacking his house. When I got there, before the police, I found him sitting in a chair holding both of them at gunpoint with an 870 riot gun! I guess no one told the younger kids not to mess with the old veterans!! After that he had nightmares again about the incident on the island. He told me about it because he thought he was loosing it until I explained to him how PTSD works. He said that he didn't shoot them because he didn't want to ruin his sofa and carpet!

They were a tough group. I don't know if this country could rise to such a level again.

[Tony Meola]

You know I always wonder how you could shoot someone, even in combat and not have it impact you. My father was in Europe. The only timehe ever mentioned shooting at someone, was when he talked about the end of the war when they were getting close to Berlin. He said they ran into young kids who Hitler had recruited at time into the army to fight.

I think that one bothered him a little. He said you would get shot at, then find out after the fact it was just a kid. Knowing you probably shot a kid has to be tough.

His other stories were pretty mild, who knows maybe on purpose. Although I say his dislike for former SS officers. He had a customer who my father swore to the day he died that the guy was an SS officer they grabbed trying to sneak around a liberated concentration camp acting as a civilian. Told us that was one person he would never forget. My father who was always pleasant with all of his customers, was nevernice to this guy.

My father-in-law is 86 now. He was in the Pacific. It seems that now that he is older, thinking about those times bothers him more than it did when he was younger. He stays away from war movies, even documentaries.

Funny it never seemed to bother him before.

[randall]

its really quite simple. they gave us everything we have.