Mason and I started our holiday weekend on Friday morning by baking some blackberry crumb bars,
Grandpa and I sat on the deck watching Grandma and Mason make mud pies while we enjoyed a piece of the dessert and conversation. These days our conversations revolve primarily around the house but this day we talked about things Grandpa has done in his life. His career and friendships with people like Jimmy Hoffa...politics and our similar beliefs...and than the conversation turned to War. World War II and his days as an Army machine gunner. Repelling down cliffs in the middle of the night with nothing but your rope and gun and taking out the enemy. Or waking up in your trench to find that your buddy is laying dead next to you, his throat slit in the middle of the night. Wondering why God took him and not you? He shared some fairly disturbing stories with me. The gore didn't affect me. It was sitting there looking at this man who has done so much in his lifetime and still after 67 years he thinks about the affects of war EVERYDAY! The friends who didn't come back and the ones that did. He left as an innocent 20 year old guy on a ship across the Atlantic and came back forever changed.
It definitely put a spin on my thoughts this memorial day. Gratitude is not a strong enough emotion.
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