For My Nephew, YURI

The last few days my nephew, Yuri 

and I have been texting about my Dad and his WWII days.

Yuri is my brother, Larry's son and out of

all the grandchildren, Larry's children know the least 

of our family stories because they

were brought up by their Momma in Brownsville.

Our text this time started because I had posted

an old photo of his Daddy as a child.

Which started questions he had...

"Did Poppee receive a Purple Heart?"

"Yes he did"

and I realized he had not heard the story of

why my Daddy was given this high reward.

After I texted Yuri the story, 

I realized that although I have blogged this before,

there are still some great grands of my Dad 

who may have not heard it so a retelling is warranted.

MY Daddy did not speak of WWII much,

those men and women who fought then

had not heard of PTSD so I believe they just put it out their mind.

However, there is one story I heard him tell

more than once and his point was of the

"Human contact"

My Daddy served in Okinawa long before my birth.

He was a morse code operator for a portion of the War

and that is all I know about what he did there.

He told me the day he got shot was the best day of his life.

I thought as a child this was a strange thing to say

as the bullet went in and out one thigh and lodged

into the bone of the second thigh causing him

to have fractures in those legs and a long recovery.

When asked why would this have been the best day of his life

we would say,

"Because I knew I was dying or going home"

After a long stay in a hospital in Germany, he was

then sent to the US to complete his recovery.

Although this story is enough to end the blog here,

it is not the best part of his story.

He remembers getting shot and falling to the ground.

The Japanese soldier who shot him went right up to 

him and pointed the gun at him,

My dad just knew he was going to die...

Instead he and the soldier made eye contact,

and the soldier put his gun down and walked away.

I have often though of this story my Daddy rarely told.

He would always end it with a statement about the human contact.

Making eye contact turned  two young soldiers

into men with families who were serving a War 

as they were trained to do.

It is one of my very favorite stories.

Thanks Yuri for reminding me that although

this story has been told here more than once,

there are still others who have not heard it.

A story that needs to be remembered for the ages...