Unrecognized HEROES !

[S.S.]

There is an Old Fella that goes to my fathers Church that was a WWII
Navy man. I got to talking to him a little and found out that he is suffering from mid stage
Alzheimers(sp). I listened well to everything he said as the great story he told
could have been lost forever. He was on six different ships that were sunk by the Japanese!
Two apparently on the same day! One was sunk, then the ship that picked up survivors
was sunk also.
I could not imagine being on one ! The last ship he was on was the USS Atlanta.(one of them)
If I understood him correctly, He still has over 70 fragments of metal from the Atlanta still in him. most too small to remove back then. Metal Dust I guess.
He helped rescue as many other men as he could before he was wounded too severly to continue.
He did all this with his Eye blown out and hanging on his cheek. Whle talking to him, I found out that his wife has kept a book for years writing down what he has told her ! I am going to talk to her about trying to get it published. The Captain of the Atlanta received the Medal of Honor.

[hardertr]

Folks like that are AMAZING!  It always shocks me when I meet an older gentleman that doesn't seem like he would have much interresting to talk about...then stories of WWII come out.

I had  a great-great uncle that would tell WWI stories..talk about CRAZY times.

Sadly, it seems harder and harder to find WWII vets now as well.

[TrenchMud]

A guy I work with was in Viet - Nam Kind of against his will ....
He didn't enlist, He wasn't drafted, A judge Sent him instead of sending him to Prison. Now to this day, he will not tell me what he did to get in trouble. All he says is that he deserved what the judge did. I have never seen someone with as many physical battle scars as he has. He will not
go without his shirt because of them. The last injury he sustained was from being in a Huey that
was shot down. He fell out about 15 feet above the ground and the Skid of the helo crushed both of his legs just below the knee when it hit the ground. He was in country one month shy of three years. According to him he was never supposed to come home in the first place. The judge thought it would be a death sentence sending him there. This man fought for almost three years
was wounded terribly multiple times, recieves no medical or VA benefits because of the circumstances that put him there. And I have never once heard him feel sorry for himself.
I have seen him with tears running down his face from the pain of walking down the hallway
on his pinned together legs and he never makes a sound.. Whatever he did must have been terrible
because he sees all of this still as deserved punishment for it. I think his Debt to society should be paid by now.