Just like Cement Man, I too grew up wearing a canteen belt, playing solder fighting both the Gerries and the Japs. We even had the guns our Dads brought back and played shooting each other with them. My friend had an old Jap 7.7, I carried a 6.5 Carcano. No one had ammunition for them and our fathers thought ammo could not be gotten so they gave them to us to play with.
Those men did what needed to be done, came home and went on with life. in many cases their families never knew what they went through. The country will always owe them a big debt.
My wife's father was the belly gunner on a B-17. He never talked about the war to his family, till after his daughter joined the military. He did talk to her and I. It was like he had to get it off his chest. Yet he only told us about things that happened while flying, and how he felt about what he had done. After his death my wife was able to get his records. He never told anyone he had survived being shot down three times. Once behind enemy lines, and being captured by German forces, then escaping and making it back to American lines.
Most of those Vets are now gone, and many never told their stories. At the end of the war they were told to keep quite about what they had seen and done, and like good solders they did just that. Families never knew what they actually went through. Or of the experience from their eyes and point of view.
Salute to our many quite HEROS and COMRADES.
