I’ve known veterans all my life, you know because there was still a draft going on and nearly everyone had served during my youth. But there are some who I wished that I had asked more questions of when I had the opportunity. <\/p>\n
In the neighborhood where I grew up, there was a fellow who seemed old to me (he was probably 65 or so) who would take us boys in his garage and show us his uniform from World War I, his helmet, his gas mask, his bayonet. He’d tell us stories about “going over the top” of trenches to charge into a terrifying wall of machinegun fire simply because someone blew a bugle. Today, there are so many questions I’d ask him, but he’s long gone.<\/p>\n
My Uncle Barney who had married my grandfather’s sister fought across the Pacific with the Marines in World War II. He showed me his only war trophy – a Japanese helmet with a single bullet hole in it. You can probably guess the story he told me about it. But it was the only time we ever talked about his experiences. His wife, my Great-Aunt Edith, was a repository of the story about the “war at home”. She had piles of memorabilia related to the war years, posters and newspaper clippings. I remember a huge jar of steel pennies that she had saved when copper was more useful in war machine production. But, now that I know what to ask them, Uncle Barney and Aunt Edith along with their souvenirs are gone.<\/p>\n
Across the street from my boyhood home, my best friend’s father had been a Marine in the Korean War and had survived the retreat from Chosin. He never talked about his experiences, like most heroes we’ve known over the years. He was proud of being a Marine, but that’s where his stories ended. He left us a few years ago from cancer, long after I had moved away and lost contact with them.<\/p>\n
Not all of my missed opportunity were related to the military and war. My grandfather once hinted that my grandmother was a flapper (which explains my fascination with F Scott Fitzgerald novels) and that he had built Model Ts in Detroit after the war (he turned 18 just a few weeks before the war ended). My father tells me that my grandfather sold bootleg bathtub gin out of his small store to the local constabulary during Prohibition.<\/p>\n
Their stories were the story of America. I feel as if I cheated myself out of a great education because I didn’t bother to dig into their memories while they were still here. I spent most of my adult years reading reams of books and primary sources about those years, it was probably a reason that one of my majors in college was history, but I still can’t beat this feeling that I missed something by not asking questions.<\/p>\n
I guess my point is that history lives all around us and the fact that we don’t make the effort to force that history out of the real heroes, we’ll live to regret that, because the real heroes of the American Story won’t just tell us.<\/p>\n
By the way, I’ve taken every opportunity to drag the stories out of my Vietnam veteran uncle. I learned my lesson. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"