11-11-2016, 11:57 AM
In Canada November 11 is Remembrance Day. Leading up to it there are many events that help turn our attention to our fallen and Veterans.
For me, it brings back memories of the stories my Uncle Al would tell me. The summer 1976 I had gone up to a town called Kaslo in the Kootenay region of British Columbia, to help him build his house. I was nineteen. Though we had spent thousands of hours together fishing on Kootenay lake he had hardly ever mentioned the war when we were together. Often while out fishing or when we were building his new house, a blank stare would come over his face and I knew he had slipped back to the horrors he had faced, but I never knew the details.
As the days and weeks passed the house went up and that stare would often be there. One day during a lunch break he just opened up with a horror story that occurred two days after he landed on Juno beach on D-Day. It involved the loss of his two best friends he had been with since he had signed up in 1939. Many other stories soon followed and I really learned a lot about where his mind would travel to when that blank stare would return to his face.
He signed up in 1939 when Canada declared war and immediately was sent to Europe. He finally got home in the fall of 1945. He had a very close family and had not seen them in over six years.
He had a good life after he got home even though he was often pulled back to a time he would rather forget.
He was my hero.
For me, it brings back memories of the stories my Uncle Al would tell me. The summer 1976 I had gone up to a town called Kaslo in the Kootenay region of British Columbia, to help him build his house. I was nineteen. Though we had spent thousands of hours together fishing on Kootenay lake he had hardly ever mentioned the war when we were together. Often while out fishing or when we were building his new house, a blank stare would come over his face and I knew he had slipped back to the horrors he had faced, but I never knew the details.
As the days and weeks passed the house went up and that stare would often be there. One day during a lunch break he just opened up with a horror story that occurred two days after he landed on Juno beach on D-Day. It involved the loss of his two best friends he had been with since he had signed up in 1939. Many other stories soon followed and I really learned a lot about where his mind would travel to when that blank stare would return to his face.
He signed up in 1939 when Canada declared war and immediately was sent to Europe. He finally got home in the fall of 1945. He had a very close family and had not seen them in over six years.
He had a good life after he got home even though he was often pulled back to a time he would rather forget.
He was my hero.