One of my grandfathers was approaching 40, with a wife and 2 daughters, when WWII began - my father was a late-in-life baby, born in 1943 - so he was largely exempt from military service. He was, nevertheless, a member of the Naval Reserve. AFAIK, he did absolutely nothing interesting during the war.
My mother’s father, along with both of his brothers, enlisted immediately after Pearl Harbor. Granddaddy was transferred around a bit, his medical records were misplaced about 3 times, he received about 3 sets of vaccinations due to the paperwork snafus, and then he was mustered out of the army on a medical discharge. (He was completely blind in his left eye due to a childhood accident. He could do everything except march on the right flank of a formation. Nevertheless.) So he spent the war driving a taxi in Hinesville, Georgia, home of Camp/Fort Stewart/“Camp Swampy.”
My husband’s grandfathers had more exciting WWII experiences. Pepaw served with what’s now designated the 36h Combat Engineers. He arrived in North Africa in 1942, and in Berlin in 1945, with a few dramatic moments in between. (During the Anzio landing and subsequent 50-day battle for that little toehold on the European mainland, the unit earned their nickname from the Germans: The Little Seahorse Division.)
Other grandfather-in-law graduated medical school in 1938, along with his wife, and both joined Dr. Bill’s father’s practice. In 1942, Dr. Bill and his father, Dr. George, turned the practice over to Dr. Katherine and joined the war effort. Dr. George remained stateside, mostly doing intake exams for GIs, while Dr. Bill served as a medical officer in the South Pacific - mostly New Guinea.
Meanwhile, back at State Matata Manor - heading out to take rescue supplies to The Boy as he camps out for prizes at the local Krispy Kreme grand opening. Heroism takes different forms!
You gotta go in & say, quite loudly, that you won’t work with <name of person you got in fight with last week> anymore so today’s my last day.
How did he end up in pecan trees? My guess is he wasn’t too good at ‘steering’ airplanes…or parachutes. :eek: :o
…or what Ruble said
Wanna go to the dance club? You take your good foot & my good foot & go out on the dance floor. I’ll take the two bad ones & sit at the bar. See how helpful I am.
If the doctor gives me clearance on Fri, I going to walk the dog on Sun/go to class on Sun. Could I get a raincheck til next weekend because “Doctor-Evil-sharks-with-frikkin-lazer-beams-sort-of-way.” sounds really intriguing. I even have an awesome Steelers jersey I could wear. Some meanplayer gave it to me when I gave him a Coke in the tunnel when I was a kid.
Home at last! I’ve got poke chops in the toaster oven baking for supper. Sides will be Amish green beans and probably instant smashed N.O.T.s. The weather is gorgeous - sunny and mild - all the more gorgeous after the soggy week that preceded it.
Seriously, the reservation is almost 300,000 acres of pine trees, scrub oaks,sand hills, and swamps. And it was a fairly miserable place to be during WWII - at some points, it housed over 50,000 GIs, plus German and Italian POWs, with virtually no facilities. It didn’t even exist as a military camp until 1940, and was adjacent to a town with a population of about 500 people at that time. And then Pearl Harbor happened, and it was bonkers. The lucky soldiers were sleeping in quonset huts, but the vast majority were in tents, in the swamp, fighting mosquitoes and sand gnats and ticks and godawful humidity and heat.
Meanwhile, in the town of Hinesville, the economy was booming, but the housing shortage was dire. Uncle Sam was buying up land for the installation, creating something like a refugee crisis in the surrounding area - every house was packed to the gills, families were living in tents and huts, stores and saloons were being installed in hastily built shacks. Bonkers.
My grandfather’s family was among those displaced, along with a branch of my husband’s family. Once per year, the army allows folks to go visit the cemeteries in the 3 little towns that don’t exist any more. (Which is a little sad, but honestly? Those graveyards are better-tended than a hundred other abandoned ones in the area. So we’ll call it even, I guess.)
I came in to share my blurf and y’all kindly distracted me with your lovely stories.
On the blurf front, I just have the blues today I guess. Can’t seem to get much interest in doing much. This stresses me out, which makes me blue. I hate days like today. Hopefully tomorrow will go better.
I whiffed the registration deadline for the scout weekend, so the sprog will be home with me. Which thrills him to no end, I’m sure. He’d rather be out with his buddies [del]raising hell[/del] learning valuable skills than helping his poor ailing mother. Them’s the breaks.
Peaches, JEB Stewart had quite a few military installations named for him in the south. I live across the street from the former Stewart Army Airfield, later Stewart AFB before it closed. I also live down the street from JEB Stewart Drive.
Red, I think that’s J.E.B. Stuart, a Civil War general. Camp (later Fort) Stewart was:
Lazy day, nappage for a couple of hours, then went out to Jimmy John’s for my Monday #7. Decided to celebrate clearing my credit cards by gong to Best Buy and purchasing a new dishwasher (with installation about $525), so if the economy tanks, it’s not my fault. Delivery due next Moanday.
Would do, but today ain’t my last day, just the last crazy o’clock shift. I’m irking Wednesday and Thursday too, just at sane hours.
Today, however, I am in at crazy o’clock, which is why I am up, caffeinating and baking bread at 1:30 ay emm. I made the dough earlier, was gonna bake it, but dozed off, and I know I’ll feel even less like baking if I wait til I get back from irk.
I survived inventory, I get the results tomorrow. Abd tomorrow is my one day this week.
Cool family war story #1:
My Uncle Pat was in the infantry in Viet Nam. He and his squad were on patrol, when the were chased up a stand of trees by a water buffalo. Apparentyly it was the Terminator of water buffalos, becuase it took half the ammo to put it down. That’s when he decided to find a safer job: Huey door gunner.
Sticky!!!
: tacklehug :
Happy 5777! and postseason? :dubious: They haven’t even dropped the first puck yet?
I had thought my day wasn’t so great. Lots of callers with problems, few with payments.
Then came the afternoon. Witnessed a co-worker from another project (right next to my own) being taken out on a stretcher by paramedics, was told about a teammate who came damn close to being fired today (she was hauled into great-grandboss’ office for a dressing down. Surprised she hasn’t been bounced before now, really), and another teammate informed me he’d been kicked out of his house (he was living with grandparents, IIRC).
Adjusted my perspective on a gloomy overcast day and disappointing lunch rather quickly.
Great stories everyone. I don’t have any to tell. My daddy was a hobo at times and worked for the CCC.
I have a brother named James and another named Jimmy.
Long day at irk today. I have an almost impossible EOM regimen. All I can do is prioritize and get it done when it gets done.
I have a Dr appt in the AM for a blood draw. Storm is causing some concern and my event scheduled for Thursday (14th annual Fall Fest) is likely to be rained out.
I’ve got what we call catarro gripal, which means that you feel like someone should have taken the plate number of the small van that ran you over. Blurf. Acetylcysteine is my dear, dear, darling friend.
Had a tough time falling asleep last night, so I’m dragging this morning. Much work to do, tho, so maybe the day will go fastly.
I’m really enjoying all the stories, too. Even if *we *aren’t the most interesting folk (how can that be???) we certainly have some interesting relatives.
You too? I don’t know why I couldn’t fall asleep. I was tired, I was comfy. But nothin’.
Funnily enough, I got information from my mother last night that apparently her research was incorrect and we do not have a Mayflower ancestor. But apparently my 8th great-grandfather bought Shelter Island from the Native Americans not once, but twice.
