My Dad is a World War II veteran. They're a dying breed, and as they die, their stories die with them. He flew out of Italy as group navigator for 450th Bomb Group, and lead navigator for the wing and for the 15th Air Force. Dad earned two Distinguished Flying Crosses, two weeks apart, one for flying the entire bomb group over their target without instruments, using only a compass and a stopwatch. He was shot down over Anzio Beachhead, landing just inside the Allied line, straddling a latrine trench. He watched his friends die, and narrowly missed blowing up with his crew when the fuel line on their B-24 became blocked. He never talked about the war, until I had children. Even then, he didn't share until my eldest was five years old. I'll never forget that day. We were visiting the Air and Space Museum, and in the World War II room, Dad suddenly began telling my son all about the things they saw there. Soon, Dad had an audience and a tour group. I hung closer than any of them. A few years later, he started talking to their classes about the war, and my daughter interviewed him on tape. It was about that time that his bomb group started having reunions, only 50 or so years after the war. They hadn't have a reunion before then because none of them could talk about the war. What they saw and what they experienced were too painful to recall. His experience isn't unusual among veterans. The men and women who serve our country in the armed forces are ordinary people, doing extraordinary things that are too painful for most of them to discuss. They serve and suffer so we can enjoy our freedoms and our way of life. On this Veterans' Day, take a moment and thank our present and former servicemembers for their sacrifice. I know I will - here in the Trenches.
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