Remembering My Grandfather, WWII Veteran
When my grandfather enlisted for the war, he was 29, older than most. He said, “I heard that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, so I went straight to Times Square and waited on line to sign up for the war.”
I was recently reading a short story about a sailor serving during WWII, and it reminded me of my grandfather, who also served in WWII. And I just began writing this. My initial thought was a memory of me saying to my grandfather that he must have seen some amazing things during his time overseas fighting the war. He would shrug and say something like, “I saw some sunrises and sunsets... I saw the Eiffel Tower...” I would ask, “What else?” He would smile at me and say something like, “I saw the inside of a tank most of the time.”
My grandfather wasn’t really shy about telling me stories from the war — especially after a scotch or two — but he seemed to prefer volunteering them vs. being explicitly asked about the war.
I’ll tell you a little about my grandfather. He was — to use a cliché — tough as nails. He was going strong into his nineties. He was around 74 and I was around 12 when I finally beat him in a 100-yard dash. My grandfather was a meat and potatoes kind of guy. If he drank, he drank scotch. Eisenhower was the best. Reagan was the greatest. He worked for the Department of Agriculture until he was 65. When he retired, they cut him a check for two years of unused sick days. He played piano, jazz swing style. My grandparents lived with us. His piano playing would fill the house and would sometimes make us dance. My grandfather had an amazing garden, stocking our kitchens with tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, peppers and herbs, and giving plenty of it away to family and friends. He was a great ballroom dancer. He would have been a cigar smoker but one day he woke up and realized he had been coughing all night from smoking, so he just stopped. Just like that. He was the same way with food. My grandfather was probably the same weight for about 30 years. Sometimes he felt like he was “getting a belly.” He’d pat it and say, “Looks like I need to cut back on the pie.” And then you’d see that he’d have a slice of pie that was half the usual size. Then a week later, he’d pat his flattened belly and say, “Hey, looks like I’m having a full slice of pie tonight!”
My grandfather read three newspapers each day and one novel each week. And he got those newspapers by walking 2 miles into town and buying them from the same stationary store each weekday. The owner’s customers knew him by name and sometimes stopped to chat with him in the store. The people along his route grew to know him and expect him each day. And most days he snuck treats to two dogs that were also along his route. He did that walk each weekday until he was 88. Even in the rain. My grandmother would say, “Ray, it’s raining.” He’d say, “So I’ll get wet.” My grandmother, “You’ll get sick.” My grandfather, “Then you can take care of me and I’ll get better.”
He listened to baseball games on the radio. And one day he gave me the batteries out of that radio in the middle of a game because he saw that the batteries in my toy had died. “What about your game?” He said, “I should probably be reading more anyway.”
Inflation was a big topic for my grandfather. “I can’t believe how expensive everything is. Back in my day, an apple was a nickel. Orange juice, nickel. Milk, nickel. Now it’s through the roof! And do you think the farmer is seeing any of that money? Families are paying more and farmers aren’t benefiting.” He pointed to the bread. “Loaf of bread, nickel…” So of course, being an obnoxious kid, I’d say, “Grandpa, did you walk around all day with a big sack of nickels?” He’d ignore me and go on: “A baseball, nickel. Bat, nickel. A belt, nickel... I could take your grandmother out for a night of dancing, buffet included — it was a quarter! Check your hat at the door, nickel.”
My grandfather married my grandmother when he was 50. It was his first marriage. It was my grandmother’s second marriage. She lost her first husband when he was in his early 30’s. So my grandmother was alone with two daughters, working, struggling to get by, living on welfare. Several years later, my grandmother was introduced to my grandfather and all of their lives changed. They went on family outings and did fun things together. My grandfather took my grandmother out on dates. Once they were married and living together, my grandmother said, “He bought us a washer and a dryer and a brand new telephone that we hung on our wall.” My grandfather went from being what he described as a “free swinging bachelor” to being a husband, a father and someone who would provide for an entire family for years to come.
When my grandfather enlisted for the war, he was 29, older than most. He said, “I heard that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, so I went straight to Times Square and waited on line to sign up for the war.”
And off he went. I’m not sure of his exact chronology throughout the war but I know that he ended up being part of the 12th Armored Division. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_Armored_Division_(United_States))
My grandfather was second from the right, holding the sledgehammer.
Apparently, the German Army dubbed his unit the Suicide Division for its “fierce defensive actions during Operation Nordwind in France.” They also apparently earned the nickname the Mystery Division when “they were temporarily transferred to the command of the Third Army under General George S. Patton, Jr., to cross the Rhine River.” Based on comments from my grandfather and the information I have available to me, this may have been something of a regular occurrence for that unit. This seems to have resulted in their fighting alongside the 42nd Division, which is one of the divisions credited with liberating the concentration camp, Dachau. And in fact, “The 12th Armored Division is recognized as a liberating unit of the Landsberg concentration camps near the Landsberg Prison, sub-camps of Dachau concentration camp on 27 April 1945.” My grandfather talked about this in a very matter-of-fact way, but I knew that he took great pride in it.
For the most part, my grandfather’s war stories were broad and vague. He gave facts and would say things like, “We ran missions,” “We cleared areas, made sure they were secured and fortified,” “We set up bases and camps,” “We protected bridges,” and, “We gave out supplies to citizens as we passed through.”
He told me about a supply run that he made with a few guys into unsecured territory. On their way back, it was getting dark and they needed to find somewhere safe to stay. They found a village and went to a pub. Someone there let them hide the supplies on his farm, and they were each offered a place to sleep in the villagers’ homes. “They took a risk. For us, it was a real treat. Otherwise we would have been sleeping in the fields with the cows.”
And he had stories where they did sleep in a field or in the woods. And he’d say things like, “We’d cook food in our helmets. Eat out of it. Use our helmets to shave. Brush our teeth. We’d do everything but piss and $h!t in that thing!”
He loved telling the story of when his division met up with a Russian battalion. The Russian unit hardly had any food so his unit gave them rations and other supplies. They ate together. He said that they took turns singing songs. My grandfather said that no one really understood each other, which he laughed about, but then he just shrugged, smiling. He remembers especially that everyone shared photos of wives, girlfriends and children, pointing and talking in foreign languages. And my grandfather traded a German Luger that he had acquired for a Russian Luger. It was made in 1902. It was one of my grandfather’s few possessions and he handed it down to me.
After I saw the movie Platoon, I asked him how long his “tour” was during the war. He said, “‘Tour?’ We went there to fight the war and we didn’t come home until it was over.” What I should say here is that this wasn’t necessarily a dig against those who went to Vietnam or Iraq or wherever and did tours. Well, maybe it was a little bit of a dig. He definitely thought his generation was tougher than the next and the next. When he talked about WWII and compared it to subsequent wars, though, he would say that there were different circumstances for WWII. It was clearer. There was a clear villain and a clear reason for being there. He was proud to serve under General Patton and mentioned quite a few times that he shook his hand. “I would have done anything for him and anything to get rid of those Nazis.” When he talked about the Vietnam War or our invasion of Iraq, he would say that things weren’t quite as clear. And when there was complexity, he would say, “All of that confusion falls onto the soldier... Those kids… It wasn’t like that for us.”
I remember being 8 or 9 and playing with little army men. War to a kid that age isn’t quite real, right? People killing each other. I think by that point war is presented as some glorified thing. It was filled with heroic adventures. Knights in shining armor. Teddy Roosevelt leading the Rough Riders on horseback. Playing with those army figures, I asked my grandfather if he ever killed anyone in the war. He didn’t answer and just sort of walked away. I asked him again at some point and he picked up a newspaper and began reading it, creating a wall between us. I learned my lesson and stopped asking.
My grandfather loved talking about current events, so I found that to be a good way to start discussions with him. I was always asking for his opinion. One day I asked what he thought about the whole Freedom Fries thing. Remember that? When we apparently hated the French? He shook his head and said, “I don’t care what people say about them. They’re good people. They needed our help and we helped them.”
Even though he was this proverbial red-blooded American that seemed staunchly Republican, he voted for Obama, twice. We were surprised. It meant voting against McCain, a war hero. He said, “He’s a great man. Honorable. Maybe I’m getting soft in my old-age, but he’s not what this country needs right now.”
He was fortunate enough to remain mostly healthy through his 96 years. In the end, it was colon cancer that took him down. He was diagnosed at age 92. So from 92 to 96 he struggled a bit. I visited as much as I could. During one visit, there was a story in the paper about Iran’s leader saying that the Holocaust never happened. As usual, I said to my grandfather, “What do you think of that?” I thought I would get his usual pithy, witty response. Instead, he turned red and said, “The guy’s an idiot and so is anyone else that says that. I was there! I saw it!” He paused. “When we got to Dachau most of the Nazis abandoned it, but the prisoners were still there. And the bodies! Too many to count. And the stench! And there was this woman in a room...” And he stopped talking. Then he began pantomiming sewing. He began to have trouble talking. His eyes became watery. “She was making lampshades... Out of skin!” And then he put his face in his hands and started bawling. I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know this man was capable of crying. I stood up. My mother and my wife were there. We all touched his shaking shoulders. No one spoke. It went on for a good minute and then he stopped. He looked embarrassed, so I said that we’re going to get iced tea and come right back. When I returned we drank iced tea and talked about sports. My wife and I went home later that day. That evening my mother called and said that Grandpa would like to apologize for his behavior. We sort of chuckled a little at that. I told my mom to tell him I said, Thank you. Please thank him for his story. I’ll never forget it.
And that was my grandfather’s last war story for me. I didn’t ask him about the war anymore and he didn’t volunteer any more stories. We spent his final years discussing other things, with me trying to get him to laugh as much as possible.
So I’ll conclude by thanking my grandfather for his sacrifice, and for his stories and the lessons inherent in those stories. And I’ll take this opportunity to thank all veterans, including my father and my cousin — both of whom also have compelling stories themselves.
As time goes on, I think our stories about war seem to get more honest. I don’t know if my grandfather told anyone about the details of what he saw at Dachau. Maybe he did. When he talked about Dachau with me, he always glossed over the details. We liberated it, secured it, got the prisoners out. He didn’t talk about dead bodies or lampshades made of human skin. Sometimes I think that it took my grandfather 60 years to peel that story back to a vivid detail that is so horrific that it encapsulated why he was there, and it added a final, brutal facet to a war story that a veteran passed along to his grandson over the course of decades.
For the most part, my grandfather’s war stories were broad and vague. He gave facts and would say things like, “We ran missions,” “We cleared areas, made sure they were secured and fortified,” “We set up bases and camps,” “We protected bridges,” and, “We gave out supplies to citizens as we passed through.”
He told me about a supply run that he made with a few guys into unsecured territory. On their way back, it was getting dark and they needed to find somewhere safe to stay. They found a village and went to a pub. Someone there let them hide the supplies on his farm, and they were each offered a place to sleep in the villagers’ homes. “They took a risk. For us, it was a real treat. Otherwise we would have been sleeping in the fields with the cows.”
And he had stories where they did sleep in a field or in the woods. And he’d say things like, “We’d cook food in our helmets. Eat out of it. Use our helmets to shave. Brush our teeth. We’d do everything but piss and $h!t in that thing!”
He loved telling the story of when his division met up with a Russian battalion. The Russian unit hardly had any food so his unit gave them rations and other supplies. They ate together. He said that they took turns singing songs. My grandfather said that no one really understood each other, which he laughed about, but then he just shrugged, smiling. He remembers especially that everyone shared photos of wives, girlfriends and children, pointing and talking in foreign languages. And my grandfather traded a German Luger that he had acquired for a Russian Luger. It was made in 1902. It was one of my grandfather’s few possessions and he handed it down to me.
After I saw the movie Platoon, I asked him how long his “tour” was during the war. He said, “‘Tour?’ We went there to fight the war and we didn’t come home until it was over.” What I should say here is that this wasn’t necessarily a dig against those who went to Vietnam or Iraq or wherever and did tours. Well, maybe it was a little bit of a dig. He definitely thought his generation was tougher than the next and the next. When he talked about WWII and compared it to subsequent wars, though, he would say that there were different circumstances for WWII. It was clearer. There was a clear villain and a clear reason for being there. He was proud to serve under General Patton and mentioned quite a few times that he shook his hand. “I would have done anything for him and anything to get rid of those Nazis.” When he talked about the Vietnam War or our invasion of Iraq, he would say that things weren’t quite as clear. And when there was complexity, he would say, “All of that confusion falls onto the soldier... Those kids… It wasn’t like that for us.”
I remember being 8 or 9 and playing with little army men. War to a kid that age isn’t quite real, right? People killing each other. I think by that point war is presented as some glorified thing. It was filled with heroic adventures. Knights in shining armor. Teddy Roosevelt leading the Rough Riders on horseback. Playing with those army figures, I asked my grandfather if he ever killed anyone in the war. He didn’t answer and just sort of walked away. I asked him again at some point and he picked up a newspaper and began reading it, creating a wall between us. I learned my lesson and stopped asking.
My grandfather loved talking about current events, so I found that to be a good way to start discussions with him. I was always asking for his opinion. One day I asked what he thought about the whole Freedom Fries thing. Remember that? When we apparently hated the French? He shook his head and said, “I don’t care what people say about them. They’re good people. They needed our help and we helped them.”
Even though he was this proverbial red-blooded American that seemed staunchly Republican, he voted for Obama, twice. We were surprised. It meant voting against McCain, a war hero. He said, “He’s a great man. Honorable. Maybe I’m getting soft in my old-age, but he’s not what this country needs right now.”
He was fortunate enough to remain mostly healthy through his 96 years. In the end, it was colon cancer that took him down. He was diagnosed at age 92. So from 92 to 96 he struggled a bit. I visited as much as I could. During one visit, there was a story in the paper about Iran’s leader saying that the Holocaust never happened. As usual, I said to my grandfather, “What do you think of that?” I thought I would get his usual pithy, witty response. Instead, he turned red and said, “The guy’s an idiot and so is anyone else that says that. I was there! I saw it!” He paused. “When we got to Dachau most of the Nazis abandoned it, but the prisoners were still there. And the bodies! Too many to count. And the stench! And there was this woman in a room...” And he stopped talking. Then he began pantomiming sewing. He was having trouble talking. His eyes became watery. Then he said, “She was making lampshades... Out of skin!” And then he put his face in his hands and started bawling. I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know this man was capable of crying. I stood up. My mother and my wife were there. We all touched his shaking shoulders. No one spoke. It went on for a good minute and then he stopped. He looked embarrassed, so I said that we’re going to get iced tea and come right back. When I returned we drank iced tea and talked about sports. My wife and I went home later that day. That evening my mother called and said that Grandpa would like to apologize for his behavior. We sort of chuckled a little at that. I told my mom to tell him I said, Thank you. Please thank him for his story. I’ll never forget it.
And that was my grandfather’s last war story for me. I didn’t ask him about the war anymore and he didn’t volunteer any more stories. We spent his final years discussing other things, with me trying to get him to laugh as much as possible.
So I’ll conclude by thanking my grandfather for his sacrifice, and for his stories and the lessons inherent in those stories. And I’ll take this opportunity to thank all veterans, including my father, cousins and friends — all of whom also have compelling stories themselves.
As time goes on, I think our stories about war seem to get more honest. I don’t know if my grandfather told anyone about the details of what he saw at Dachau. Maybe he did. When he talked about Dachau with me, he always glossed over the details. We liberated it, secured it, got the prisoners out. He didn’t talk about dead bodies or lampshades made of human skin. Sometimes I think that it took my grandfather 60 years to peel that story back to a vivid detail that is so horrific that it encapsulated why he was there, and it added a final, brutal facet to a war story that a veteran passed along to his grandson over the course of decades.
