Mon May 6, 2013, 12:45 AM
MynameisBlarney (1,222 posts)
My Grandpa's Funeral.
Just got back from NC a few minutes ago. It's a LOOOOONG damn drive from Hendersonville, NC. to Key Largo, Fl. 13+ hours.
I'm too wound up to go to sleep right now, so I thought I'd share with you folks a bit, if you don't mind.
My grandma died 2 years ago after a long slog dealing with dementia and several other serious physical ailments. My grandpa was relatively healthy, other than being nearly completely deaf and blind. He has been ready to join her since the day she died, but his body was too healthy until relatively recently. He stopped taking meds (other than painkillers) and had refused all treatments about 2-3 months ago.
Blah, blah, blah
...there was a flag on the coffin. I knew he'd been in the Army Air Corps, so I didn't think much of it. But then I heard a note from what sounded like a trumpet. I thought it was the music from the CD my sister made to play during the service...again, I didn'y think much of it.
The I heard measured footsteps walking down the aisle, they belonged to an Airmen, two Airmen, and as they stood on each end of the coffin, Taps began to play. That note I'd heard before was the bugler. As it played, they folded up the flag, like you see in movies. They walked up to my first cousin, Art. They presented the flag to him on behalf of the President of the United States in honor of his service to our country.
We had all already cried several times before this...but that got everyone damn near sobbing.
I found out later at the wake, that my Grandpa had worked on a top secret project, developing Radar, and that he also helped receive like 200k wounded coming in from the Battle of the Bulge. There was more things he did that they told me, but those were the two that stuck in my head.
...he still didn't want to tell her. But she had found out that after 50 years, it had been declassified, and once she convinced him. He told her everything.
I had no idea my Grandfather was a war hero.
Holy shit.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022804293Touching story, DUmmy MynameisBlarney, very touching.
But DUmmy, this is the DUmp, and at the DUmp it's all about nutcase nadin.
When are you going to learn, it's all about nutcase nadin?
Response to MynameisBlarney (Original post)
Mon May 6, 2013, 01:13 AM
nadinbrzezinski (119,541 posts)
3. My dad been gone two years now
He was in the resistance in Poland during WW II. He told me the stories six months before he passed, and my husband before. He was right when he told me my mom, or my siblings would not get it...both my husband and I have seen combat, which he understood would let us get it in ways none in my family would understand.
What he did to keep his siblings and my grand father alive was war. It changed him, like war changes all. It was well beyond the foraging for potatoes trying to avoid German patrols. Trust me n that, it included potatoes.
My mom asked, foretaste. My dad was right. So my husband and I talk about it. We know it was a precious gift...but one we know, and that's it.
See, the crazy bald dwarf gets it. She gets it, and DUmmy MynameisBlarney is just oblivious to it all.
Nadin saw combat in the nuclear Battle of Fuki, and her addled submarine rider had a submerged cruise with a miscalibrated oxygen sensor.
They've both seen "Sands of Iwo Jima". Twice.
So they get it, and you don't.
It's all about nadin.
