The Old War

As a young kid, I grew up knowing my great-grandfather. We owned a small 60-head of cattle dairy farm, and I always knew him as the man who would take me into the kitchen, put a finger to his lips, and dip his grizzled hand into the cookie jar and pull out a handful of oreo cookies for us to eat.

“Don’t tell Great-Grammie.” He would whisper and wink as I giggled and ate the cookies he’d give me. He had a big heart, he loved his animals. He had a special soft spot for calves, and often he would take other’s farmers’ calves and raise them, especially if they were having a hard time weaning to bucket feeding. He was one of the most laid back, happy people I knew.

But I knew little about our family history. I can now proudly say my Great-grandfather was a soldier in WW2. For those who do not like sad stories, please do not read this. My Great-Grandfather was a front line machine gunner in the battle against the Nazi’s. He was medically pronounced dead 4 different times, and each time he prevailed while telling everyone “I have to get home to my farm.”. He watched every single one of his assistants who fed his gun bullets die next to him in battle. He walked through concentration camps and watched the horror of what the war was doing. He never spoke about it again after he left the army, except for one time. My Great-Grandfather enrolled in the army at the age of 18, leaving a large 601 acre family farm, my Great-grandmother and her iron will standing behind him for Germany at the beginning of the Second World War. He was quickly promoted through the ranks, and proclaimed an operator of a front line machine gun. He was shot once, gassed twice, and hit with shrapnel once. Each time, they proclaimed him medically dead. Each time, he rose from the dead while mumbling about his farm. He liberated the concentration camps, cleaned them, and helped care for the prisoners. Once he got home, not a word was spoken about it. He received purple hearts, decorated with medals, but he never once mentioned what had happened within his time in Germany. One day when my aunt was in high school, she roped him into agreeing to an interview for an essay she was doing. We learned everything in one day, through my aunt in high school. He never spoke a word of his time again, and nobody ever mentioned it to him. We knew of it, and looked at him with more wonder and awe to see this grizzled, hardened man, who has a soft spot for kids and cows, sweets and candy, and wondered how he was able to carry on with his life through this all.

We learned that the man we knew as a soft, caring man, had experienced hell on earth, but persevered for his family, and for his cows. I knew not of this until I was old enough, and I happened to ask my grandmother what something was as I went through a box. I pulled out a shadow box decorated in medals of various sizes and colors.

“Gram? What is this?” I had asked, looking more into the box, and pulling out a picture of my Great-grandfather, standing in his uniform, holding my Great-grandmother.

“Great-grampa. He was in World War 2.” She sat down next to me and pulled out a scrapbook my Great-grandmother had made, and flipped to a news article written by my aunt in high school, “He enrolled in the army at the age of 18, leaving behind a 601 acre family farm, and a loving wife for the battlefront of Germany…”

Photo by mouser-nerdbot on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND