My Pawpaw never, ever spoke to anyone about the time he spent in the Korean War. He was a medic, just like M.A.S.H., my dad would always say, and aside from a few blurry photos and small-town newspaper clippings there wasn;t much more information about his service time.

About four years ago he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. He was doing really good for a really long time but when he finally got really sick it progressed quickly. About a year after he was first diagnosed was when I moved to Korea with my husband.

(Incidentally, both my Pawpaw and my Moomaw were *instantly* infatuated with my husband the first time they met him, and told me he was "the one" before the thought of marriage had ever crossed my mind or his. Funny because my husband's initials are the exact same as my Pawpaw's.)

Anyway, some combination of my moving to Korea and Pawpaw's illness brought out the stories he'd always kept inside about his time in the war. He was stationed fairly close to where I live now, but 50 years ago this country was a very, very different place. He had lots of questions for me about how it had changed, but he still never really spoke about the specifics of serving here. However, even mentioning the era or country's name before was enough to shut him down, so any stories were seen as progress.

Since we moved in 2005 I've only had a chance to go home and see my family about twice a year. I've never felt as close to my Pawpaw as I did after moving so far away. Unfortunately, he passed away last summer, and I wouldn't have been able to make it home in time for the funeral.

By the end, though, he'd lost a lot of weight and was really not anything like the Pawpaw I remember, so I'm kind of glad that my last memory of him was while he was still healthy and ornery. But it's very difficult for me to think that I will never, ever get to see him again.

My hubby was caught by the Vietnam "incursion" or whatever they called it...This was before I knew him.

His family never thought much of his abilities, likewise his high school career counselor. But, he managed to get into university and was working, paying his way - but his grades were probably averaging a C. He ended up in the Air Force.

After his service, he came back and had to work for several years to have enough money to go back to school. Even then, it was just part time because the GI bill was cut to nothing and he had to work to live. His family gave him nothing. We met there, so there was a good side to the delay in getting his degree!

The military was probably good for him in some ways. Finally he could be rewarded for his accomplishments instead of degraded. I'm sure he gained a lot of self worth.

He was also such a softie, loving all creatures and people in general. So, fortunately, he wasn't in combat since I think his empathy-component would have been too great. I'll never really know what his "job" was because it was classified and he wouldn't divulge. He became critically ill and did not survive. It was truly awful sitting with him in ICU, holding his hand all the time so he'd not be alone - and I still cannot accept it.

A few years ago he became friends with a former high-rank (whatever it is - General, Commander..) His friend told me a bit more last year about what my hubby did - pretty amazing stuff when you think about a younger person having that much responsibility.

Last year, the military sent me a form letter, offering condolence, letting me know that I could apply for the $230.00 "benefit" for spouses. I shredded it...a person's life is worth so much to their loved ones, and so little to everyone else...

so any stories were seen as progress

My wife's Nan is still alive, but getting frail (she needs lots of care now). She has been very lucky; she has had a very healthy and happy life, and is still quite lucid and spry for a woman of her age. She was very upset to lose her teeth a couple of years ago (they had been perfect)!

Anyway, she has started to rattle off all kinds of old stories now. Boys she dated, dances she attended, etc. Things she would never discuss before. Small scandals, secrets, etc. My MIL and her sisters were very surprised by some of these things.

I hope she goes quietly in her sleep and doesn't suffer. It seems cruel that people can't just opt for a legal overdose! Bloody stupid religion: scaring people and governments, even in 2007.

[I heard a nurse say that some overdoses do happen (if the person is suffering and has no hope of living properly again). Very British. "Just give him the extra dose, Smithson, and don't record it. There's a good lad."]

I could apply for the $230.00 "benefit" for spouses

Was that a one-off payment? If so, that is just insulting...

My fiancé was in the Navy before we met, between Iraq Wars so he was never deployed. I thank god he didn't stick around, though I'm sure we'd never have met. As a buddhist I'd have a hard time dating a soldier, though I respect their choices.

Yes, chuckdarwin, that was the one pay-off. Oh, to add icing to it, they sent a form letter/recognition/frameable "award" stamped with the prez signature - thanking him for his service. Yea, right.

I kept that out of some kind of respect for my hubby. Don't want him to think I don't care about his experiences. It's stashed with all the stuff I cannot go through.

I'm the proud Quaker descendant of two generations of Army combat veterans, World War II (Europe and the Pacific) and Viet Nam (my dad, 1st cavalry, two tours); one set of my grandparents were career Army, my grandmother as a civilian worker and my grandfather as a staff sergeant, and my mom was raised an Army brat in diplomatic stations in 50s Greece and Italy.

All of them have my deepest respect. Wars happen (had they not happened, I would not exist). Life is complicated.

My father went from prep school (well, the second or third prep school - like his children, he kept getting expelled) to the infantry in Italy in WWII. He was 17. He was one of maybe two people in his battalion (might be something else, a shockingly large group though but I'm not up on military terms) who survived the Anzio beachhead. He almost never discussed it, but late one night a few years before he died he talked about being a teenager, starving to death and freezing in the Italian countryside, hiding from Nazis and partisans and fascists, lost in the battlefields. He and his buddies found a jug of eggs preserved in brandy in a bombed out farmhouse cellar and he thought that it kept him alive through that long winter. That was the only time my whole life I ever heard him speak about the war. Well, that and every time we moved, when the Luger would come out and he would say, casually, "Took this off a dead Nazi," and my mother would show us the box of medals, the Purple Heart, the other ones, the Allied currency he'd kept and the weird Nazi money with swastikas and Goebbels on it that looked to my 1970s eyes like something out of a wartime Looney Tunes.

After he died my mother told me that he had had screaming, terrible nightmares his entire life from that war. He was always a complex, unhappy, angry man and sometimes I wonder whether if he hadn't gone to war, would he have been different? Would he have done the damage he did to his children? Because he did a lot. He loved Bill Mauldin and had autographed copies of his books. I stole them from the living room and took them away with me when I left home as a teenager, trying to find some kind of truth there. My mother made me give them back after he died.

He moved heaven and earth to keep my older brother out of Vietnam and succeeded. He hated war and said, forever, that there was never an excuse or a reason for it. And after he died, we went through the cigar box where he kept small things, that even my mother, married to him for 52 years, had never seen inside, and there, with the Stork Club matches and the cigar band from my brother's birth, was a faded 1960s anti war button and I cried when I thought about my angry, status conscious, Irish workaholic alcoholic father actually taking the time to go downtown and march and wear a button that he knew would infuriate his friends and then silently keeping it all those years.

Wars happen. Life is complicated.

I agree; they do happen (with alarming frequency). I certainly wouldn't have wanted anything to do with Vietnam, personally. If forced, I would have had to find a different solution; I'm not cut out for soldiering. I respect my uncle for fighting, but I am in no way 'glad' he went.

I'm not glad any of them went either, exactly, but I understand their motivations for choosing to serve, and I'm proud of those. If that makes any sense. And I also admire the work they did (mostly with success, though not completely) to understand and manage their undoubtedly horrific experiences and live lives of great contribution.

He was always a complex, unhappy, angry man and sometimes I wonder whether if he hadn't gone to war, would he have been different?

This is what was so amazing about my Pawpaw. I seriously can not ever remember him getting angry or upset. Neither can my father. And he wasn't a stoic either, just a generally gregarious kinda man.

If that makes any sense.

It does. My uncle volunteered; he really thought it was the right thing to do. 40 years later, it's not so clear (even to him). He's proud of his service, and so is everyone in the family. He did his job well, and turned it into a rather flashy career in DC afterwards. He was always kind of a stress monster, though. Big control freak. His marriage failed, and he ran his house like a boot camp... I think he mellowed after the bypass surgery, though.

I should email my mom and ask after him.

I got very lucky. I was in the Navy from 86-89 (active duty) and in the reserves till 92. When I selected my reserve unit, it was based on location. I ended up in a Seabee unit that handled supplies, instead of attached to a ship. So when we were activated for "Desert Storm" I was sent to Port Hueneme (Oxnard) and worked on tugboat for six months, while the rest of my reserve unit worked in the warehouses. It was pretty scary, just getting activated, you don't really know where you'll end up. Working on the tug was actually kind of cool, in retrospect. During my active duty I was never stationed on a ship, so this gave me a little taste of the sea.

On the weird side, I get regular offers in the mail to join the VFW.

doctor_negative, are you (strictly speaking) a veteran?

My father was drafted in the Vietnam era, but was sent to Germany doing Army intelligence work, a fact which I am very thankful for. He seemed to enjoy his time in the military; at least, he's spoken favorably about it (he would have liked to work out the mechanics of becoming a JAG officer, but decided that it was way too much of a hassle and simply enrolled at the U. of Chicago when his term was up). His enjoyment of it was probably a function of not being shot at.

His father trained people to fly planes during WWII, I think; he never had to go overseas, in any case. I think my mother's biological father had similar circumstances.

My mom's stepdad, on the other hand, lied to enroll into the Navy at the age of 16 (I think). He was at the Battle of Iwo Jima, and still has problems related to PTSD and depression. I've always been kind of afraid to ask him how he felt about his service overall; he's never brought it up, and my mom never did either except when she discussed the PTSD. I know that he regretted dropping out of high school, and he got his GED something like 20 years afterwards.

I don't think I have the stomach to be in the military. I suppose that people do what they have to do, though.

My dad finished college in '62 hoping to train to become a Navy officer. He had flat feet, so the recruiter at Carleton College (MN) sent him to talk to the man from NSA, who gave him a job in Washington. My mother finished college a year later, and they got married in Texas in '63.

Directly after the wedding, something came up at work and my dad had to fly to DC; my mother flew a couple weeks later, leaving the Dallas airport on the same day as JFK's body.

My dad has two brothers, one of whom lives in Southwest Michigan. He was starting college when my dad took his government job, and since then has always considered my dad his "man in Washington." I think my dad's government job had a lot to do with his ditching school and volunteering for duty in Vietnam in '65.

When I was a kid he used to send me Soldier of Fortune magazines for my Christmas stocking, which my mom sometimes hid; my dad would find them and, chuckling over my gung-ho uncle, give them to me on the sly. I'd call my uncle and quiz him about all the mercenary ads in the back pages and about stopping power and bullet grain.

Neither of my parents liked it when he told me war stories, though in my mind's eye his war stories were more like the Sgt. Rock and Unknown Soldier comics I read than Soldier of Fortune, Full Metal Jacket, or reality. He was in country for three tours in a variety of deployments; he fought in towns and villages, paddies, forests, and the jungle. When I was fifteen or sixteen he told me he thought of it at the time like football: he would think of the enemy as a tailback, or a wideout, and try to take him out, to "make the play." He told me war was "not what he expected." He was never wounded.

When he returned from Vietnam, he went back to his wife and young daughter in Michigan, got a job selling insurance, and spent every weekend floating a canoe around on lakes up in the woods. He brought dynamite with him, and fished by dropping lit sticks into the lakes, killing everything down to the bacteria; then he'd scoop up the fish floating on the surface with a net until he had enough to fill the cooler on his truck bed, and he'd sell the fish to restaurants on his way home. Otherwise, his transition to civilian life was smooth.

The game wardens, the local sheriffs, and my aunt knew he did this, but they all figured, here's a boy who spent the last couple years blowing shit up in the jungle: maybe in time he'll stop doing this, but maybe he needs it now, so nobody arrested him or told him to knock it off. Sure enough, he stopped after a year or so.

I have a picture of him just after basic training. He looked like Montgomery Clift back then. Now he's a happy, satisfied man with a big family full of love. For a little while he and thousands of men his age killed people for the sake of things they believed but didn't understand, or maybe didn't believe and didn't care. I don't really have a sense of how sad it is; it's life, and life's like that for everybody sometimes.

I think my periodic death wish would make me a dangerous soldier to be near, probably dead, maybe a hero.

My grandfather on my mother's side was in the Airforce in WWII, the rest of his siblings having been killed in WWI. He was also an intelligence officer and never talked about the work he did after the war. He operated in Italy installing covert communications networks toward the end of the war. He died of cancer.

My grandfather on my father's side was in the Navy and became a captain of a destroyer, patrolling the waters around the UK during WWII. I don't know much about what he got up to as that was not a subject ever mentioned. He died of a heart attack.

They both liked a good cypher though, that much I know!

My paternal pop was in a Japanese camp in WWII - the Burma Railway (Australian soldier). I never knew him - he left my grandmother when my father was 11 or so, and my dad and he had a huge falling out and didn't speak for 20-odd years. He suffered PTSD apparently, and was physically violent as well as having physical issues from the malnutrition and beatings, etc. The family was stationed on Fanning Island for 6 years when my dad was a boy (late 1940s), which sounds like great fun by all accounts, until my pop needed medical attention he couldn't get on the island.

He died when I was 8, never recovering from a quadruple bypass. I always wanted to talk to him, but the first time I ever even saw him he was in a coma and they pulled the plug 5 mins later. We had his medals and war papers, but they were stolen when our house was robbed shortly after he died. I miss my pop, even though I never knew him. I've read as many accounts of life in the Asian camps I could get my hands on, just to try and understand him better, but it's not the same - and although I know his war experience was a major factor of who he was it wasn't all of him, and I feel I am doing him an injustice defining him through it.

I am glad I'm a cyclops, and thus can never fight in any idiotic war, but I have the utmost respect for those who have.

You know the whole "Greatest Generation" thing? My dad was one of 'em and hooted at the whole idea. He used to say things like "I was a political prisoner of Franklin Delano Roosevelt" "I killed Germans I wasn't particularly upset at -- on behalf of Standard Oil."

Starting about '38 or '39, Dad was an apprentice tool-and-die maker at Picatinny Arsenal and earned his journeyman card creating jigs to turn out howitzer parts for US rearmament and the Lend-Lease program. Dad, like a lot of Americans who were keenly aware of Big Mistake #1 and following events like the Depression, was something of an isolationist, thought FDR was an elitist backstabber who was playing drop-the-soap with Churchill, and knew damned well he was being lied to when he heard the "I do not want war; Eleanor does not want war" speech he used to mimic.

In a strange twist of fate considering how the wartime Army often worked, Dad wound up in a military job for which he was uniquely suited. When he finally got sick of waiting to see whether he'd get sucked into the draft, joined up in mid-'42 and wound up in the Army's Ordnance Corps as an armorer responsible for maintenance and repair of --you guessed it -- howitzers. He was detailed to an arty battery that shot 155s, and he told memorably hair-raising stories of clearing hangfires -- "lonely goddamn work, I'll have you know," he'd smirk devilishly.

He'd have to take his turn on forward observation-post duty for his battery, and one time, he made the guy he was with wait to call in the numbers until a German mess wagon had finished feeding a Wehrmacht infantry squad -- letting them have a last meal and light up a cigarette before calling fire on them and making them disappear. Another time, a German recon element came looking for the FOP and found it. Dad was in hand-to-hand combat in pitch blackness, survived and made it back to his lines with a captured Mauser rifle; he'd lost his own in the dark.

When the entire arty battalion ran out of replacement firing pins for their guns -- the replacements having been sent to the bottom of the sea courtesy of a U-boat -- Dad, who had all the specs in his head, took off with a fellow soldier, drove to the nearest respectably sized city, found a machine shop, shot off the lock with his .45, went in, found the right kind of steel, and started turning new pins on a turret lathe. He'd been working for a couple hours when he felt the muzzle of a gendarme's pistol tickling his ear. He and the other GI were arrested for breaking and entering and larceny and languished for hours in the town jail until the battalion XO and some MPs came and liberated them from the French jail. For the initiative he'd shown, Dad got a commendation on the same day he'd been arrested!

My grandfather was a Navy doctor in WWII, serving in Newfoundland. He was interning at the Mayo Clinic when Canada joined the war, and, like many Canadian boys studying in the States, he came home immediately to sign up. He wanted to join the Air Force, but his eyesight wasn't good enough. He tried the Army, but there was some other reason they wouldn't have him (I think flat feet). So this prairie boy ended up in the Navy. Nfld hadn't yet joined Confederation, and many people there resented the presence of Canadian military on their soil. My grandmother quickly learned not to wear her Navy wives' pin when shopping, as it guaranteed she'd be the last person served. Grandad had to teach my (then very young) father to box so that the local kids would stop beating him up; this became a problem when they returned home after the war, as he didn't understand that the 'hit first, ask questions later' approach that saved his tiny arse in Nfld caused some problems back home on the prairies. As Grandad served here rather than in Europe, he wasn't as traumatized as the men who were at the front. He did spend the rest of his life supporting anti-war causes such as Greenpeace and Doctors Against Nuclear War, which I think came from seeing all the destruction and pain wrought on the boys who made it home to be treated in military hospitals here.

My maternal grandfather was an engineer, which I think is why he was exempted from service in England. My gran played jazz & ragtime piano in dance halls in London during the blitz. She almost never talked about the war until the World Trade Centre bombing, at which point all she would say is, "They're doing it again. They'll never learn. They're doing it again." She did tell me one story that night, though. Their street had been bombed, and she had to take my mum (then an infant) to the countryside for a while. Mum fussed and cried on the train, until an RAF officer sitting next to them asked if he could hold her. He whistled 'Take the A Train' to my mum, who immediately stopped crying and just stared at him for the rest of the journey; gran knew then that she, too, would probably be a musician. My gran had forgotten the pram on the station platform when they left; when they came back 6 months later it was still in the exact same spot. "Some would say that was due to the inefficiency of British Rail," she said, "but I think it was the honesty of the British people." Then she laughed.

Odd that this thread should come up as I am leaving shortly to attend the funeral of my great unclr Bill who jad been a navigator for the RAF in WWII.

He has flown 34 missions, 4 more than was mandated and not by his choice. His odds of surviving that was about 1 in 6. It went a long way to explain his attitude towards life: he was living on borrowed time.

My dad found his log book which included some harrowing stories, including an engine fire, being hit by flak fortunately in the heel of his boot. While he was jumping around yelling 'I'm hit!' the pilot sent down the comm officer to tend to him and because they needed a course. When the comm officer returned, there was a huge hole in the back of his seat!

Finally, his plane had been hit by a bomb from another plane, punching two holes through the fuselage, one on top, one on the bottom.

He was awarded the distinguished flying cross, and he rarely spoke of the events.

Loving all these stories, everyone.

My paternal grandfather was a test-pilot in WWII. He didn't go overseas, but died in a mid-air collision while testing a bomber in Texas. My grandmother swears it was a CIA job, as he was apparently a thorn in their side in regards to certain policies. She talks of the near-impossible happening of a mid-air collision. She speaks of him with much fondness, the "true love of her life" she often says proudly. My father was 3 years old at the time, and would later avoid serving in Vietnam because he was an only child.
A few years later she married the man who I knew as "Granddad". He served as well (grandma was a sucker for a man in uniform, and still is), but I don't know much of his military story. Sadly, I remember him as a mean and abusive alcoholic. Not sure how much that had to do with his service. I often think how my angry, frustrated, but ultimately good father might have been different if not raised by that man. My father, his step-brother and my grandmother speak of those days with terror. I can't imagine. My grandmother never divorced him, and when he died several years ago, few people showed up at the funeral.

My uncle (father's step-brother) was forced to serve in the Navy in the 70s, after getting into some trouble. But he excelled, and finished his term with honors. Awhile back he mentioned a Navy prank - put a penguin inside the foot of someone's sleeping bag. When the victim goes to get the thing out, it's a real struggle as their new love for the uncommon warmth suddenly becomes very dear to them.

My grandmother's brother served in Korea. He had bad frostbite and complains about it to this day. I remember him complaining that M.A.S.H. was not an accurate portrayal of the conflict. He didn't have much of a sense of humor about it.

I have an uncle who enlisted in the Marines during the height of Vietnam--it might've been one of those Springsteen/Skinner deals where it was jail or the army, but I'm not crystal-clear on that.

Anyway, they sent him to basic training at Parris Island, and then they sent him to Vietnam. The plane stopped once, in Hawaii, for a couple hours.

He went to a bar with a bunch of his fellow soldiers. A little while later, he was in the brig, after having assaulted his commanding officer. And a little while after that, he was given a dishonorable discharge, havign never actually made it to Vietnam.

That's not the only military story in my family, but it's the shortest one.

doctor_negative, are you (strictly speaking) a veteran?

Yep. Service during wartime counts, whether you were over there or over here. I don't really think of myself as one, it amazes me that I was ever in the military at all.

One of my brothers went to war in Viet Nam, came home injured, returned to Southeast Asia for more, and finally returned home safely, albeit with some serious scars. The other draft age brother was drafted, and arrested for refusing to take the oath of induction. My parents supported them both, one of the best things I ever saw my parents accomplish.

What an amazing thread. I had no idea that metachat was as vast and deep as all this. It seems that we are all united by the continuous tragedy of modern life.

My father's RF-4 smacked into the ground in late 1969. I was born in early 1970.

Yeah, now I understand why that guy called his book "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning". Military service affects many more than just the servicemen.

Grandfather (WWII)
Uncle (Korean War)
different Uncle (Vietnam)
Cousin (Iraq)

All survived their respective wars, none talk(ed) about them with me. Thank you all for sharing.

Chris Hedges is a brilliant writer, and that's a great book, hellbient--I'd highly recommend it.

My maternal grandfather served in the navy in WWII. I believe he was on a cargo ship of some kind, although he never liked to be very clear about it, and he's now gone so I can't ask him.
I do know he originally wanted to join the army, and they wouldn't take him.
He was only sixteen when he signed up, and that required parental permission. His father was from Sicily and although he spoke English, was never entirely fluent or comfortable conducting important business in it. So when he came along to sign off on my grandfather going to war, my grandfather translated the recruiter's English to Italian for him.
I don't know if it was policy, or if that particular guy just felt strongly, but they basically told him they couldn't send him to Europe since he'd may have to decide between his loyalty to the US and his loyalty to Italy. Apparently being told "what loyalty, we left that place for a reason!" didn't cut it. But the navy sign up office next door didn't have such prejudices.

It's a little scary to read these stories of soldiers of war who come back home and are basically broken people for the rest of their lives...

...and then realize the USA has a lot of newly-broken people coming back from Iraq, both US military and private military.

Absolutely, fff.

If only we'd listen to our veterans before voting for new wars, and if only our representatives voting for new wars understood what happens in war and to individuals and families after wars.

Though not everybody is broken. Deeply impacted and forever changed, but not always broken. Some veterans have made mighty efforts and found ways to make their experiences make some degree of sense, using various therapies and informal approaches.

When you see guys wearing their veterans' baseball hats and lapel pins, and taking part in wreath-layings and marching in parades, that is part of that informal therapy. Unlike many kids growing up to whom Memorial Day was a picnic or beach day, I can remember spending at least part of almost every one standing with my family in a public park, watching people on a dais make speeches, say prayers, and hang wreaths of flowers on monuments. They were remembering. Coming to terms. Honoring. Linking their present selves in a peaceful life to their vulnerable younger selves in chaos, making a place in memory for the friends (and enemies) that had no been so lucky as to have children and stand in parks on sunny May days.

Thank you all for sharing. This gives me some insight into the lives of Americans, and the roles that they have to play in the military. (I had no idea it was so wide-spread.)