re: Relatives that served in World War 2

My grandfather trained with the 101st in early '44. When they started jumping out of planes he came down for the 1st time and had an issue upon landing. He had a botched hernia surgery when he was young that he had kept hidden. Upon discovery he immediately was reclassified 4F and sent home.

95% of his unit parachuted into Bastogne and didn't survive the war. He didn't really talk about it until I was in high school. The first story I heard was about he and his buddies walking on the sidewalks in the south. They'd move over for women and then purposely spread out to take up the sidewalk whenever there was a "jig" walking towards them (forcing them to walk into the street). The story about his training incident didn't come up until I was already in college.