re: Do any of you have war stories shared by your parents or grandparents?

Grandfather was on the USS Santee, an escort carrier.

They were in the Med when they ran short of supplies. They were down to ice cream and sodas. After a couple of days of that, he found out he was diabetic.

He was transferred to Sea Island naval hospital in Georgia, where he met my grandmother, a navy nurse.

Also, he was friends with Wellington Mara during the war. We’ve still got correspondence that he sent to my grandfather. After, the war, they visited and we have pictures of the two of them at a Giants game at the Polo Grounds.

They have all passed but I had 3 great grandfathers who served in WW2. They didn’t talk about it much but they each have an interesting story. One served in Europe and talked about how he choked a German to death. He said it was either me or him and I thought that was pretty bad arse. Another was on the ship that transported one of the atomic bombs across the ocean, and it’s cool that he was a part of that. Another survived the Bataan Death March. I can’t imagine what that was like. When he was old and in the hospital, an Asian nurse came into the room and he freaked out. He always said he hated the Japs and I think he probably had some pretty bad PTSD but I don’t blame him. I really wish they lived a bit longer so I could talk to them as an adult, because war stories are super interesting to me.

One Grandfather a medic on a hospital ship. The other a pilot instructor. Great uncle won every medal but the big one and he was nominated for it. Stories? You bet. From France to the Eagle's Nest.

My great uncle died when he was 100. About 10 years ago. When he was a boy, he lived with his grandfather until he died when my great uncle was 12. The grandfather was captured and paroled at the battle of Mobile when he was 15. His name is in the official muster rolls.

So I knew a guy intimately, who knew a guy intimately, who fought in the American Civil War 156 years ago.

And I'm only 47 years old.

My wife’s grandfather was a Seabee and he was in the Philippines during World War II. He didn’t talk about it much except when he would drink a little and then he would inevitably end up crying about one young Japanese soldier he killed.

My father is 93. It took decades to get him to talk about his WW2 experiences. He started out in southern France on a mortar squad, got attached to Patton’s 3rd army headed to the Battle of the Bulge. Said he froze his arse off, but got lucky and got lice so he got new clothes all the time.

He was eventually moved to assistant machine gunner

Dad was a replacement with the 95th, and was the youngest. The guy that took him in as a son, died in his arms after taking sniper fire.

The meanest SOB in his squad was a Baptist preacher from Penn who loved mowing down germans running out of a house after a tank put a timed shell in it. This guy rocked a BAR

N the final drive, they took prisoners. The ones that were not SS, As the replacement they always tried to get him to take them out and finish them off, no time for prisoners, fortunately, there was always someone willing to do it for him for gold teeth, and jewelry.

As a country boy from rural Mississippi, dad had not seen many paved roads,and riding the Autobahn was amazing to him.

There is a lot more, but I won’t bore you any further.

My great grandfather always talked about WW2. He was stationed in Brussels, Belgium. Talked about blocks of cities just being leveled after bombings. He said on D-Day you couldn’t see an inch of sky because all of the planes all day. It was really cool to sit down with him and talk about the war when he was alive.

My grandfather fought in WWII in Europe as a lieutenant in a chemical mortar battalion. He only told the stories that made him laugh even though I know he saw heavy combat throughout the march to Germany. He never once mentioned anything bad about the war. Things like stealing German motorcycles and finding booze in barns in France. Light stuff that was worth a chuckle. The closest he ever got to saying anything heavy was after he saw Saving Private Ryan. He said he thought he had forgotten some of that stuff, but the movie brought back some old memories.

I looked through his photo albums after he died and he had some pretty heavy stuff in there from where they liberated a work camp. I just can't imagine what he and other men went through and then silently suffered through for years afterwards. They're much better men than myself.

My grandfather was a WWII wounded vet

Only spoke about the war once in my lifetime. He described marching through N. Africa and seeing “deuce and a half’s filled with bodies heading the other direction” the terror in his eyes is something that will never leave me. He fought in NA and Sicily before being wounded in both knees by a German MG. Refused to go home and worked in his Divs supply department til they all went home.

He earned a Bronze Star at Anzio. Family says the guys in his platoon told them my grandfather kept two Kraut MGs trained on him while his platoon flanked the German position and neutralized them. Never heard the story told by the man himself