And THIS is my grandparents story that someone deemed inappropriate. This is was their lives and struggle and I am proud to tell their story. Thanks mom for sharing it with us. Our history is important. Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana On the chance I might get reported again for inappropriate posting, this is a brief synopsis of my mom & dads story. They are both gone now but their stories live in my heart... My father was a sergeant in the Army with the Lame Duck Battalian. He fought at the Battle of Normandy, Omaha Beach Head. He used to try to tell me about what happened there... especially as he grew older, his clear grey-blue eyes would mist over as his words became whispers then turned into the silence of terrible memories. He would get so far as telling how coming off the ships the German gunfire was so intense, friends he had spoken to just moments before were now floating face down in an ocean red with blood. He usually grew silent right after saying, I had to push them out of the way to get to the shore... the water was so bloody... He could never finish that recounting... such was his pain. BUT it was in France wher he met the woman who would become my mother. In 1939, as the war revved up in Europe, my mom was just 13 years old, a school-girl in Lorrain, France... on the German border. As the war progressed, the nazis actually took over her family home as their headquarters, while my mother and her family lived there. During that time, at the old age of just 16 years, my mother joined the French Resistance. As part of the underground she would relay to the allies the plans the Germans were concocting in her own home. The word was secrecy. Putting up fake faces to their captors to convince them they were on their side... all the while putting her own young life at risk for her countrys freedom. My mom was working as a war-nurse with the underground, giving medical assistance to wounded soldiers (she was my inspiration for wanting to have a medical career of my own). She met the soldier who would become my father when she was all of almost 18. The Germans eventually moved their headquarters out of her home as Hitlers forces moved further to the south. Yet mom remained an active resistance fighter. Both my mom & Dad were shot during the war... both in their legs during fire fights. They became engaged, but my father actually missed his own wedding early in 1945 because his battalion became entrapped behind enemy lines for 3 weeks. So her brother, who had the same first name as my father, stood in for him at the church wedding, because everything has already been prepared and during the war... nothing could go to waste. Weeks later, and informal wedding was held in May 1945, shortly before my Dad shipped out back for the U.S. My mom, at the old age of 19, braved an ocean ship trip by herself to reunite with my father in the U.S. after he was mustered out. Their marriage lasted 27 years and yes, they did eventually go their separate ways, remarry and continue on separately, but I grew up hearing stories of WWII... hearing about the terrible food shortage in Europe (which did not end just because the war did !). My mom used to tell me how the women would watch for the paratroopers to land because the women would run out and collect the silk parachutes and turn them into under garments... no longer available to buy during the war... and how their family would receive ration coupons that (today) would not feed one person for 3 days, that a family with children would have to stretch for the week... sometimes as little as ONE egg and ONE cup of sugar for a family with 4 children. Thats why she leaned to cook the simple means I grew up loving which may consist of ONE item (like potatoes dumplings (Kruskis) or a bowl of rice with milk. Not a drop was wasted and you did not leave the table without cleaning your plate. When she grew up during the war... each meal might be the last for a very long time, so you never took it for granted and finished all you were given... a hard trait to break even after many years in the U.S. As was both my parents need for privacy and secrecy. As my Dad used to say Loose lips sinks ships and my mom would always warn us about not washing your dirty laundry out in public... in other words, keep your problems to yourself, rely on yourself... and you will be safe. Thats how I was raised. I was a child of two soldiers. My father was in the O.S.S. and my mom in the French Underground... Trust me... I can keep a secret. (From the memories of my mother)
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 02:26:17 +0000