My grandfather was a trench runner. He carried messages from trench to trench at 17 years old. Can you imagine that? I’m going to run from trench to trench, dodging ememy fire to deliver a piece of paper. We think we have it tough. He was a rough man who, as I remember, wasn’t very nice in his old age. I often wonder how his teenage war experiences affected him. I can’t imagine going through that.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

Your Grandfather was Hitler?

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When I am stuck and need to figure something out I always remember the Immortal words of Socrates when he said:"I just drank what?"

Hitler didn’t have any children, dumbfuck.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

Same here. Drudgery, mud and essentially a highwire risky act. And repeat over and over.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

No shit. I can’t imagine having to deal with that hell as teenager. My grandfather was a farmboy from North Dakota. I’m sure he had no idea what he was in for when ‘Uncle Sam’ came calling.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

It's like the only thing my grandfather ever talked about at Normandy. How he watched a buddy get cut in half by machine gun fire, or that all the water was red.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

My paternal grandfather was born in 1901, so he was too young for WWI, too old for WWII, added in with him being the youngest and on the farm. He reaped the benefits of being a relatively good-looking fellow and a decent dancer, in a large pool of women widowed by the War.

I have never heard of any involvement on my maternal side, but it would have been on the non-victor side.

I'll take "Things never said about K Effective for $400, Alex"

Just read the prologue....sounds interesting.

"Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen (1917)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.


"I Have a Rendezvous with Death," by Alan Seeger (1916)

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear ...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

A horrible (yet good) story: https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/10/us/ww2-r ... index.html

Got a little dusty in the can while I was reading that.

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Wow . . . that was really cool.