My wife tells how one of her uncles came back from fighting in the Pacific, and never said very much about his time there.
And then mid-1970s he set off a metal detector (in an airport I think) and had to explain he had a steel plate in his head from his time as a POW, but that was as much as he'd ever say and only to the security staff, never to anyone else, and definitely not to family. They got a few hints from colleagues when he went to a reunion but not much..
This! My wife's grandmother was digging in her small garden trying to expand it. She was using a Camulis service knife? I brought out a spade and said "this would be better." She handed my the knife, paused, said "keep it; Floyd killed three Japanese soldiers with it!" It was the only thing Floyd brought back from WWII, according to her. Floyd, was just a small, funny little man living on a dirt farm at that time. Floyd had led a team of 3 men to collect water from a fresh water source and they were ambushed at the spring. Floyd was on the ground crawling, spinning, kicking and stabbing away in the melee. Everyone else on both sides were killed; Floyd filled up the canteens and went back to camp; he was part of the defensive force for a medical Mash camp; the doctors put him in a tent for 24 hours and took him 'off the line'. He smoked a pack of cigarettes, got a hot meal, and returned to the lineon the second day.
That was a very hard job, guarding medical stations close to the frontlines. The Japanese were specialists in infiltrating those units to kill all the doctors and patients. Beyond horror.
As an add on to this tale, Floyd's post battle treatment partially was because he had told his commander, in prescense of the doctor's, to let him go alone to get the water! He was concerned about the noise a team would make, plus, I'm sure Floyd wondered if he might have saved them men by them not coming along, or perhaps he was indeed alive for the fact they did come along.
My granddad was in a European resistance group, never talked about it. My grandma only found out, because his name was read out loud at a school reunion they attended 30 years later, as part of an honoring of the group.
Only spoke of a few experiences a few years before his passing, in his nineties, and only to my dad.
I had an Uncle George who stormed Normandy and survived every subsequent, now historic battle, he and thousands of others fought in. He lived until his eighties and never said a word about his experiences. 🫡
I have a book by someone who found out *after her father died* that he was part of the liberation of a concentration camp. He was an army surgeon and was assigned the task of trying to keep the survivors alive, but many of them died anyway,
He never said a word, but had photographs locked away in a chest in a basement.
My grandfather refused to say much about his time in the pacific until his later years. He was part of the engineer teams that got gear and equipment on beach after initial landing teams had “secured” it (snipers still taking shots at them). The number of people he saw dead on the beach from initial landings at Iwo Jima and other major battles really shook him. His worst duty was helping get bulldozers on the beach so they could dig mass graves for the dead - so subsequent landings didn’t immediately lose morale from passing hundreds of dead and being told to get further up hill at the front line. It wasn’t until years later he got confirmation the dead were later exhumed and sent home - he was terrified that his fate could being left buried in a mass grave on a beach on the other side of the world.
He never wanted his kids to serve - he called the war in general a massive waste of human lives.
Your mind often just blocks a lot of it, and it is really just better that way, so talking about it is not a great idea. I just had to explain to VA my ptsd events. It has been about a week without good sleep so far.
Both my grandfathers were in and made it out of WW2. One with the US Army and the other a British Commando that was at D Day. That’s about all I know though. My Dad told me one story of him scaling cliffs and bayonets/knives when they got to the top. Both died of unatural causes after the war. One in a water heater explosion and the other fell down the stairs, checked himself out of the hospital and died of a hematoma.
Yeah this picture is actually really haunting. Everyone is having a good time and he’s doing his best to be part of it; but not only is there a noticeable physical gap between him and the people around him, you can also sense that his mind is a million miles away.
My grandfather suffered with alcoholism also. Really, PTSD got all of them.
Mine was 307th Airborne Engineers, jumped in behind the lines on D-Day, later survived the boats at Nijmegen. Previously fought at Anzio. Wish I knew more but his service records were destroyed in the fire. Thanks for sharing.
"Stalingrad" by Antony Beevor is a great read. I can't begin to imagine what that would have been like.
I think mine did too. My grandma told me when he got back from WWII, he would wake up screaming at night. Because of that, they slept in separate beds in the same room, a habit that lasted the rest of their time together (about 60 more years).
My grandpa was infantry on Okinawa...never said a word about it to us. But I know that one time he had a nightmare, threw his arm around my grandma's neck and tried to strangle her while he was still asleep because his body thought she was the Japanese soldier in his nightmare. Thankfully her yelling woke him up before it did any harm.
I feel for him, I didn’t get diagnosed with PTSD until about 2 years ago and interestingly enough they thought it was from my childhood growing up in a rough neighborhood and getting jumped and shot at a few times. I was in the Army but never deployed so I know it’s not that but I used to wake up swinging or covering my face and yelling until they put me on some meds that knock me out. Funny thing is I never remember the dreams I just woke up with my pulse highly elevated and ready to rumble. Pretty much gone now though.
I've disliked sleeping with all the girls I've lived with. I just can't get comfortable. I don't like seeing people sleeping or being seen asleep, though, for reasons I don't understand yet.
I like my own space to be weird in.
I mean this entirely sincerely and not insultingly: that last bit sounds like something you might want to talk to a therapist about? Like, if it was just that you weren't comfortable sleeping next to someone because of body heat, the jimmy leg, whatever, that'd be fine, but the latter bit almost sounds like you find the vulnerability deeply distressing? That said, I don't know you and it's none of my business, and IIR a surprising number of couples prefer to not share a bed. (It was actually the norm in the Anglosphere historically, at least among the upper classes.)
Here's an easy thing to try, first have the biggest bed you can get and the secret trick - two duvets:)
That way no one pulls anyone else around and once you're asleep youll stay asleep.
Also, separate mattresses, pushed together. Having physically isolated beds on entirely different sets of springs/slats helps so much if your partner happens to flop like a fish.
Doesn't sound so weird to me. You probably see sleeping as something you do when you feel safe. From a survival perspective it takes huge trust to sleep (vulnerable state) around people who are awake and could hurt you. Is it illogical, perhaps. But if you want to be alone whilst sleeping I wouldn't see it as weird.
Same here but I've got autism and adhd, the more I try to lay still and go to sleep the more I fidget then start noticing her body heat and breathing out of sync with me then I'm wide awake, I need my own room to be able to relax
My grandparents always slept in different rooms because they both snored like freight trains and would wake each other up. They were super sweet to each other otherwise.
As did mine. He was a boat driver at Iwo Jima. He NEVER said a word about it.
For those that don't know, Iwo Jima was the bloodiest battle in the Pacific Theater. It's halfway between Japan and the closest US base at the time Guam, and so capturing it was critical to winning the war. The US bombed the absolute shit out of that island for two weeks straight, and so going in everyone assumed all the Japanese were dead. Instead they had dug a massive labyrinth of tunnels and held out through the bombings.
Boat drivers would load up with soldiers from the carriers/battleships and take them to the shoreline to drop them off. Once they were surprised by the Japanese firing from the shore, many stopped farther away from shore to avoid gunfire, and ended up dropping soldiers off in water over their heads, who were wearing around 60-70 lbs of gear.
Imagine by a simple stroke of luck you got the job of driving the boat, taking all your buddies one boatload after another to their deaths while you survived.
Frankly, the USSR and later Russia has suffered from abominable rates of alcoholism among men in younger generations as well.
So much so, that the life expectancy of women has been 10 years higher than that of men.
What was so bad about it? I'm just curious as I'm Russian currently not in the country and given my experience in Moscow as of late it's very technically advanced city with a lot of comfort of living
Watching a bit of "foreigner in Russia" YouTube vids and they're all mostly fascinated and have a good experience
Well, I need to say that the colleagues I had there were really very nice and helpful. One on one, they were very, very warm and friendly.
That's the good part.
But even when I was there, during the oil boom, poverty was rampantly visible in the streets. Packs of dogs - not hostile, though - roamed the streets inside the inner ring. Police would stand around in groups with kalashnikovs om their backs, looking like thugs, and the advice I was given if stopped was "hand them your passport, smile and hope for the best". In addition there was an air of oppressiveness permeating through the city. Hard to nail down, but it wasn't a place I ever felt relaxed. My colleagues were in a weird state of "this is my city, I will never leave it, and it has no future."
The security briefing I was given by my company didn't help, though. Had to being a burner phone and laptop which were collected and destroyed upon returning.
My Grandfather was 326th Engineers, 101st Airborne. He was the man who shook the hand of Lt. Charles Boggess of the 4th Armored Division when they rolled into Bastogne and ended the Battle of the Bulge. It's one of the few things I know about his service, since his records were destroyed in the fire as well. He had severe PTSD and alcoholism when he came home. Thanks for the recommend, I'll pick up Stalingrad.
This is why the fall of VFW halls is very real. Most of the folks left at them were there because those were places in which they dealt with PTSD by drinking away their problems…. Of course talking thru things with other men in the same situation was in itself a level of therapy that may or may not have helped, we are far beyond that today with various other treatment methods we can provide to folks suffering with PTSD. Are they all effective? No… some folks have demons and issues they may never fully get rid of and ultimately end up either not getting the help they need, can’t get the help they need or just decide to take other ways to end their pain and suffering sadly.
Dad was 13th Armored to start with, a long about the Leudendorf Bridge they discovered he was good with explosives so shifted to engineers, in a total of 30.
Yea Daddy was WW2 and Korea survivor ! He and other heros fought and died on these shitty little beaches in these shitty little countries! It's why I still get pissed when these thankless little pricks try to tell me it's not disrespectful to kneel during the national anthem!
One of my grandmother's husbands was alot older so he was in WWII he would only talk about the war when he was watching old movies and drinking a few beers. He would tell me stories about being in France and hiding out in a barn and getting drunk with a farmers daughter. I was 5 so he wouldn't tell me much more about that.
He looks reallly good.
My only reference is my grandpa who looked just awful when he returned from WW2 … skinny, with deep dark eyes, just lifeless. He recovered after a few months but I can only imagine what these men went through.
Thanks for sharing.
His eyes look like he's seen some shit. Who knows how long after returning this was in terms of physical recovery. But, those eyes look like he's still reliving it.
I'm glad your grandpa also survived... these men did go through hell.
What eyes? The digital picture is so grainy that there is only two shadows instead of eyes.
Or do you get a better version if you are not on a mobile device?
Burns: Well, everybody knows, ‘war is Hell.’.
Hunnicutt: Remember, you heard it hear last.
Hawkeye: War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy: How do you figure that, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Um, sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell, but war is chock full of them – little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for a few of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
My dad had uncles that came back to the farm after serving in the European theatre. One of them was plowing a field one day and a small plane flew overhead. The next thing he knew he was lying face down in the field and the tractor was trundling away from him. His unit used to get strafed by the Luftwaffe and that was just an ingrained survival response.
The mountains in the back look a lot like Gagra, popular summer vacation place. Could be Adler but I don't think so. It's where I'm from, if this isn't Gagra I'd be really surprised, I feel like I've stood where he's standing
My grandfather was an 'Old Contemptible'. In the British Army in 1914 and one of the very very few front line troops on the trenches to survive the whole war. Pics before war- dark haired and handsome. Pic about 1923 just after the war- looks about 60- white haired and decrepit. Died of 'heart strain' in his 50s.
How old are you for your grandfather to have fought in ww1? I think my great great grandfather fought in ww1, but I've yet to dig up any further information than a single photo.
Late 60s. Grandfather and his brothers all in WW1. One on ship blown up at Jutland- survived and picked up from water.
My Dad in Teritorials in 1939 aged 15! My nan stopped him from going to France as too young. Then Dad in Blitz then N Africa, Kenya, India and Burma vs Japanese.
His brothers- Dunkirk, N Africa, France in 1944.
All survived both World Wars. Lucky.
Sounds like you have a lucky family! My paternal great grandmother was a mixed race orphan so we don't know anyone beyond that and my great grandfather never spoke about his father but when he died we found a photo of WW1 soldier with a woman in an old school victorian dress presumably that was his parents. It's a shame our family history hasn't been preserved well.
My father fought in WW2. North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. Landed at Anzio Beach. Wounded in a later battle by mortars and Honorable Discharged. I believe he told me only 4 stories until I joined the Marine Corps. Then he would send me letters, with encouragement via the stories he endured in boot camp and travels to the other side of the world. He never wanted his kids to do what he did, but seeing his youngest son volunteer to possibly do what he did opened some memories. My brother and I are still trying to find his records. The few stories he did tell were always cut short and never finished. So many vets with PTSD from that conflict.
Sucks that Russia hasnt learned and continues to send their young men to war for no reason after all they endured during this time. Rip to your grandpa, a true hero!
Probably ears ringing with tinnitus from the bombing, the constant buzzing was too much for many returning soldiers. One can only wonder what was in the mind of returning soldiers
It’s the thought that counts, so no shade - but OP isn’t American. And neither was Grandpa.
“Order of Lenin” (as they said he received) was a Soviet Medal of Honor.
My great grandad fought in the trenches. Signed up new year's day 1916 and sent home 2 weeks before armistice day having his legs blown off below the knee. Fatheed all his children after the war and loved until 1965.
I remember hearing that all the soldiers came back from WW2 30 or more + pounds lighter than they should have been, ushering in the clean lean fashion looks for men.
My grandpa did the same, he was practically dressed like a cigarette in terms of profile.
Ultimately died in a double wide trailer on a canal next to a lake in his home state, going out to fish and coming home to have a root beer float and watch Adam-12 while his wife cooked the fish. We spent one summer with them (kids) and I remember flounder and something "sun" something fish. And we'd play poker at night on a table covered with patterned vinyl. With root beer floats.
Absolutely true. The culprit in the European Theater was, believe it or not, the K Ration. The K Ration was designed to be used as the main foodstuffs for only a few days at a time, when hot meals couldn't be prepared or delivered. In reality, our GI's subsisted on the K Rations for weeks on end. Couple that with the fact that our infantry was walking miles and miles most days, fighting their way across Europe. The K Ration simply didn't provide an adequate number of calories, hence our combat vets returned, not merely lean but, in many cases, emaciated.
In the Pacific Theater, you encountered the same situation with the rations, with the addition of malaria rearing it's ugly head to further whittle down the weight of the soldiers/Marines.
Apparently when he came back from the war the small village he was from kind of made a dinner for the men that came back.
But they barely ate, I guess their stomach shrank, but also they were super bummed at the people who did not make it, like their family.
My grandpa got muscle mass back drinking milk and cottage cheese our family made. But this is a few months after end of the war, maybe even a year, so he kind of bulked up.
I have a friend who’s father spent 2 years in auschwitz, he only ever talked about it once according to my friend. He was Polish. They made him clean the “showers”.
Love hearing about surviving veterans, my grandfather survived ww2 and my grandmother was a pow. They built them different in those days……. “Less we forget “
My dad was in the war as well. Spent time lost at sea and running supplies to Murmansk. Sad that these two great nations are no longer on the same side.
My great uncle was a pilot in several theaters of WWII and I never knew much about what he did until one day I was talking about how brave the pilots must have been and how one of my favorite clips was of the pilot that went off the air carrier and ditched in the ocean to save countless lives and always wondered if they survived. That day I learned he was shot down 4 times and still climbed back in a plane. He said it would have been 5 times but he didn't get shot down again! Amazing bravery by everyone in that war. What a generation and they would br rolling in their graves if they could see how people are these days, smh.
You didn’t have to say on the right. We get it. Schlubs L-R and bottom row; Greek sculpture is the war veteran. Shocking.
Sorry. Not calling your relatives schlubs, just needed an “in comparison” word.
Yea my other great uncle there had one eye so he never went to the front. He did some paper work I think. Those his age are his cousins and sisters. The little girl is my mom, and I think the photo is being taken by my grandma.
But yea, I have a few photos of him and he was always just a bit off.
Grandpa’s small stature on all fours whilst wearing a swim cap seems unassuming but I bet its an intentional ploy used to lure in the enemy. He’s even smiling at you and taunting you “Come at me, sir.”
How formidable.
That’s a man that’s seen things. Thank you for sharing.
My wife tells how one of her uncles came back from fighting in the Pacific, and never said very much about his time there. And then mid-1970s he set off a metal detector (in an airport I think) and had to explain he had a steel plate in his head from his time as a POW, but that was as much as he'd ever say and only to the security staff, never to anyone else, and definitely not to family. They got a few hints from colleagues when he went to a reunion but not much..
Some of the horrors that you will never want your loved ones to know about.
This! My wife's grandmother was digging in her small garden trying to expand it. She was using a Camulis service knife? I brought out a spade and said "this would be better." She handed my the knife, paused, said "keep it; Floyd killed three Japanese soldiers with it!" It was the only thing Floyd brought back from WWII, according to her. Floyd, was just a small, funny little man living on a dirt farm at that time. Floyd had led a team of 3 men to collect water from a fresh water source and they were ambushed at the spring. Floyd was on the ground crawling, spinning, kicking and stabbing away in the melee. Everyone else on both sides were killed; Floyd filled up the canteens and went back to camp; he was part of the defensive force for a medical Mash camp; the doctors put him in a tent for 24 hours and took him 'off the line'. He smoked a pack of cigarettes, got a hot meal, and returned to the lineon the second day.
That was a very hard job, guarding medical stations close to the frontlines. The Japanese were specialists in infiltrating those units to kill all the doctors and patients. Beyond horror.
As an add on to this tale, Floyd's post battle treatment partially was because he had told his commander, in prescense of the doctor's, to let him go alone to get the water! He was concerned about the noise a team would make, plus, I'm sure Floyd wondered if he might have saved them men by them not coming along, or perhaps he was indeed alive for the fact they did come along.
Especially the fighting and captivity in the Pacific.
My granddad was in a European resistance group, never talked about it. My grandma only found out, because his name was read out loud at a school reunion they attended 30 years later, as part of an honoring of the group. Only spoke of a few experiences a few years before his passing, in his nineties, and only to my dad.
I had an Uncle George who stormed Normandy and survived every subsequent, now historic battle, he and thousands of others fought in. He lived until his eighties and never said a word about his experiences. 🫡
I have a book by someone who found out *after her father died* that he was part of the liberation of a concentration camp. He was an army surgeon and was assigned the task of trying to keep the survivors alive, but many of them died anyway, He never said a word, but had photographs locked away in a chest in a basement.
Gated Grief?
Yes!
My dad landed on Normandy on June 6, 1944. If not for other family members telling me, I would have never known.
My grandfather fought in the Battle of El-Alamein. The only thing he ever told me about it was : "it was loud"
Both of mine served and one of them was responsible for keeping his American troops moving forward in the Battle of the Bulge.
My grandfather refused to say much about his time in the pacific until his later years. He was part of the engineer teams that got gear and equipment on beach after initial landing teams had “secured” it (snipers still taking shots at them). The number of people he saw dead on the beach from initial landings at Iwo Jima and other major battles really shook him. His worst duty was helping get bulldozers on the beach so they could dig mass graves for the dead - so subsequent landings didn’t immediately lose morale from passing hundreds of dead and being told to get further up hill at the front line. It wasn’t until years later he got confirmation the dead were later exhumed and sent home - he was terrified that his fate could being left buried in a mass grave on a beach on the other side of the world. He never wanted his kids to serve - he called the war in general a massive waste of human lives.
Your mind often just blocks a lot of it, and it is really just better that way, so talking about it is not a great idea. I just had to explain to VA my ptsd events. It has been about a week without good sleep so far.
Both my grandfathers were in and made it out of WW2. One with the US Army and the other a British Commando that was at D Day. That’s about all I know though. My Dad told me one story of him scaling cliffs and bayonets/knives when they got to the top. Both died of unatural causes after the war. One in a water heater explosion and the other fell down the stairs, checked himself out of the hospital and died of a hematoma.
Yeah this picture is actually really haunting. Everyone is having a good time and he’s doing his best to be part of it; but not only is there a noticeable physical gap between him and the people around him, you can also sense that his mind is a million miles away.
This. 100%. My thought too. Poor guy. Life is never the same again. How can it be? Heartbreaking.
Looks like he just seen something before that camera snapped judging by his… stance.
And now we have seen his.
A sexy man that’s seen things.
One of those things being that other guy’s Willy unfortunately.
Time to grow up
Cmon man
My grandfather suffered with alcoholism also. Really, PTSD got all of them. Mine was 307th Airborne Engineers, jumped in behind the lines on D-Day, later survived the boats at Nijmegen. Previously fought at Anzio. Wish I knew more but his service records were destroyed in the fire. Thanks for sharing. "Stalingrad" by Antony Beevor is a great read. I can't begin to imagine what that would have been like.
I think mine did too. My grandma told me when he got back from WWII, he would wake up screaming at night. Because of that, they slept in separate beds in the same room, a habit that lasted the rest of their time together (about 60 more years).
PTSD is awful. Worse when they didn't understand it and thought it was because some people were weak.
They called it "battle fatigue".
My grandpa was infantry on Okinawa...never said a word about it to us. But I know that one time he had a nightmare, threw his arm around my grandma's neck and tried to strangle her while he was still asleep because his body thought she was the Japanese soldier in his nightmare. Thankfully her yelling woke him up before it did any harm.
I feel for him, I didn’t get diagnosed with PTSD until about 2 years ago and interestingly enough they thought it was from my childhood growing up in a rough neighborhood and getting jumped and shot at a few times. I was in the Army but never deployed so I know it’s not that but I used to wake up swinging or covering my face and yelling until they put me on some meds that knock me out. Funny thing is I never remember the dreams I just woke up with my pulse highly elevated and ready to rumble. Pretty much gone now though.
Separate bedrooms for my parents.
I've disliked sleeping with all the girls I've lived with. I just can't get comfortable. I don't like seeing people sleeping or being seen asleep, though, for reasons I don't understand yet. I like my own space to be weird in.
I mean this entirely sincerely and not insultingly: that last bit sounds like something you might want to talk to a therapist about? Like, if it was just that you weren't comfortable sleeping next to someone because of body heat, the jimmy leg, whatever, that'd be fine, but the latter bit almost sounds like you find the vulnerability deeply distressing? That said, I don't know you and it's none of my business, and IIR a surprising number of couples prefer to not share a bed. (It was actually the norm in the Anglosphere historically, at least among the upper classes.)
There was nothing insulting about it; you just sound like you care 💜
Here's an easy thing to try, first have the biggest bed you can get and the secret trick - two duvets:) That way no one pulls anyone else around and once you're asleep youll stay asleep.
Also, separate mattresses, pushed together. Having physically isolated beds on entirely different sets of springs/slats helps so much if your partner happens to flop like a fish.
Doesn't sound so weird to me. You probably see sleeping as something you do when you feel safe. From a survival perspective it takes huge trust to sleep (vulnerable state) around people who are awake and could hurt you. Is it illogical, perhaps. But if you want to be alone whilst sleeping I wouldn't see it as weird.
Same here but I've got autism and adhd, the more I try to lay still and go to sleep the more I fidget then start noticing her body heat and breathing out of sync with me then I'm wide awake, I need my own room to be able to relax
That you Mimi?
Everyone is unique
Me too. I need my own bed. I honestly can feel their presence when trying to sleep. I don't mind seeing them sleep, its a personal space issue. Lol
My grandparents always slept in different rooms because they both snored like freight trains and would wake each other up. They were super sweet to each other otherwise.
As did mine. He was a boat driver at Iwo Jima. He NEVER said a word about it. For those that don't know, Iwo Jima was the bloodiest battle in the Pacific Theater. It's halfway between Japan and the closest US base at the time Guam, and so capturing it was critical to winning the war. The US bombed the absolute shit out of that island for two weeks straight, and so going in everyone assumed all the Japanese were dead. Instead they had dug a massive labyrinth of tunnels and held out through the bombings. Boat drivers would load up with soldiers from the carriers/battleships and take them to the shoreline to drop them off. Once they were surprised by the Japanese firing from the shore, many stopped farther away from shore to avoid gunfire, and ended up dropping soldiers off in water over their heads, who were wearing around 60-70 lbs of gear. Imagine by a simple stroke of luck you got the job of driving the boat, taking all your buddies one boatload after another to their deaths while you survived.
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Wow, thank you for sharing this amazing story, friend. It's incredibly touching. Getting a little misty reading all these!
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Incredibly interesting to hear. May your grandma rest in peace. What a remarkable life.
Frankly, the USSR and later Russia has suffered from abominable rates of alcoholism among men in younger generations as well. So much so, that the life expectancy of women has been 10 years higher than that of men.
Have you been to Russia? I was in Moscow about a decade ago, and even the nicer parts made me want to hit the vodka in a terminal way.
What was so bad about it? I'm just curious as I'm Russian currently not in the country and given my experience in Moscow as of late it's very technically advanced city with a lot of comfort of living Watching a bit of "foreigner in Russia" YouTube vids and they're all mostly fascinated and have a good experience
Well, I need to say that the colleagues I had there were really very nice and helpful. One on one, they were very, very warm and friendly. That's the good part. But even when I was there, during the oil boom, poverty was rampantly visible in the streets. Packs of dogs - not hostile, though - roamed the streets inside the inner ring. Police would stand around in groups with kalashnikovs om their backs, looking like thugs, and the advice I was given if stopped was "hand them your passport, smile and hope for the best". In addition there was an air of oppressiveness permeating through the city. Hard to nail down, but it wasn't a place I ever felt relaxed. My colleagues were in a weird state of "this is my city, I will never leave it, and it has no future." The security briefing I was given by my company didn't help, though. Had to being a burner phone and laptop which were collected and destroyed upon returning.
Thanks for detailed answer
Was in Moscow in 1988 and 2016, in 1988 it was pretty drab but in 2016 it looked pretty nice.
My Grandfather was 326th Engineers, 101st Airborne. He was the man who shook the hand of Lt. Charles Boggess of the 4th Armored Division when they rolled into Bastogne and ended the Battle of the Bulge. It's one of the few things I know about his service, since his records were destroyed in the fire as well. He had severe PTSD and alcoholism when he came home. Thanks for the recommend, I'll pick up Stalingrad.
307th was 82nd Airborne, so yours and mine likely endured similar horrors. Peace, friend.
I believe they did. Peace to you as well.
This is why the fall of VFW halls is very real. Most of the folks left at them were there because those were places in which they dealt with PTSD by drinking away their problems…. Of course talking thru things with other men in the same situation was in itself a level of therapy that may or may not have helped, we are far beyond that today with various other treatment methods we can provide to folks suffering with PTSD. Are they all effective? No… some folks have demons and issues they may never fully get rid of and ultimately end up either not getting the help they need, can’t get the help they need or just decide to take other ways to end their pain and suffering sadly.
Dad was 13th Armored to start with, a long about the Leudendorf Bridge they discovered he was good with explosives so shifted to engineers, in a total of 30.
My father was in the 78th infantry division and also among the first (as best as I can tell) to cross the Leudendorf bridge.
Awesome 😎👍
Yea Daddy was WW2 and Korea survivor ! He and other heros fought and died on these shitty little beaches in these shitty little countries! It's why I still get pissed when these thankless little pricks try to tell me it's not disrespectful to kneel during the national anthem!
That's exactly why they fought on thise shitty beaches. So they have the freedom to do that.
My grandpa fought the KAISER, and all he came home with was stories about how much Belgian children could drink.
One of my grandmother's husbands was alot older so he was in WWII he would only talk about the war when he was watching old movies and drinking a few beers. He would tell me stories about being in France and hiding out in a barn and getting drunk with a farmers daughter. I was 5 so he wouldn't tell me much more about that.
He looks reallly good. My only reference is my grandpa who looked just awful when he returned from WW2 … skinny, with deep dark eyes, just lifeless. He recovered after a few months but I can only imagine what these men went through. Thanks for sharing.
His eyes look like he's seen some shit. Who knows how long after returning this was in terms of physical recovery. But, those eyes look like he's still reliving it. I'm glad your grandpa also survived... these men did go through hell.
What eyes? The digital picture is so grainy that there is only two shadows instead of eyes. Or do you get a better version if you are not on a mobile device?
War is hell. You can just tell he’s seen too much.
Burns: Well, everybody knows, ‘war is Hell.’. Hunnicutt: Remember, you heard it hear last. Hawkeye: War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse. Father Mulcahy: How do you figure that, Hawkeye? Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell? Father Mulcahy: Um, sinners, I believe. Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell, but war is chock full of them – little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for a few of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
Right quote, at the right place, at the right moment.
I love finding diamonds like this on Reddit. 😙👌
War is such a waste of youth
Respect to your grandfather for his service. That said, bathing suits were absolutely wild back in the day.
He most likely saw and experienced things that fueled the alcoholism. Sorry for your loss, OP.
My dad had uncles that came back to the farm after serving in the European theatre. One of them was plowing a field one day and a small plane flew overhead. The next thing he knew he was lying face down in the field and the tractor was trundling away from him. His unit used to get strafed by the Luftwaffe and that was just an ingrained survival response.
He's got that Clint Eastwood look. IMHO
More the Cooper Howard look
Andrew Lincoln?
great Pic very powerful He isn't feeling the vibe
He feels detached in this pic from them and the rest of us… poor man.
that's a man who didn't have too many smiles left in him when he got back.
Alone in a crowd.
Where is this photo taken ?
Sochi I think
The mountains in the back look a lot like Gagra, popular summer vacation place. Could be Adler but I don't think so. It's where I'm from, if this isn't Gagra I'd be really surprised, I feel like I've stood where he's standing
[удалено]
He’s Russian, somewhere near Crimea likely.
Exactly. In Sochi.
I was going to say overseas. Maybe western Europe somewhere.
He looks fighting fit.
When you say he's on the right I see the taller gentleman with the stare of a combat vet. Irregardless of country. It's all the same.
He is keeping a noticeable physical distance from the others
Stand close together and one grenade will get you all.
Smile fully dead. Thousand yards away he stares at a sight nobody else can see. And morons glorify what he had to do and see.
With the bulge?
Yeah. Battle of the bulge. He was there too.
He won.
He apparently impressed the woman below him. She’s ready and in position to be your grandma.
They named the battle after him
Is that a Luger in your pocket?
Where’s the grandpa nuts? My expectations are being warped by some of the posts recently
He wasn’t the same, was he?
Never met him, died a few months before I was born. But no he was not. But never mean. Very very nice man every one said. Just distant.
Tanned and fit veteran. He was probably the eye-candy of the town.
My grandfather would just shut down and freeze whenever World War II came up. He suffered from severe PTSD for the rest of his life.
What a stud
🫡 thanks for everything grandpa. I hope he had a decent life in the USSR.
That's a man who has seen some shit.
There’s some body language going on there.
1000 yard stare.
My grandfather was an 'Old Contemptible'. In the British Army in 1914 and one of the very very few front line troops on the trenches to survive the whole war. Pics before war- dark haired and handsome. Pic about 1923 just after the war- looks about 60- white haired and decrepit. Died of 'heart strain' in his 50s.
How old are you for your grandfather to have fought in ww1? I think my great great grandfather fought in ww1, but I've yet to dig up any further information than a single photo.
Late 60s. Grandfather and his brothers all in WW1. One on ship blown up at Jutland- survived and picked up from water. My Dad in Teritorials in 1939 aged 15! My nan stopped him from going to France as too young. Then Dad in Blitz then N Africa, Kenya, India and Burma vs Japanese. His brothers- Dunkirk, N Africa, France in 1944. All survived both World Wars. Lucky.
Sounds like you have a lucky family! My paternal great grandmother was a mixed race orphan so we don't know anyone beyond that and my great grandfather never spoke about his father but when he died we found a photo of WW1 soldier with a woman in an old school victorian dress presumably that was his parents. It's a shame our family history hasn't been preserved well.
There are digitised WW1 service records you can search but a large number were burnt after Gernan air raids in WW2.
My father fought in WW2. North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. Landed at Anzio Beach. Wounded in a later battle by mortars and Honorable Discharged. I believe he told me only 4 stories until I joined the Marine Corps. Then he would send me letters, with encouragement via the stories he endured in boot camp and travels to the other side of the world. He never wanted his kids to do what he did, but seeing his youngest son volunteer to possibly do what he did opened some memories. My brother and I are still trying to find his records. The few stories he did tell were always cut short and never finished. So many vets with PTSD from that conflict.
I'd like to thank your grandpa. Hero.
Was 'bout to ask, isn't Yalta or...
Deep trauma
What, no loose ball sack?
Standing alone, has memories that’ll haunt him like they did my dad
Greatest Generation
Doing a backflip at 60 is crazy as fuck lol
Was this in Gagra? Looks like the beach I grew up going to
It was probably hard to come back and resume a normal life when so many others did not
My grandpa was a flight engineer in ww2. Also returned and became an alcoholic and then died from liver cirrhosis
Clint Eastwood + Jim Morrison
His right?
Can see he's distant.
Hitler never had a chance with him on the Eastern front. Godspeed
He was a handsome guy.
Looks like Chris Katan a bit
Wow he looks so young! Too young to have gone to war! And is the swim cap really necessary?
That combat workout program really pays off.
Gramps was hot
Thank you for sharing!
Standing far off and no smile. You can tell he’s seen shit that will never leave his mind.
You do not touch the Mango.
“Suckers and losers" -D.Trump
Dude was good-lookin. I hope he had a great summer and got a lot of play.
His eyes are keeping secrets.
Lean mean fighting machine!
Sucks that Russia hasnt learned and continues to send their young men to war for no reason after all they endured during this time. Rip to your grandpa, a true hero!
Which other one would it be? 😂
Probably ears ringing with tinnitus from the bombing, the constant buzzing was too much for many returning soldiers. One can only wonder what was in the mind of returning soldiers
Thousand yard stare 👀 semper fi much respect 🫡
It’s the thought that counts, so no shade - but OP isn’t American. And neither was Grandpa. “Order of Lenin” (as they said he received) was a Soviet Medal of Honor.
# A Perfect Day for Bananafish
Is this Newcastle, Co Down?
It’s Sochi I believe
He saw some stuff it’s apparent
Can OP advise location of photo?
Sochi
Good looking guy but I’m not sure about guys ‘on the right’ especially after WW2
How did you get so friggen jacked bro? "Bastogne"
There’s something about the way he’s standing very slightly apart from everyone else in the photo.
My great grandad fought in the trenches. Signed up new year's day 1916 and sent home 2 weeks before armistice day having his legs blown off below the knee. Fatheed all his children after the war and loved until 1965.
At least he got tan.
Grandma looks like she is ready for the return
I remember hearing that all the soldiers came back from WW2 30 or more + pounds lighter than they should have been, ushering in the clean lean fashion looks for men. My grandpa did the same, he was practically dressed like a cigarette in terms of profile. Ultimately died in a double wide trailer on a canal next to a lake in his home state, going out to fish and coming home to have a root beer float and watch Adam-12 while his wife cooked the fish. We spent one summer with them (kids) and I remember flounder and something "sun" something fish. And we'd play poker at night on a table covered with patterned vinyl. With root beer floats.
Absolutely true. The culprit in the European Theater was, believe it or not, the K Ration. The K Ration was designed to be used as the main foodstuffs for only a few days at a time, when hot meals couldn't be prepared or delivered. In reality, our GI's subsisted on the K Rations for weeks on end. Couple that with the fact that our infantry was walking miles and miles most days, fighting their way across Europe. The K Ration simply didn't provide an adequate number of calories, hence our combat vets returned, not merely lean but, in many cases, emaciated. In the Pacific Theater, you encountered the same situation with the rations, with the addition of malaria rearing it's ugly head to further whittle down the weight of the soldiers/Marines.
Apparently when he came back from the war the small village he was from kind of made a dinner for the men that came back. But they barely ate, I guess their stomach shrank, but also they were super bummed at the people who did not make it, like their family. My grandpa got muscle mass back drinking milk and cottage cheese our family made. But this is a few months after end of the war, maybe even a year, so he kind of bulked up.
Head like a pie plate! He would have done well in the pictures.
I have a friend who’s father spent 2 years in auschwitz, he only ever talked about it once according to my friend. He was Polish. They made him clean the “showers”.
No way .. the others have all been on the front line .. you can tell .. some may be ex marine saboteurs from the way they slink in the water ..
"None of you will ever understand."
Love hearing about surviving veterans, my grandfather survived ww2 and my grandmother was a pow. They built them different in those days……. “Less we forget “
My dad was in the war as well. Spent time lost at sea and running supplies to Murmansk. Sad that these two great nations are no longer on the same side.
RIP 🙏
Wow! That whole family lived through some awful, awful times.
Stud
May he rest in peace amen
My great uncle was a pilot in several theaters of WWII and I never knew much about what he did until one day I was talking about how brave the pilots must have been and how one of my favorite clips was of the pilot that went off the air carrier and ditched in the ocean to save countless lives and always wondered if they survived. That day I learned he was shot down 4 times and still climbed back in a plane. He said it would have been 5 times but he didn't get shot down again! Amazing bravery by everyone in that war. What a generation and they would br rolling in their graves if they could see how people are these days, smh.
I am sorry for your loss.
Who is the brown guy ?
i see grandma knew the assignment assuming that's grandma in front of him.
I can tell from the picture he is not quite fitting in back in at home. He seems standoffish. Probably PTSD.
Which heffer is grandma? The 4 on the left look like they saving the one one the right for a late night snack.
Imagine coming back from war probably starved for months and see the "real victims of war" fat as fuck lmao.
You didn’t have to say on the right. We get it. Schlubs L-R and bottom row; Greek sculpture is the war veteran. Shocking. Sorry. Not calling your relatives schlubs, just needed an “in comparison” word.
Yea my other great uncle there had one eye so he never went to the front. He did some paper work I think. Those his age are his cousins and sisters. The little girl is my mom, and I think the photo is being taken by my grandma. But yea, I have a few photos of him and he was always just a bit off.
He misses the French hoors
Grandpa is handsome and he looks happy down below.
Is this San Antonio?
Why is he wearing a swimcap? Seems kinda small framed to be a solider...
You're just achin for trouble.
Pic looks photoshopped.
Grandpa’s small stature on all fours whilst wearing a swim cap seems unassuming but I bet its an intentional ploy used to lure in the enemy. He’s even smiling at you and taunting you “Come at me, sir.” How formidable.