Sunday, October 14, 2012

Ken Burns' The War

My lovely wife and I are watching The War, Ken Burns' WWII documentary.  We have been in a bit of a military history frame of mind ever since leaving Washington last Monday.

This movie is making us both think about our relatives who fought in the war.  For her, it's her grandfather.  He was stationed mostly in Persia and never saw action.  We just found out from Jen's mom (who had a birthday yesterday, wish her a happy birthday!) that toward the end of the war he was stationed in Texas where they were teaching him to speak Japanese.

For me, it's my father's uncle Jimmy.  Jimmy fought in the Pacific.  From what I've been told he saw action pretty much everywhere.  He never spoke to us, meaning me and my siblings, about the war.  I don't know if that was because we didn't ask him, or because it was something he didn't wish to discuss.  My father once implied that he did not like talking about his experiences.  Shortly before he died he was starting to open up about it a little bit, but not a lot.

I'm missing Uncle Jimmy a lot right now.  I really loved that guy.

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