Friday, August 20, 2010

They didn’t shoot me because they thought I was crazy

If you have seen The Longest Day you may remember a scene as British troops are landing on Sword Beach where a guy starts wading ashore and playing the bagpipes.

Well amazingly enough that part is actual fact. He was a private named Bill Millin and he died yesterday. One of the interesting things in the artice was this bit:

He said he found out later, after meeting Germans who had manned guns above the beach, that they didn’t shoot him “because they thought I was crazy.”

Its pretty funny, but also pretty amazing.

My gramps went ashore on Juno Beach but he doesn’t talk about it much. His best friend died there and it still holds some powerful memories for him. Literally one second his friend was next to him, the next he was gone. Gone as in they found a boot, nothing else. He has only talked to me once about his military days and I have never pushed him to tell me more. There comes a look in his eyes that tells of a weariness of soul, and its best to let that alone.

Really the only thing he has mentioned of his military days in WWII was when he was in the Netherlands, at least I think it was there I am not completely positive. Anyway, apparently he made a friend of a young child there, sharing chocolate and whatnot. After the war they started sending letters back and forth and every year to this day he gets a Christmas card. He has gone back and visited a few times as well. Pretty interesting.

Not sure why I wrote this, but I did.

The pressure is building for us to get our stuff done and each day it seems the list gets bigger, even though we are crossing stuff off. Basically we have tomorrow to get everything packed up and ready to go, and we are not even close to that. I spent a lot of today fixing leaky faucets instead of doing moving stuff. So I’m irritated, sore from kneeling on cement, and tired. I really really wanted Sunday to be a day of just packing up the U-Haul and that is it. Looks like we are going to be doing much more than that. I’m not happy.

3 Days to go!  Cliff - Peer Pressure Works, Chad - The Grind, Kelly - ‘Round the Bend, Kim - In Desperate Need of Entertainment, Erron – From the Inside Looking In, Kyle - Blog, Liam - In the Now, James – Feelings of White, Shaun - Expedition of Truths, Tammy - Tam I am, Vlad – Analog Coast, Janine – Because.

3 comments:

  1. Dude, it's time to start focusing on the move. That's it. The MIL is going to have to start figuring out how to get this shit done when you guys are gone, so what better time to start than now.

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  2. Well today is gonna be a long assed day. Hopefully we can get everything done that we need to get done. So that tomorrow is a nice relaxing day.

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  3. One of my grandfathers was in the war and I remember being told as a child not to ask him about it because he didn't talk about it. He passed away a few years back and it sometimes boggles the mind that there was this whole part if his life I never knew anything about. Trying to picture my grandpa in the army... It's like the puzzle pieces don't quite fit together and yet I know, factually, that they do

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