[Rhodes22-list] Conversation with Dad

[brad haslett]

I called my Dad last night to get his perspective on
how the war was going.  Dad drove a duece and a half
truck pulling a 105 Howitzer all the way to Germany. 
He never told war stories when I was a kid and never
made it through the movie "Patton".  He walked out of
the room with tears in his eyes and said "I don't need
to watch this son, I was there".  Anyway, 83 years
have softened him a bit and he was asked by a local
school teacher to address her class and explain what
war was like.  He explained to the class that what our
boys did in Iraq in two days took his unit three
months with over ten thousand dead.  Mostly he stuck
to the funny stuff he encountered.  While driving in
the Red Ball Express they would put their canned meals
on the engine to warm them up.  Sometimes the convey
would keep moving for hours at a time and they would
blow their meal up.  When time allowed, the farm boys
like my Dad would borrow a French cow and serve their
buddies steaks.  Dad didn't have much to say about the
current situation except he was real proud of our
troops and hoped it would be over soon.  As a parent
of a soldier who did two tours in Vietnam he said he
prayed for the troops and their parents.  I asked his
opinion about the French and he said "they haven't
changed much since I was there".

Always interesting to hear from someone who's "been
there, done that".

Brad

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more
http://platinum.yahoo.com