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Message: [QUOTE="Crusty, post: 3033730, member: 2265"] Wonderful documentary. One of the main reasons Boomers were somewhat oblivious to the tremendous valor displayed by our soldiers is that none of them ever talked about it. We never heard first-hand stories. Most of us experienced the stone walling by relatives when queried about their wartime experiences but I also cannot recall ever overhearing vets talking about the war to each other. It was just left behind them. They were everywhere - teachers, little league coaches, barbers, mailmen, doctors - everywhere. You would think you would overhear many simple conversations between vets. But nothing. Me stepfather was on an LST at Sicily and Normandy and I never knew until his nephew and I researched his hull number - 40 years later. In his last year (he knew he was dying) he finally opened up a bit and he teared up every time he started. Quiet one way fragments of a conversation with missing context I knew he couldn't handle. So, I just listened wondering what was bubbling up from the recesses of his mind, trying to piece things together from the somber snippets of memory. My uncle did the same thing. Out of nowhere, when he was in his 60's, came a story of a time he was a radio operator on a night flight to coastal France where they landed and took right off again in minutes. His memory was vivid of sitting in the front bubble as they landed watching the ground coming up at him. He was telling me the story but his mind was elsewhere. The Greatest Generation, while certainly imperfect products of the Great Depression, endured the terrors and horrors of a war that killed 50 million. Stoically, they came home and went about building a future for all of us. When I see these documentaries, I see the faces of the adults of my youth in the men on the screen and a warm smile always makes its way on to my face. My personal heroes. [/QUOTE]

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