I meant to post something yesterday, but I got the rare and welcomed opportunity to go shopping with Indiana Mimi (my mother) and Bonny Annie WITHOUT Dirty Harry and Cap’n Jack Henry.  So I seized that opportunity and didn’t give my blog another thought.

So today, on June 1, the day AFTER Memorial Day, I’m posting my Memorial Day article…

First of all, I know that Memorial Day is meant to honor men and women who lost their lives serving our country in the military.  It is not necessarily the time to just recognize veterans (that for Veteran’s Day).  But sometimes the lines of these two holidays get a little blurred, and I’m about to do that a little here on my blog too.  Hope you can forgive me.

My grandfather, Albert Harris,  served in the US Army during WWII.  I’m really not sure of his rank or division or anything like that, but I do know of two really cool stories.

Doesn’t he look a little like Humphrey Bogart?  But that’s not what this post is about…

My grandfather was the only surviving member of a tank explosion.  Apparently, his position inside the tank was at the top.  When the tank was hit, he was blown up and out and didn’t have any physical injuries.  The other five men in the tank were killed instantly.  It makes me feel a little squirmy to think that if he had been any lower in the tank that I wouldn’t even exist.

My grandfather was in Italy when Mussolini was overthrown.  Apparently they allowed some of the troops to have access to his mansion, and he got to swim in his pool.

Albert Harris died of a heart attack when he was just 48, several years before I was born.  That’s always made me a little sad.  I would  liked to have known him.

This is William “Bill” Vanderbilt, one of my great uncles.

I never knew him, as he too died before I was born.  I just recently learned though, that he was a prisoner of war during WWII, and my mom actually had a photograph of him that was sent to his mother at some point.

I guess I never really thought that they actually snapped photographs of prisoners.  Who do you think would have taken this picture?  The Nazis?  A buddy?  A fellow prisoner?  It’s very intriguing to me.

This is another of my great uncles, Henry Vanderbilt and his wife, Ima…

I don’t know any stories of his war experience.  Uncle Henry, however, is still living, and two years ago, on Memorial Day, we were able to visit him briefly.

I feel so blessed to have such a rich military heritage. 

And now, hopefully, you are feeling all mushy and patriotic, and I would like to share with you a video.  A few weeks ago Bonny Annie was in a play about WWII.  She played Ruth, a volunteer for a USO club.  She and the other cast members sang a very moving song at one point in the play where another USO volunteer just found out that her young husband was missing-in-action.

How blessed we are to live in such a country!  How blessed we are that so many before us were willing to sacrifice that we could still enjoy the freedoms we have today!

I hope you had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.  I hope that as you ate watermelon or grilled burgers or watched baseball or went to the movies that you took time out to remember…to remember those sacrifices and to thank God for them.