Our veterans are very important people that fought for our country and our freedoms.  Many died for us to be able to call this place home and to have the liberties we have every day.  They saw things in war that we civilians will hopefully never see.  War is not pretty and sometimes we just don’t realize the impact it has on our troops and veterans.

I’m sure most of us know someone that is a veteran.  We can even look back and see that our own grandfathers were in a war of some kind.  Both of Melissa Herring’s grandfathers were in World War II.  One of Melissa’s grandfathers, her Papa Bo, was in the Navy.  Her other grandfather, Grandpa Thomas, was in the Air Force.

Papa Bo was from Barcelona and he worked on a Navy plane that sunk enemy submarines.  He was an amateur photographer and would take pictures of the submarines as they sank.  Melissa’s family still has pictures showing each stage of the sinking from it surfacing, to the bomb dropping, then the bomb hitting its target and the submarine sinking.

Her only memory of Papa Bo’s house was that he kept these pictures above the mantle and they were so interesting.  “I thought it was like the coolest thing!” she says.  Her Papa Bo seemed to be a giant to her back then, but only because she was about five years old.  As it turns out, he was actually a short, thin man.  She remembers him lifting her up on his shoulders and she would rub his bald head while he got her a sucker from the jar that was placed up high.  He had dementia toward the end of his life, but he served our country well earlier in his days.

Melissa’s other grandfather, Grandpa Thomas, was Sicilian and actually received his United States citizenship from fighting in World War II in the Air Force.  The family doesn’t know what he did exactly, not even his rank.  They do know that he lied about his age to join the military, which many in that generation did.  He never spoke about being in the service, and they didn’t even know he was in the war until after he died.  They also found that he had a purple heart and other medals, and were surprised that he never spoke about them.

He was full of pride for the United States while he was alive, but never boastful about himself.  He was so patriotic and would tell Melissa that she should be proud to be born in America.  He loved football and would eat an entire loaf of Bunny bread while watching the football game.  He’d pull out slices, “roll them into balls and pop them in his mouth,” she laughs.

He worked at a concession stand for a high school and as their groundskeeper.  Sometimes he’d be sneaky and ask if she wanted a candy bar.  “I was like, yeah I want a candy bar.  I’m five years old!”  He’d tell her he’d give her one if she wouldn’t tell her mom that he was having one too.  “As long as you don’t tell Mom I had one,” she had said.  He was diabetic but she didn’t know what that meant at the time.  “Apparently it was pretty bad,” she says of his type of diabetes.  He took insulin shots to keep it under control.

Melissa wonders why they never thought he was in the military because he was always clean shaven, had his hair combed, had on freshly pressed pants, and his shirt was always tucked in, even when watching his football games.  “He was the only person I’ve ever known who would wear a button down white shirt, tucked into his creased pants to cut the grass,” Melissa says.  “I never saw him in jeans and never saw him with his shirt untucked.”  He was very routine, rigid, and precise about things, so much so that he ate at the same place every week and even ate the same thing.

All her grandmother could tell her about his military service was that “men with guns would show up at the house and take him in a black car and they would come back and drop him off.”  She said sometimes he’d be gone a day or sometimes a week.  When he’d return he’d say, “I can’t tell you anything.  Don’t ask.”

“My Grandpa was like James Bond,” Melissa laughs.  They found letters he wrote to his family during World War II saying that he practically had to disown them and for them to forget he was alive because he couldn’t contact them anymore.  He said after the war they’d talk, but he couldn’t discuss anything about the war or his service.  He was stationed in Alaska at this time and his family was still in Sicily. 

He died very young she says.  He was on his way to work one morning and ran into a mail truck saying he didn’t see them.  “How do you not see a massive mail truck?!” Melissa says.  Her mom made him go to the eye doctor and eventually they found out he had a massive brain tumor.  While he was in the hospital, he didn’t want people visiting him because he was very disheveled and hated to be that way.  He had surgery to have the brain tumor removed, but after that he didn’t remember much.

He would look at them and say “I know that I love you but I don’t know who you are.”  All of his life he would say he “didn’t need God,” but since he was left in a childlike state after his surgery, Melissa’s mother was able to share Christ with him.  He accepted Christ before he died, and because of that, his family is happy they will get to see him again one day.

After he died, her mother got a letter from President Bush and another letter from President Clinton saying he was very instrumental and served his country well.  They both said they really appreciated his service but they were sorry they couldn’t disclose what he did to serve his country.  A big mystery still surrounds his service, but one thing is for certain: Grandpa served his country well.

To all the men and women who have served our country, and to the families of men and women who have died in the service: Thank you for your sacrifice.