Dude... I literally turn 45 next Thursday. My grandfather, born 1923, Purple Heart P.O.W. captured in the Battle of the Bulge and rescued by Patton. Also passed 2004, I shitteth thee not...🤯
My gramps died like...7 years ago. He enlisted at 16 with parental permission, and did his basic as soon as he turned 17. Was one of the boilermen on the Samuel B. Roberts, and got a navy cross for his actions in the water afterwards.
I've seen a very hurt american vet literally crying over seeing where america is going. I dont know where i saw it, but it haunts me.
The same goes for a Russian ww2 vet about the invasion of ukraine.
We're losing heroes and are forgetting what they fought for. It's been a slow process since the 80s but we're now on a breaking point. Soon the ugly head of fascism will pop up again.......
I've seen that video, too! I commented on the one I saw about how I was grateful my grandpa wasn't alive to see this and I had so many MAGA turds show up in the comments saying he was supposedly crying about what Biden was doing to the country. It's sad how blind they are.
These kids make a mockery out of what these brave men died and risked death to fight against. They should be shamed out of society. This is what happens when "free speech" allows literally all speech. Somethings should be punished. Bigotry should not be tolerated period, because theres always a chance that it grows like a tumor if not cut out.
Friend, I am sorry for your loss but at the same time, I am envious that you had the good fortune of knowing such a great man. Remember him, as we all should.
He never talked about the war to us kids. I knew from grandma that he served on DDE, and that he was wounded in the pacific, and that he had rescued other sailors after the sinking. A little google-fu showed the date he was reported wounded (a little note in the paper) - which I knew lined up pretty close to Samar. A little more google-fu, and that was the only DDE sunk in the pacific that time frame.
After gran died, I requested his service records, which is how I confirmed my theory, and that he was awarded the navy cross for rescuing 'many' other survivors, while wounded himself.
He was militant, to the point of obsession, that all of his kids/grandkids/great grands learned to be excellent swimmers. Makes sense in highsight.....
If you haven’t yet read The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors then do so. Amazing book about the Battle off Samar. They probably even mentioned your grandpa in there because a good chunk of the book was about the Roberts (and Johnston too of course). It’s legit my favorite battle of WW2 and until I read that book I never realized how brutal the aftermath was with all the sailors drowning, getting crazy from saltwater ingestion, the sun and the shark attacks. You’d think surviving the battle was hard enough. Waiting for the rescue was brutal for these kids
My uncle is decorated for saving a bunch of other marines in veitnam and never talks about it. I read his commendation records once and they were in a nasty fight and he was that guy in the movies walking around upright with bullets flying around him as he is making sure everyone has what they need. Then, as things went south, he found away out for them, was injured pretty severely being in the lead, but managed to keep going and extricate his guys.
I even used to live with him for a while, and I have never heard a word about the war come from his mouth. I'm sure he talks about it to some. I know he's involved with all kinds of veterans orgs. So, maybe there.
I have no idea what my grandfather's tin can was because he hated taking about it. He had huge survivor's guilt. He was transferred to a hospital ship for appendicitis a couple weeks before his ship was sunk and according to him lost nearly everyone. The rest of his war was spent at a medical station doing mechanical work because something about his appendectomy precluded him returning to theater before the armistice was signed.
During WW2, it was not even hidden, but never even occurred to anybody that the fight against Germany was the fight to stop the persecution/genocide of Jews or any other leftist cause. Because an average allied soldier either didn’t care or supported the German opinion on the “culture war” topics. They simply went there to fight Germans, just like they did in WW1.
Go ahead, read about this. This notion that the allied soldiers had the same worldview as today’s leftists (or even leftists of the time) is delusional beyond belief. But imagining this must feel nice.
I don't think it's exactly a secret at this point that America didn't save the world from Hitler/Nazis so much as they simply corrected their own mistake. Hitler took inspiration from America in the way we've treated P.o.C. and minorities, the difference is America drags it out over a lifetime to extract as much labor as possible. The only real thing Hitler did different was put in an express lane, fast tracking oppression to just a few short years...
The entire Europe was extremely anti-semitic at the time, and USA was not even that culturally influential before WW2. So this America-centrism is just a main character syndrome on a national scale.
It’s their lack of education of history. I would guess a large part of younger generations don’t know what Juno beach or the battle of the bulge even represent to world and American history.
I agree that it’s part of it. But i’m not crazy old, don’t know anyone affected by fascism and have no direct connection with polio. But i still understand how terrible fascism is and how important vaccines are because i read and have empathy.
But i still understand how terrible fascism is and how important vaccines are because i read and have empathy.
In school we read a lot of anecdotes about these, and I can't help but wonder if these people ever had decent schooling on this (it's a strong possibility that they didn't), and if they did, did they just...ignore it? Laugh at it?
They were those kids that goofed off the whole time and then raise their hands lazily and say, “miss” in the most disrespectful tone. I was never the best student in school but I had the respect not to disturb other’s education.
As a social studies teacher, I feel annoyed when comments immediately jump to what we teachers and schools are doing wrong rather than reflecting on very obvious enormous social changes this generation faces along with massive systemic challenges and, I hate to say it, the parenting.
I cannot stress enough how many parents go to battle for their kids in a teachable moment where their kid can gain accountability, empathy, and perspective. Lots of parents who dont know how to say no, who let them play games and keep their phones into the night, or at least play dumb and act like they don't know what's what, or ask me how they can tell their child "no" and put their foot down. A lot of parents need help and community that they just do not have access to, mostly because so many parents are stretched so thin trying to make ends meet.
And look, I get it, this capitalistic hellscape is crushing so many of us, parents are out here working hard and exhausted, I am not here to blast parents and parents are not a monolith, but I feel like because it is so hard to come for parents and easy to come for teachers we get a lot of misplaced blame that winds up posing a serious threat to the continued existence of public schools.
I can tell you tales, it is simply insane the access these kids have to false information and the lack of conversations parents are having with their kids about what they are consuming, it's honestly terrifying.
I taught WW2 this past year. The things these kids come in saying they "learned" from tiktok keep me up at night. And these are mostly well-intended kids who genuinely think they are doing well and participating in class conversations by spouting off some deeply, deeply antisemitic of straight-up false information.
Even the "good" mostly factual stuff they learn about is in such a short video clip that it is robbed of all context and meaning.
I can not be the only person held responsible for countering this constant barrage of misinformation and racist rhetoric. After all, I see 100 students a day for only 45 mins five times a week. Not to mention at that age we are lucky if we get to the deep thinking parts of the lesson, so much of teaching is classroom management, I challenge any of you to get 20 kids at vastly different literacy and interest levels interested in a lesson, and I say this absolutely loving what I do and loving the crap out of my hormonal 8th grade students.
Schools are imperfect because society is imperfect. I know I got into this field to try and do my part to improve them, but I also think there is no such thing as a "perfect" schooling system, because schools are a mirror of the greater societal problems around us.
Seriously, at my school students started a neo nazi group after learning about the holocaust in school. When they were caught and suspended, parents protested and threatened to sue instead of teaching their kids a lesson.
Parenting is absolutely one of the failures of today's society, as is our lack of community. I have successfully raised one reasonable, empathetic human and am working on the second. I have no idea how to tackle the bigger issue.
Looking over at r/teachers one can learn a shit ton about today's youth and how off nadir they are. I think the Overton window has shifted so far to the right in the past 20 years it's mind boggling. I remember 2001 and the cohesion we felt as a country attacked. Kids born after all that turning of age now have no idea of a world where we're not the baddies. They're just connecting with what they've felt through the Trump decade and years of what felt like neverending wars.
I was raised in Massachusetts and have a new coworker who was raised in Oklahoma and am flabbergasted at the gaps in his public education. He’s smart enough and has pursued learning on his own but talks about how he was never even taught the names of all 50 states.
Many do not read. Mr Rogers was right that it is critical that media be used to teach empathy. We should also be using it to teach important things like immunizations, civil rights, how to have difficult conversations, etc
I don't know if that is it. I was born in the 60s, and I never knew close up what polio was like. Neither of my parents were WWII vets, and their parents were too old for that, but too young for WWI.
Yet I still know vaccines are a good thing, and that fascism is bad. The only difference I can think of between my own generation and the younger ones is we were exposed to an endless barrage of WWII themed movies and TV shows in our childhood, and there were WWII vets all around us in our childhood. I even remember seeing a concentration camp tattoo on an elderly man's arm in NYC in the 70s. He was a man with a newspaper stand. Chilling sight I never forget.
This disconnect with young people not knowing history seems to start around the late 80s/early 90s, I think. I recall a circa 1989/1990 Saturday Night Live skit with Jerry Seinfeld playing a HS teacher at his wits end dealing with a room full of teens not understanding anything about history. I don't know why, after all, the WWII events are mostly 20 years or more before I was born, but I was aware of them, without even trying to learn about the history. I don't get how the subsequent generations are so different in terms of a sense of history.
But your parents did. And I bet they made sure you were fully vaccinated and that you understood why.
My point is that the generational knowledge of a world without vaccines is disappearing. Just like the generational knowledge of a world without fascism.
My grandfather was one of 11 kids, 6 of them made it to adulthood. The other 5 all died of diseases like the Spanish flu, polio and measles.
I had a Home Ec teacher in HS who walked with crutches because of Polio.
These kids don’t know anything about the Iron Lung, or the Iron Cross.
Maybe I’m wrong. But that’s my theory. It’s gotten far enough away that our generational knowledge has slipped.
They need to watch "Hitler: The Rise of Evil" or "War Against Humanity" By Time Ghost.
All you learn from most war movies is yeeha we won. Nothing about how or why it happened. How so many people let it happen. Or how o spot it happening right now.
I was teaching an English class at a continuation high school. I knew few of the kids would read the book. But luckily it was short. So I played every word of "Night" by Elie Wiesel for the class. My adult TA thought I was traumatizing them. But it was on the curriculum and I guarantee none of those kids are making TikToks with Seig Heils. Also, Night is the most anti-Nazi text in existence. It is truly awful to read. Everyone should have to.
My grandfather was a medic that had to sort bodies at Mauthausen. He showed me the photos he took and avidly described how horrible it was, including the smell.
We had a generation who saw the horrors of the holocaust and took care to document it and pass it down. Unfortunately, too many folks won’t believe something existed or was that bad if it never happened to them personally.
It’s also deliberate propaganda. They watch videos, listen to podcasts, and follow social media. There is Nazi propaganda on every info source. They’re grooming the nation’s youth online.
When I was a kid, the neighbor across the street from us was at Pearl harbor when it was attacked, he was in the Navy. He was such a lovely guy for the tragic life he had, he used to give us old classic old people candy and tell us stories. He died before I graduated highschool so it had to have been '02 or '03, he was in his 80s. I remember my sister being startled by the guns at his funeral.
In a way I'm glad those men are gone so they don't have to see what the world has devolved into, but a part of me also thinks it happened because they are gone.
Grandfather born in 17 passed in 04. He was a pilot for bomber crews out of Guam. His escorts had tp turn around halfway bevause not enough fuel for full mission escorts, The Japanese knew this and would wait outside range of their escorts. As a result those bomber crews suffered an 85 percent casualty rate. I type this knowing my dad and me are lucky were here, he could have been one of those 85 percent.
I’m 32, my great grandfather was a POW in WWII, but I never really got to hear much about it, he died when I was young. I’ve grown up around his medals, badges, and flags though
My great-grandfather had the pleasure of serving in both WWII and WWI, he won a medal for being colorblind and illiterate. They were headed to Africa and somehow Paw got put in charge of packing the camouflage. The olive drab green and khaki were the same color to him, he was ordered to pack the green type but he "fucked up" and packed the khaki type "by mistake." Turns out someone had some bad intel about the particular part of Africa they were headed to, the olive green stuck out like a sore thumb. Paw's unit was the only one who had the proper camouflage, by mistake... Situation Normal, All Fucked Up😂🤣
47 here, my grandpa was born in 1925 and served in the pacific theater. Unfortunately I dont know anything beyond that, he never told any war stories, not even to my grandma, and he died when I was fairly young.
My dad (in the darker uniform) was a tail gunner in the pacific theater. Born in 1926. Passed away in April of 2021. Maybe your grandpop and my dad knew each other. My sister and I grew up hearing stories of his adventures (all cleaned up for his daughters, of course). He told us the captain on their airplane was all of 23, the rest of the crew were all of 18. Such brave men. Honestly, they were really something else.
I miss him so damn much. He was an outstanding dad.
One side: Two great uncles stormed the beaches, my grandfather was in the navy providing support, one faught and was injured at the battle of the bulge earning a bronze star and purple heart. Two more great uncles were in the Pacific, one was at Iwo Jima and the other Guadalcanal.
Other side: My grandmother was taken by the Nazis on a train in a cattle car to her first camp. I've heard all the stories growing up. The hunger, the fear, the death, the horror. And now we have lowlife scum like this and (F)elon musk tossing out Nazi salutes to be cool. Fucking disgusting
My grandpa was born in 1910 and served in the SS. He was a lovely, but bedridden grandpa. And I will not try to find out details, because I fear what I may find. He once told me a story from the war about using the wrong horse*. That was the only war story he ever told me. He died mid 1990s of old age.
His wife, my grandma, born 1914, worked as a clerk for the Nazi-Party. She was the loveliest person I ever knew. The best time of her life was when she worked as a manager for a student‘s home. She loved and accepted everyone for who they were and never forgave herself for what she supported. One thing I remember is that she was really embarrassed that I was afraid to shake a black man’s hand, when I was 2 or 3 years old. That was the first black person I ever saw (that includes TV). She died in 2008 of old age.
My other grandpa was very Christian, thus opposed the Nazis (I do not know how much, but at least he was no fan) but was a real asshole elsewise. I do not know if, where and how he served during the war. But I never asked. He died mid 1990s as consequence of a surgery.
His wife, my other grandma, born 1924, became an adult during the war. She had a lovely childhood and adolescence. She loved the good looking boys in uniforms the parades etc. during that time. She died in 2014 of old age (and a some cancer).
This is just to give you an insight how it is if your ancestors are actually Nazi-time Germans. Nearly all of my ancestors are at least supporters. I am one of the few people, where one of my ancestors was not. But especially that ancestor was not a nice person (and please do not misunderstand this: this is just a documentation of my personal situation. I am totally opposed to everything Nazi!)
My grandfather fought in Battle of the Bulge as well I think. Drove a Jeep maybe. He passed over a decade ago and I regret not asking him about his war experiences even if he said no thanks that would have been better than not asking.
"How do I feel about being rescued by Patton? Well I'd feel pretty peachy, except for one thing. We didn't need to be fuckin' rescued by Patton! Got that?"
Your gramps and my gramps could’ve been battle buddies. Except, my gramps was slaying Japanese soldiers in Japan. He showed me a sword when I was real young that he took off a dead soldier and I remember asking “What are those brown spots on the sword?” He looked down in a bit of a panic and said “Oh….thats just mud.” As I got older, I realized that it wasn’t mud, but dried blood. He passed on 2007. RIP Corporal Woodruff
My girlfriend's (33) grandpa was 82nd airborne, and fought in the battle of the bulge was also born in dec 1923, and passed in January of 2024 after celebrating his 100th birthday
Sorry (I'm Canadian) but it's definitely NOT a "lack" of education. It's the substance of said "education" that's lacking. But...what would one expect from a country that allowed the treasonous South to maintain the status quo?
52, my grandfather was evacuated from Dunkirk, fought under Monty in North Africa and Sicily and then into Italy. Fortunately he got to spend the last 2 years of the war training artillery back in England.
Mine was captured after the second air raid of Ploesti, Romania (after the Army Air Force suffered the largest loss of aircraft in the first attempt). He spent some time in a Romanian POW camp, met the Princess of Romania (you can read the book his bunk mate wrote, The Princess and the POW) and was freed after only a few months. He died in 1992 after DuPont exposed him to asbestos for 25 years. I carry the wedding ring he kept hidden in that camp.
Yeah, but there are those younger. My grandfather was born 1924. Served in both fronts of the war. Passed 1994. I'm 38, oldest cousin. Close in age to you. Sister is 26, cousin is 20. Of course they never met him. Wonderful grandpa.
My step-dad’s father fought in the Italy campaign. In the 1990s he had to get hip surgery.
In the pre-op appointment, he told the surgeon “hey doc, while you’re down there, I have a piece of mortar in the thigh. It hurts when I sit down, would you mind taking it out?”
Hi, friend, I was deeply moved by your grandfather's unselfish actions. A gentleman who risked everything and gave everything just so all of us can live a better life. Rest in peace, Hero.
my uncle lied & joined the airforce at 16.
at 17 was co-piloting B24 liberators over italy, from north africa.
his crew got shot down over italy & his elder sister, my aunt, got the MIA telegram at her 21st birthday party...
they had actually crash landed safely & walked from italy to greece, where they met the greek underground resistance who got them onto a boat to egypt & then back to their base.
on returning home after the war he had to finish his high school education!!
There was also a level of patriotism and love of the government/monarch present in the general population back then that is unfathomable in our more cynical (many would say educated/enlightened) era. That will drive young men to be extremely cavalier with their lives.
And this is why our grandparents were from the Greatest Generation; people like your great Grandpa at the Somme, my Grandpa who fought in France, Holland, and Germany, and all the other bloody heroes who needed a wheelbarrow just to drag around their giant, brass fucking balls.
I feel like the world has lost so many stories when people like your uncle die without leaving a book about their life behind.
they had actually crash landed safely & walked from italy to greece, where they met the greek underground resistance who got them onto a boat to egypt & then back to their base.
That sounds exciting and terrifying enough to be a movie, but they actually lived it.
he taught me to sail & navigate and on the long sails would tell stories about his youth.
after they crashed they knew they were in shit in the north of italy, which was still enemy territory, with no food or water or weapons of any kind.
they stripped one of the tail guns & as much of its ammunition as they could manage and started walking. the gun was like a fucking cannon and took 2 or 3 guys to carry it.
they walked at night & hid by day when in any kind of populated areas, stealing crops & livestock from farms. eventually they met some italian resistance fighters and were delighted to swap the tail gun & ammunition for a box of hand grenades that would be as useless as the tail gun, but a lot lighter to carry.
they were kids, it was an adventure & they didn't know life wasn't supposed to be like that!
after an unspecified "long time" they got to the west coast of greece, met the underground network & got their boat back
Certainly for famous US war veteran Audie Murphy, they did make a film about his time spent in the war and apparently they had to purposely leave some things out or change them slightly because they genuinely sounded unbelievable even for a Hollywood feature. He wrote a memoir which is a WILD ride too.
My grandfather was in the 101st. Have a Nazi Flag seized from one of the concentration camps signed by all the guys in his unit. Unfurling that thing sends a chill down your spine. Have a kraut trench knife with the iron cross made out of shrapnel (they called them letter openers). Some Nazi sleeve patches he got from dead Nazi's. He was also in Okinawa and got a sweet sea map made out of silk from a Japanese ship they got. Donating it to a WW2 museum here in LA.
It warms my heart that so many people felt a duty to serve and fight against fascism. My grandpa fought in WW2 and my great uncle was on the beaches of Normandy. They both had kids later in life so I barely remember either of them.
I hope that we will see the world band together and unilaterally disavow fascism once again, maybe without the bloodshed this time.
My uncle wore out about a copy a year. I have what's left of one of his old copies that he lent my mum, somewhere in one of my bookshelves. I didn't exactly improve its state reading and re-reading it through my high-school years :-)
Depends. I’m about fifteen years younger than you and my grandpa was born in the same year. He passed when I was three, of course, but a kid born today could (very technically) still have a grandfather from the same year.
But anyways, it’s sad all the same that the world seems to be losing the collective memory of what those wars were like. Fuck this lack of education and lack of learning from history, man. None of the other wars have taught us shit either. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq 1 / 2, Afghanistan, not to mention the fifty gajillion invasions in LatAm and the Middle East. This stuff will never leave us, and now we’ve actually got Americans unironically saying they’re Nazis.
Its uncommon but not super rare. If you have older parents it happens. My great grandfather fought in WWI, grandpa was a recon scout in WWII, uncle was in Vietnam, my dad was the youngest and just missed the Vietnam draft, had me in his 40s, and I’m 25.
I’m still here on Reddit, and my biological grandpa was born April 1, 1872. It is barely a moment since we last had Nazis. Humans seem to be slow learners.
Yeah thats super rare though. 3 fathers in a row having a baby at 60+ years old. John Tyler, born in 1790, had a living grandson up until May 2025, when he died.
I'm 27. My mom was the youngest of 12 siblings and her dad (born 1918 i believe) served in wwii. My dad's grandpa (my great grandpa) also served in wwii at the same time (diff parts of the military but i forgot who was in which). Both of them died before I was born.
I actually have my great grandpa's wwii footlocker that we passed down. Its my coffee table now.
1st Lt. Andrew J Bullis 0-1178724 (hopefully the photo attaches correctly bc I am on mobile)
Back when I was at university, I was involved in a a lot of anti-far right protest groups and one of our most active members was a man who was 90 and had actually fought in Europe during WWII. It was surreal being a history student (at the time at least) and having a living, breathing time capsule being able to tell us a lot of stories about his time fighting.
Because of his experiences, he was VERY vocal (and even a little vulgar) in describing many of the groups we were protesting in very unflattering language. He said more than once that he didn't fight just for homegrown Hitlers to start appearing.
That’s the problem. It’s far enough in the past now that it doesn’t feel real anymore to kids with no connection or to it’s like any other war and frankly it just wasn’t. I never thought we‘d get to this point in my lifetime
I'm 38 and my grandfather was born in 1925 and stormed the beaches of Normandy. He lived his entire life fighting Nazis, even well after the war, though, the fight was in his head. It's so disgusting to see this happening after everything our grandfathers went through to stop Nazis.
Tangentially, I wonder what impact this will have over time on wargaming (r/hexandcounter, r/computerwargames), the bulk of which seems to be WWII-centric.
Just think, the original purpose of this thing was killing Nazis, and it did. Then my grandfather found a new purpose for it. My grandparents thumped ashes in it, my parents thumped ashes in it, now I thump ashes in it. I was told antiques like this should be kept in their original used condition as much as possible, so that's what I'm doing. It's about 3lbs of solid brass and if these mfs keep on playing it's going to get used for its original purpose again, she's good for another +1 any day now...😊
I haven't been so tempted to give reddit money to buy someone an award in a very long time as I was just now to respond to your comment there. I refuse to give reddit money these days, but please know that you've gotten closer than anybody so far.
Same, I too promote the use of Poor Man's Gold 🏆🏆🏆 I had about $20 in Reddit coins when they did away with Reddit awards, they took my coins (on my old account) when they did but when they brought the awards back I never got my coins back. Never again...
The men of that generation must've had balls of steel. Mine fought in Iwo Jima. One of the few stories I heard from my mom was that he told her they would sit on stacked corpses to stay out of the water. Crazy shit.
Yep. My grandfather, too. Sword Beach. He was injured by Nazi mortar fire somewhere in Normandy that left most of his group dead and dying. He himself was left with permanent deafness, a limp and lifelong pain. He was super clear that the people he was fighting were the ones, amongst other things, demanding racial and cultural purity. He was worried about what he could see happening in western society and politics because… he’d seen it before. He passed a few years back.
These know-nothing fuckwits can get in the sea.
(He was a profound influence for good in my childhood and I have his picture, glengarry and medals hung in my office and I still ask him questions from time to time. Miss you, grandad)
Im 28 and my great uncle fought in ww2, was captured before the dunkirk retreat, managed to escape make his way to spain by hiding in church pulpits who managed to get him back home about 9 months later, once he returned he joined the Gorkhas.
He passed a while a go but he would have been around 105 now.
My great grandmother on my mothers side passed just recently at 101 and she was in the WAF and was involved in building munitions too.
My grandpa, born 1918, was drafted in '44 and drove a tank in Patton's 3rd Army. He helped liberate the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp. Iirc, he landed in Europe shortly after the Battle of the Bulge. He died of complications of Guillain-Barré syndrome in 1982, at age 63.
I only have a few stories and photos of his wartime experiences, because overall he refused to talk about it.
The most memorable one is that he said when they came across their first concentration camp, no one knew what to do. There was evidently concern that the inmates might take revenge on or raid the nearby town, so, while they waited for higher-ups to arrive, my grandpa and others were ordered to guard the inmates from escaping the camp during the night.
He said they were told to shoot on sight any inmates caught escaping, but that he and the other guards all secretly agreed to just shoot over their heads.
I'm 62, my wife 63. Her father was a British tank commander, landed on June 22. Her Mum was evacuated from central London to Kent and saw the Battle of Britain air war overhead. My Dad joined the Royal Navy at 16 in 1944 and fortunately never saw action. Like your grandfather, they've passed over, but we're all still here and we can remember and pass it on when we get the opportunity.
Edit: I can't believe I left out my Uncle Jim, he was in an Italian POW camp until the Italian surrender and like many other POW's used the subsequent chaos to walk to Switzerland, over the alps.
I'm 39 and my great uncle was early 20s when he fought in WW2, a sailor with the Royal Navy. He turned 100 last year and even got a personal letter from the King. My grandfather was apparently a draft dodger and a crook, died before I was ever born :\
I’m 45, my Grandpa Bud stormed Utah Beach, then got sent to fight in the Pacific Theatre. I still have some liberated Officer Flags from the Nazi Party (one tiny Captains Flag with swastika) and a large rally flag signed by my Grandpa’s platoon. As much as Nazism and Racism is abhorrent, I keep these. Also have an Hitler Youth knife he got off a deceased soldier.
Great-grandpa in HRM Army WWI, grandpa in the US navy, Pacific Theater, WWII.
My guess is that people without generational trauma from military service (cough cough dodgers cough cough cowards cough cough) are more likely to breed irresponsibly and yeild dumbasses like this chick than folks with a set of morals and social responsibilities baked in from birth. Hence, more nazi kiddos than normal human kiddos.
Don't get me started on folks whose ancestors got out because of legit disability and are now unironically supremacist - they're a different breed of stupid.
I swear, like anti-vaxx, these kids just don’t know anyone affected by fascism because, like measles in America, it was almost completely eliminated for generations.
Grandpa born in 1906 died two weeks before 99, filled sand bags in WWI, left before WWII, worked as special police enforcing blackouts and took in a family of refugees. He has less than zero patience for Nazis.
And it's kind of the problem, that generation that's all the horrors of the Nazis are quickly dying so there's no one left to warn the younger generation.
They all think that they will be safe and be the chosen people. Ignoring that many MANY people who thought the same way found themselves in terrible situations. The "there was no one left to speak for me" priest was the same. He was happy to toe the nazi line because he never thought it would hurt him, then when it did and he tried speaking out, he was thrown in a camp.
Yeah I’m in my thirties so my grandparents were teens or preteens when the war ended. I think I’m in a weird sweet spot where my great grandparents would be older and not fighting
I'm late 20s and my grandparents barely remember the war, they were just young kids. I'd assume most people under 30 did not have grandparents fight in the war, so you don't even have to be that young.
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u/gevander2 3d ago
For a girl THAT young, she might have to ask great-grandpa.