Mission Accomplished

I feel like I accomplished something big today, something that makes me want to blow the dust off the blog and write about it.  As y'all know, I'm a big history guy.  I am, in many ways, an actual historian.  This subject matter has really defined my entire educational life.  While many were doing volcanoes for their science projects in grade school, I was doing one on the conspiracy theory surrounding the JFK assassination.  One of my first trips with my new (don't worry its the same wife I have now) wife, was a Civil Wargasm through PA and MD.  At one point during my first walk down Pickett's Charge, a rather dramatic point due to the rolling thunderstorm that was about to hit,  I asked my wife "can't you just hear the guns?"  She, rather disgusted at this point, replied: "No, its hot.  Lets hurry.  Its a good thing you're cute, because you are a nerd."  She meant it with love....I think.

I spent one summer tracing down my family history, and I may do it again shortly.  Now that I have kids of my own, its more and more important to me.  I was digging through all the census records I could find, just to get a little clue into the past.  Turns out, one of the most interesting stories was right in front of my face all along.

As I have mentioned before, my mother's father was in WWII.  He was actually in every major European campaign after and including D-Day.  He was a truck driver, transport guy, drove a big truck.  He said the scariest moment of the war for him was the night prior to D-Day (not the actual invasion itself).  James was slightly delayed into Normandy because they had to secure the beachhead in the morning for him to drive the supplies up.  He told his story about how he had to move every large vehicle on the ships en route to Normandy, at night, in as much silence as possible, with no lights.  He said he had to move the vehicles right up to the edge of the ship without driving overboard.  Don't forget the ship was moving in the ocean.  They could only communicate by clicks, and no lights from the vehicles were allowed.  He said that was the most stressful moment for him.   He later told me had to sleep under his truck on the beaches of Normandy because there were explosions going off everywhere.  That didn't bother him too much.  He later then participated in Northern France, Ardennes, and Rhineland campaigns.   Click on each campaign to learn more.

I could never get PaPaw to talk much about the war.  One thing that always stuck out to me was when he said "That's (going to war) just what we did.  We went over there, did our duty, and came home."  As he has gotten older, and probably realizing the bell will toll for him sooner rather than later, he has opened up about his time over there.  Now, he just talks to me about it without me having to ask any questions.  He gave me his dog tags this past November when I took my girls to see him.  Caroline gave him a Veterans Day thank you card.  Where before it was like pulling teeth, now he just talks.  Talking is harder for him to do and all of this was 70 years ago.  Some of it, you can tell, he doesn't want to remember.  However,  I can imagine recall would be difficult for anyone.  I don't claim that my PaPaw was a larger than life figure.  I don't even claim that when I was younger we were all that close.  I was certainly closer to my PawPaw (Dad's Dad) who was taken too soon by pancreatic Cancer.  That doesn't mean I didn't love my PaPaw, and that I didn't appreciate the gift of my mother.  She is just an awesome mother, and an even better MaMaw (have I lost you with all of our southern parental nicknames?)  Anyway, as I have gotten older and learned more, my PaPaw has become someone I admired more and more.  As I once told him, they make video games and movies after stuff he did.  I think what made him more admirable, is the "aww shucks" attitude he had about the whole thing.  He is, in many ways, a living hero. 

I can recall watching videos of the last Confederate soldier who died in 1959, I have even asked my father if he remembers that moment when it happened.  The last WWI American soldier just passed 3 years ago, something I will never forget.  It is now WWII soldiers turn.  Every day we lose brave men (and women) who fought in that campaign.  Each one of them should be thanked, appreciated, and talked to, before it is too late.  That brings me to my "Mission Accomplished" moment.

When I was doing the family research, I made copies of my grandfathers discharge papers from the US Army.  I was surprised to see how active he was and how decorated he was.  He doesn't have a ridiculous amount of medals, but having any from that time period is pretty cool.  The papers were something I was going to hold on to forever.  Flash forward about 7 years, and I see "my" Congressmen Andy Bar (R from Lexington KY) say on twitter that his office can replace your relatives WWII medals.  I was instantly determined to have that done for my PaPaw.  I called PaPaw's Congressman's office (Yarmouth D from Louisville) and asked if they could do it.  Ironically enough, the staff member who has been helping me along the way is my brother's ex wife.  To her credit, she has pushed this through and stuck with it until the end.  I am very thankful for that.  It turns out that all of my grandfathers war records were in a file folder in a warehouse in St. Louis.  Sounds good, right? The problem is, that warehouse burned down in the early 70's, so there was very little evidence the government had to verify my grandfathers record.  In fact, all they had were two pay stubs.  Thankfully, I had his discharge papers (glad I did the research years ago and kept those papers).  They matched the numbers on the pay stub with the papers, and everything was quickly verified.  Now, James F. Rissler's records will be digital stored in the governments files. The cherry on top is that his medals were quickly sent to the Congressman's office, hence the GWB picture above.  Mission Accomplished.....almost.  Still don't actually have the medals in PaPaws hands, but it won't be long now.