My Papa was talking with a cousin of his after coming home from the Pacific theater when, evidently, the cousin said or did something out of hand. My Papa remembered coming to with his hands around his cousin's neck. After that, he realized he had a problem with coming back to civilian life.

Oooo. Theremin FTW!

Right? There's a lot of that with war. Did you ever get many stories out of your Papa about the war? My Grandpa didn't like talking about things that happened. The information we do have is mostly pieced together by things that happened to other family members when he had a ptsd attack, or what the military disclosed, or rarely those times he would discuss it.

I have an uncle who was in Vietnam. He wont talk about what happened over there, he never has. A few years ago he was going to get some minor surgery done and the doctors were starting to put him under. He totally went bezerk and started trying to fight off the doctors. He had to be completely restrained before they could do anything.

Yikes. :(

I think war has a really dangerous effect on the human psyche. :( Not always, but it certainly can.

During WWII, my grandmother hid in the mountains around her small village (which is now a tourist resort, go figure) as it was being attacked. She was told to trust neither the Americans nor the Japanese until told otherwise. She had to dress as a boy and hide her hair so that she wouldn't be raped and assaulted if she was found.
Happily, until her death she was fond of mountain climbing and hiking and would go on walks though the canyon pass (here in America) and walk a lot as a result of her time hiding in the mountains.

Wow!! Your poor Grandma. I'm glad that she was able to find sanctuary in the mountains though.

my grandfather was in the Northern Africa part of WWII and he tripped over a tent stake and got cut so they gave him a tetnus shot. Come to find out he was deathly allergic to tetnus shots so they delcared him dead until a morgue attendant heard him snoring. I would have hated to be the attendant. biggest scare of his life I'm sure.

Oh my goodness!!!! *jaw drop* That's flippin' terrifying! He's so lucky the morgue attendant realized!!

My grandpa was in WWII. He took a Nazi armband from a Nazi he killed, and after he died i tried to get it, but my uncle stole it before i could, so i hafta talk to him still. He took a gun from another, but that went missing years ago.


He didn't talk about it, though. I guess he talked to my dad once when he was little, but other than that he'd only talk to my great-grandpa (who was in another war) about it.


Right befoer he died, i think he had flashbacks. He was in Hospice and a nurse tried to take his knife from him (he always had one with him. :) My grandpa and i are definatly related) and he beat her with a cane. When a guy-nurse came in to help her, my grandpa chocked him. When my daddy told me, i couldn't help but be a bit proud of him. We're a scrappy family, i tell ya.

Oh my goodness!! Wow!! I can't imagine anyone in hospice choking or beating someone with a cane. Your Grandpa was hardcore.

My grandmother (God bless her soul) is 105 years old. She used to tell me stories about the Mexican Revolution of 1910. She was a little girl at the time and would often have to hid in the mountains away from both the "Federales" (government) and the "zapatistas or villistas" (revolutionaries) because they would kidnap (among other things) women and girls.

She told me that often times the men would come through towns destroying anything they found. And would take food and livestock and women with them. Some girls would hide in the walls to keep from getting kidnapped. Sometimes they would die in the walls for lack of air or because their family was killed and they couldn't get out.



Edited at 2008-01-24 04:33 pm (UTC)

Oh my God. That's horrific. :( These are the stories you don't hear about. You should record her stories. Write a book, or a play.

i was gonna write a sad story about my dad, but i'd rather right a funny or nice one.

my mother married her brother-in-laws best friend. they met a few days before the wedding, after my mom's judo class.
while da was courting my mom, she was going to school out in California. my dad's mom, wouldn't let him use the phone to call her, casue it was hella expensive in those days. so she'd give him a roll of quarters and send him to a pay phone.

lol! Aww!! Did they see each other often while courting and apart with school and what not?

That's awesome! Did you ever get any good national or international secrets?

And damn, I used to know this too. I was at a talent show once where this guy performed with one, and spent like 20 minutes discussing the damn thing, but I was tipsy, and had just won something earlier that night and got distracted. lol.. soo.. who knows. I could google it, I suppose.

Aww, I like lizards. :) Bugs are another thing though. I scream and scream when I see any beetle in my house.

i am related to both the archbishop of dublin and the guy who owned sprocket in fraggle rock. also my great uncle fought in the boer war, but im not sure on which side because irish fighters were mostly undocumented

oh yeah and my great grandad fought in the civil war and was with the IRA during the war of independance (seperate entity to todays ira just the same name)

My paternal grandparents: grandpa was an asian taxi driver in Chinatown, and nana was a white lady, and they married - in the 1930s! i feel like there is major scandal in this story, but dad hasn't revealed it to me.

my maternal GREAT grandparents: came to the states on an arranged marriage, and got divorced 50 years later.

Oh wow!!! I imagine there is a lot more to that story!!

And wow! What country were they from originally?

While doing some family tree research, my mother discovered that Florence Nightingale is one of our ancestors. That's perhaps as interesting as it gets for a British, middle class family. As for the two world wars, sadly I never got to question my grandparents on their experiences. Your poor Grandpa, I can't even imagine what he went through.

That's really cool about Florence Nightingale!! Coolest ancestor I have is probably Lady Godiva.

And yeah. :( He died when Iw as pretty young so he never told me anything about it, but I wish he would have allowed himself to be interviewed so his story could be preserved.

My dad once tried to have an affair behind my mom's back. The thing he didn't realize was that I happened to be good friends with that ladies' two sons. One day they called me and said, "hey, guess what? Our mom's dating your dad!" I said, "um, no, that's impossible...my parents are still married!" We argued about it for like half an hour on the phone, then they finally repeated what I'd said to their mom. I hung up, got totally upset, cried in my room and called my best friend. Never said anything to my parents.

The next day, my dad asked me if I knew "Corey and Tobey ----". I said yes. He then told me that "I shouldn't hang around with them", because he'd "heard rumors around town that they were a bad influence."

Later that day, I got a call from Tobey telling me that their mom had busted my dad on it the previous night and broken things off with him.

Yeah.

That happened when I was 14. I've still never said anything to either of my 'rents about it.

Oh...my G-pa was a POW as well. I don't know anything about his confinement though--he'd never talk about it with us. But he had a large bruise across the back of his hand that stayed permanently, and got darker when the weather was bad. My G-ma said it was related to something that happened while he was in POW camp. *shrugs* Don't got much. :/

woooooooooooah. that has to be hard for them...

I have a story about my family history.
My great uncle was in the war fighting for France. He was a plane pilot, was hit and fell in the middle of the jungle. Survived there for months just by eating a bar of nutrients and vitamins that actually got him very sick. He was later rescued by a French General. He lived with the General in his house for 2 years. He fell in love with the General's daughter, and she was in love with him too, but the General wouldn't allow their marriage. My great uncle left France and returned home, where her mother [my great-grandmother] had been told a year ago by telegram that his son had died in the war, which was obviously wrong information.

Sounds like a movie, but it's true.

Oh my goodness! That must have been so hard for her!! I can't imagine being told my son had died, and how insane, but wonderful it would be to see him again, alive and well.. if broken hearted. :(

I have post traumatic stress disorder from when I was 10. Not something I want to let everyone on here know about.. you can understand , I'm sure.

Also, I liked the jumping lizard! I needed that laugh. Today isn't such a good day for me. I want it to get better though. xxoo

I do understand. I have PTSD myself. *hugs*

I'm glad the lizard was able to help a little. ;)

*hugs* You want to talk about what's making your day so crappy? I'm here if you wnat to chat.

my great grandmother liked to talk in a somewhat high-pitched tone, she would say "OH!" in the cutest way before she would observe something. i just thought it was the way she talked, but a little bit before she passed, she told my aunt that she talked like that on purpose so that people would pay attention to what she was saying. she had been doing that for years, and it was all an act.

silly old woman... lol.

<3
me

That's kinda awesome! What a smart lady! :)