QotD: Any war veterans in your family?

[Kanada Kev]

St. Jean, QC

No way. My grandparents and my dad are from there too. Betcha they may have even known one another!!! (ask 'em if they knew the Gene and Kath )

[Jaimoe]

In Flanders Fields

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

[gentlemonkey]

Both my Grandfathers were officers in the Polish army when WWII broke out. Both managed to avoid the mass Soviet execution of Polish officers in Katyn and also managed to avoid being sent out to the gulags and concentration camps.

I don't really know specific stories of their wartime ordeals, but they both survived the war.

My Gramps joined the Polish army 6 months before Germany invaded, at 19.

He talks about it pretty candidly; he said he didnt sleep for the entire (11 day) defense. He spent the rest of the war in work camps in Germany and Norway.