Sad story indeed. I also have met a hero. He's my grandfather and I speak with him every day. He was a medic in the Pacific in WWII. He's been to so many places it is dizzying. He has stories that only the real vets could tell. He's seen horrors that we can't imagine and suffered heart ache that would drive most over the edge. He married my grandmother the day he left for the Army in 42 and didn't come home until the wars end in 45. My mother was three when she met her father. He traveled to India, China, Burma, the Phillipines, Austrailia, many small islands in between. He was attacked by a Jap sub while on a troop transport at sea. He was shot at and shot back at the enemy in fierce battle. He has told me of routing out the enemy with flamethrowers. He showed me pictures of Japanese soldiers that blew themselves up with grenades rather than be captured. He and so many others like him gave us what we have today. I see so many young people nowadays that are disrespectful of that generation because they are aging and not on the ball as much as they used to be but they hold a legacy that nobody else in history, can claim. They saved the world, literally. And when they came home, those that made it, they built with hard labor a country that today rules the planet in terms of economic and military might. They handed down to us the most powerful "empire" ever known to have existed. With that we have freedom, and although there are many that are trying to take that away on all fronts, we can be thankful to those because without them we would not have this compartivly easy battle to fight. It would have ended with the German and Japanese war machine. But, with great pride these guys who were 18 and 19 years old secured the world from tyranny and oppression. So the next time some old timer starts jawing about the old days, lend an ear. He might have well been a man who helped save the world!
Sometimes I wonder what some kid with green hair and piercings who mocks these old timers would do if they were to have met them say 50-60 years ago.... Probably picked their ass up off the floor and then fell in formation!