My grandfather was forced by the Japanese in WWII to go to the Philipines.  He was killed there and never saw my Dad.  My grandmom said he volunteered so that the Japanese would not take his farm and leave his wife and unborn child alone.

ETA: My grandmom hated the Japanese until the day she died for taking him and his relatives for stealing his farm that he was trying to save for his wife and kid.

My other grandfather fought on the right side and did a couple tours in Vietnam.

All of my ancestors fought for the right side though some Northerners saw things differently.

Quoted: All of my ancestors fought for the right side though some Northerners saw things differently.

I had great great grandfathers on both sides of the civil war, so depending on perspective, one of them was on the "wrong" side.  All the males in my family since then have been on the "right" side, WWI, WWI, Korea, Vietnam, GWI, GWII, etc.

My Dad's side of the family is French Canadien / French.   Oh wait, you said "fought."  

Quoted: My Dad's side of the family is French Canadien / French.   Oh wait, you said "fought."

Grandfather (Dad's side) was a WW1 combat vet Imperial German Army...

My late German father-in-law worked for Heinkel in Rostock on the first jet airplane in the 1930s. He worked on pretty much any Heinkel aircraft built before 1941. He 111s, He 70s, He 115s, he knew them all.

Later he joined the Luftwaffe, eventually became a ground crewman in N. Africa. He never talked much about the war, only about the sand, the heat and the fleas.

He woke up one morning in Tunisia, all the officers were gone, only him and his crew were left, and the Americans were now in his camp. He then spent four years in US POW camps, Ft Hood and Ft Huachuca as well as others in LA and AL, etc..

He loved America, hated Russia and said the best thing that ever happened was him getting captured by the Americans. I asked him why he joined the Luftwaffe; he said it was because he wanted to fight for his country, use his metallurgical knowledge (he'd been going to college for metallurgy before he was drafted to work for Heinkel) but he thought volunteering for the army would get him sent to the USSR.

He was right. His friend Freddy volunteered for the Wehrmacht, was captured by the Soviets and did not come back until 1955- ten years after the war was over.

My FIL's biggest sayings:

"Never volunteer for anything. Freddy did, and he came back ten years after the war, with no fingernails. I stayed to myself and got to go to America."

"The solution for the world's troublemakers? Ach- line them all up against a wall and shoot them."

"Every little bean has to make its little sound. (Jedes Boehnchen hat sein Toenchen)."

Dunno about "wrong side". My dad's side of the family (American) has a long tradition of military service, but my mom's side (Japanese) is somewhat obscure. I've heard that my relatives were mostly farmers and the such, and I don't know if any participated in the war.

My grandmothers father protested the war (He was German), so they locked him up in a prison camp in Germany. When he got out he was drafted into service. Not long after he came into the German army he was taken prisoner by the American Army and spent the remainder of the war in a Texas Prison camp. Talk about some bad luck. He didnt enjoy his stay in texas and never returned to America. My grandmother met my grandfather after the war in Germany (He fought for the Americans all across Europe with 3 of his brothers).

I have an uncle who was a "comandante" with Castro's bunch.

He eventually saw the light and became vehemently anti-communist.

Quoted: All of my ancestors fought for the right side though some Northerners saw things differently.

+1 and they say we should feel ashamed for their cause

Quoted: Quoted: "The solution for the world's troublemakers? Ach- line them all up against a wall and shoot them." That ^^^ us the German solution for everything.  Heh

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Not only Germans.  A lot of countries were good at it.

My family  fought in the 1st kentucky cav,right or wrong thats what they did.

TBK1, the Mexicans can make fun of hispanics, the Africans can make fun of blacks, but we of German descent can't make fun of anybody!  

one of my polish great-grandparents was forced to fight for imperial germany in WW1 (poland was controlled by germany at the time).  decided pretty quickly he didn't want to die for the kaiser, and surrendered to the russians at the first opportunity.  survived several years in a russian prison camp before being released after the war, and then immigrated to america.

Well, apparently, a bunch of people in Taiwan seem to feel that my grandparents were imperialist oppressors since they were part of the KMT.

Quoted: All of my ancestors fought for the right side though some Northerners saw things differently.

Same here

One of my Uncle's was a bolshevik who fought agaionst the czar. He along with the rest of my mother's family got out of Dodge when they realized how fucked up the commies were.

All hearsay, but when my dad was doing some family tree research, he and my brother said one of our relatives was a Nazi.
 After my dad died most of his research disappeared somehow, so I have no proof of this.

... Why just the other day, my lovely g/f of Italian descent was showing some pictures of her family that lives (and has for many years) near the Austrian border.

... One old picture that caught my eye was of a young, handsome German SS officer - It was her mother's older brother.

... The family lost contact with him when he headed into Russia - never to be heard from again.

my grandparents were shipped to Germany from the Ukraine and forced to work for Germans on a farm....they stayed there until the early 50s.

Hmmmmmm.....Great- Great granddad was  killed in Gettysburg on a hot July day in1863, but I had another ancestor a few generations back from that who was rumored to have moved to Florida after the Revolution because of being a Tory (faithful to the King).........



jj

"God bless the Alabamians. Alabama soldiers, all I ask of you is to keep up with the Texans."

My great great grandfather on my mother's side was one of the folks that needed keeping up with.

Go a bit further back and one of my ancestors stuck arrows into the "good guys."

None that I know of, my Great Grandfather was German, came to America as a teenager, was drafted and fought the Germans in WWI as a Doughboy.

My maternal grandfather fought for the Monarchists against the Communists in the Greek Civil War: He commanded a minesweeper apparently.

I guess it was the 'wrong' side: Though they won, the Monarchy was abolished by the governing military Junta in 1973.

NTM