Heros among us

[Critch]

I constantly tell my kids what heroes these guys and quite a few women were during WWII and other wars. My kids remember the old man who lived next door to us, but sadly he had alztheimers so they don;t remember him and I having our long conversations about the War. Jim was a waist gunner in B-24's on the Ploesti raid. He told me many times that he still relived every moment of that raid, but he would do it again. He told me about seeing an ME-109 come under the bomber in front of him and shoot it down, then the bomber next to them got the 109.

My late brother-in-law was a waist and upper turret gunner on a B-17 in England. He was also a personal hero to me, he taught me to shoot, hunt, and fish, and frankly a lot of work ethic. He said the most helpless feeling he ever has was watching the Fortresses around him go down from German fighters and flak. I remember he also told me that flak was very accurate depending on which German unit was doing the shooting.

My sixth grade teacher in Memphis was a WAC nurse in North Africa and Italy. She came under fire many times while tending to the wounded. Mrs Bodenheimer, she was one of the best teachers I ever had.

In college I got to interview some surviviors of the Chosin Reservoir, what great guys. To a man, they were more worried about their buddies than themselves.

There were many more, the guy across the street from us who lost his legs from a German fighter's cannon, and many more. We are losing these folsk way too fast.