Visiting Grandpa At The National Cemetery

By Douglas V. Gibbs

This morning I got up real early, at the break of dawn, so that I may travel down to the Riverside National Cemetery to visit my grandpa. He died a few years ago after living an ordinary life with an ordinary family that loved him dearly. His life wasn't always ordinary, however. When he was a young man he spent a while in Europe, mostly in France, as a part of the United States Army-Air Corps during World War II.

As a child I was treated often to Grandpa's tales of World War II, with Mom in the background shaking her head because of the fact that she knew his stories were mostly filled with his odd sense of humor, and only a few smatterings of truth. Nonetheless, I would listen to Grandpa's tales closely, absorbing them with intense interest, and laughing when Grandpa added a "funny."

Ol' T.C. had us kids convinced that he had punched Hitler right in the nose, and that the tide of the war turned in 1942 because the Germans got word that the great Private Clark had arrived on the shores of France. "They were quivering in their shiny black boots," Grandpa told us as we sat their ready for more information," knowing that I was ready to let them have it, should I get the chance."

He traveled to Europe on a great big Navy ship, a mighty vessel that had women of the Navy (WAVEs) and women of the Army-Air Corps (WACs) on board. After telling us about that part he winked, and said, "That's why I had WACs in my ears and WAVEs in my hair."

We were more amazed by the part that he once had hair, than we were about the women he knew.

At one point he flew over Greece and Italy and ran into a situation where he thought his plane was going down under enemy fire. The episode was enough to startle him for life. He refused to fly after that. As a kid I remember going down with my parents to pick him up at the Greyhound station, since the only way he was willing to come to California from Arkansas was with all wheels firmly planted on the ground.

Mom always gave Grandpa the option to move to California to let her take care of him in his final years, but Grandpa was firm in his resolve that Arkansas was his home, and he planned to live out his years on his piece of property in Conway, with his pond full of catfish, and a squirrel named Clyde. Years later, after a mild stroke, an ice storm, and a couple weeks alone in the dark, Grandpa called Mom up and said, "I'm coming to California, and I'm flying."

He died in a Veteran's Administration hospital. The memories of his World War II stories, however, live on in his grandchildren, and they have been passed to his great-grandchildren, and will be given to his great-great-grandchildren in due time.

As I stood over his grave marker my eyes filled up with tears. Not tears of sadness, but of pride. Yeah, the ol' guy was an eccentric old man with a dozen stories, and a dozen more punch lines to go with them, but he did something few truly have. He served his country. He wore that uniform. He offered himself so that we may have liberty.

Thanks, Grandpa. You were more than ordinary.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary