Eric added these comments in the current discussion du jour ...

I lost him when I was 7 and my grandfather when I was 43. My
grandfather never said anything other they worked for the
"government."

I'm very sorry to hear about your loss at such a tender age,
Eric. In my case, my mother used to say that my father's Guardian
Angel was watching over him. He was a part of the larger 5th
Marine Amphibious Corps which was slated to invade the southern
most island of Japan on 1Nov45, and undoubtedly the atomic bombs
saved him. It is hard for me to believe he could beat the odds of
neither being killed (obviously, else I wouldn't be here) or
wounded a 4th time.

If you have ANY documentation about your relatives, you can write
to the Marines for such things as their discharge certificates,
re-issue of medals, combat ribbons, unit citations, and the like.
In my case, that stuff survived but I am still trying to get more
documentation that can only be found in what were then called
"muster reports", what was later called a "morning report" when I
was in the Army circa 1970-72, basically who was present in which
unit(s), campaigns, etc.

I never found out exactly what my father did, other than he
and my grandfather were electricians for the "government"
(as they called it) in New Mexico during the last couple
years of the war. I have several pictures of them in the
desert without any sort of landmarks in the shots.

Eric, did you suffer the loss of your father either during
the war or when you were too young to remember his story?

--
HP, aka Jerry