NE PA Ag said:
My next neighbor for a while in the mid 90s was a WW2 vet, paratrooper and former POW in a German camp.
That's not the story I regret not recording in some fashion. He was the son of German immigrants and visited family in Germany for an extended stay during the early years of the Reich.
I say early, but I don't remember the year. He went with his cousins to a Hitler Youth rally. I don't remember where or what he thought of it. I honestly don't remember much else about his story, but it's so intriguing to think about an American kid that was around 12?, spending time there during that period of history. I regret not following up and trying to learn more from him about his experiences and record it in some fashion.
Anyone else have similar regrets about stories from people in your past?
Yes, so many regrets in this area.'
I think I have a pretty good memory. I did not find college nor the CPA exam to be very difficult because once I read something with the purpose of having to remember it (as opposed to just general reading), I can all but see the words, type written or hand written.
One of my regrets is not having found out more about my dad's time in the Pacific. In connection with my memory, I can plainly remember him saying he got wounded on Tarawa when he and another BAR man were on the ground side by side shooting at the heads of Japanese who were swimming over to the neighboring island, Bairiki. (The fighting known as Tarawa was mainly on Betio.) A mortar or grenade exploded between the two of them, shrapnel wounds for both. This recollection occurred from what I heard my father telling a neighbor when I was a kid. He never talked much about any of the fighting, but the neighbor had fought the Germans and I used to hide and listen to them swap war stories.
But later I learned this could not have been the case. He was wounded on Nov. 20th, the first day of the fighting. He would never have been close to the tip of Betio in order to be shooting at the enemy swimming over to the next island. That happened near the end of the fighting.
Many of the things he did over there I have confirmation about, including when he was wounded on Saipan. After my dad died, I got in touch with a couple of dozen Marines in his company, some in his platoon. Few were with him on Tarawa but were with him on Saipan and Tinian. I have around 30 letters from them that describe things they were involved in. But I dropped the ball. Was so busy with work, and with our having children that I did not follow up and find out all they knew.
In a really odd turn of events, I had posted pictures my dad had on a Tarawa Facebook page and one guy (Ken) messaged me that one of the guys in the picture was his brother, who died on the first day of the Tarawa fight. I was able to verify this was true. Turns out Ken's hometown and my hometown were playing each other for the state softball championship. After we had messaged for a few months, this same topic came up, the not knowing things. I mentioned to him that in one of the letters from a Marine in my dad's platoon he said he could still hear my dad singing in the morning as he cleaned his BAR (of course when they were not close to the Japanese). This Marine said the words said something along the lines of "when the angels sing." Within a minute of posting that to Ken, he sent me a link to the song "And the Angel's Sing." So one mystery solved in an unlikely way, so many yet to have an answer, most never will.
I feel fortunate to have what I have, just wish I had done more when the opportunity was there.
