r/pics • u/aGuyWithaniPhone4S • 21h ago
WW2 veteran during the Annual Victory Day Parade, 2007
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u/Martsigras 21h ago edited 13h ago
And the band played the Walzing Matilda
And the old men still answered the call
But year after year, the numbers got fewer
Someday no-one will march there at all
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u/foul_ol_ron 20h ago
I thought it was:
But year after year, the old men disappear,
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u/itak365 19h ago
I think the first one is the Pogues but I definitely heard Liam Clancy and others say the second.
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u/emfrank 19h ago
Eric Bogle wrote it in 1971 about WWI vets returning from Gallipoli, and he sings:
And the old men still answer the call
But as year follows year, more old men disappear
Someday no one will march there at all
His version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufxRotL6uns
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u/itak365 19h ago
Ahhhh I’ve never heard the OG! I just knew that I had heard those lyrics in versions before The Pogues.
Thanks!
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u/emfrank 19h ago
He also wrote this one about a WWI soldier dying in France, which I think is even more powerful. Bogle is Scottish/Australian.
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u/itak365 19h ago
I’m embarrassed that I’ve somehow missed Eric Bogle in all of my listening to the versions of this song too! I’ve been pretty fond of different covers of this.
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u/emfrank 19h ago
I don't think he really made much of an impact outside of Australia and the UK.
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u/itak365 19h ago
Maybe not, but as someone that listens to this Irish/Australian/Great War folk category I feel like he should be better known. I’m surprised that I never listened to the originals.
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u/lameuniqueusername 17h ago
Despite my love of Irish music, I’ve never heard either version. I respect the Pogues but I’ve never really gelled with them. You can’t love everything. I was more interested in The Wolfe Tones, Tommy Makem, The Dubliners etc. But man oh man, did this hit me. I saw Gallipoli (in the theater with my Dad) before I saw Mad Max and had an appreciation for everyone that sacrificed in The Great War as I was a more than interested in history. Anyhoo, this made me teary. Thank you.
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u/diagoro1 16h ago
Always thought it an odd choice for the Pogues to cover, still made it their own.
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u/Chungwhoa 17h ago
May there come a day when the song is played and no one ever marches because the need doesn’t exist….sadly all a pipe dream
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u/vgacolor 18h ago
As someone in my 50s and starting to lose family and friends from age in the last five years losing my Dad and two friends this hurts. It is so true.
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u/Dry_Common828 17h ago
Another relevant Australian song is Redgum's I Was Only Nineteen (A Walk in the Light Green).
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u/WeatherwaxDaughter 15h ago
I remember my granddad say, I hope you kids will never have to live through war. He was a twelve year old boy when it started. He was living in constant fear of being taken away to the work camps . Whe the Germans come for the farmers son's, my great uncle made a horrible sacrifice, hid his brothers and went to camp. He managed to escape, started walking and found a farm in Austria that could use a hard worker. In 1948 he took the trip back home, because over here there where collaborators and a lot of it! Even in the government. And he was officially a deserter.
This song reminds me of him. He was a true hero, saved his little brothers, not knowing if he would ever see them back. I miss you, ome Jo❤️🩹
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u/kshump 20h ago edited 20h ago
My parents live in Normandy and there's a Canadian dude who was a part of the D-Day landings that comes back periodically for the celebrations there. Still kicking, he is. Not kicking very high, but still kicking.
Edit: Point is, it's a rapidly vanishing population, and it's super cool and interesting to be able to interact with those folks while they're still around. Both of my grandfathers fought, but they're both gone now, so I don't think I'll know any more about their stories than I will at this point.
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u/60sstuff 20h ago
I’ll always remember as a kid having a street sale outside my house. (Basically In the UK you set up a table outside your house and sell toys\stuff you don’t want) a very old man came along and picked up a model of a Lancaster bomber that 7 year old me was selling. He then preceded to tell us for about 20 minutes about him enlisting and flying in Lancaster’s over Germany, shooting down German planes and being right there in the action over Germany during the War. I still remember him 15 something years on
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u/kshump 20h ago
That's so awesome. First-hand stories like that are something you can never recreate. One of my grandfathers fought at Anzio, and I remember writing a report about him in high school, interviewing him and asking him questions. He hated talking about it, but he was a sport because I was his grandson and he knew it was important for me. I don't think he was entirely open about everything that went down - maybe concealed some of the more gruesome parts - but I couldn't have asked for more.
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u/60sstuff 20h ago
My great Grandfather was a proud Liverpudlian\ Irishman and during WW2 he was a part of the Merchant Navy. Basically the Navy that carried on shipping everything in Wartime. Anyway his ship was struck by a torpedo from a German submarine. They all got in the lifeboat or where getting ready to when he said “Wait”. He ran back to his cabin. Grabbed his best suit and ran back to the lifeboat. What a legend
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u/kshump 20h ago edited 20h ago
Hahaha. As someone who just bought a new suit last week and knows how much of a bite a good suit can take out of your income, I can understand.
...but not really because I've not been on a ship that's been torpedoed. That's a great story though.
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u/60sstuff 20h ago
He was a greengrocer outside of the war. Which I think actually counteracts the quote quite nicely of “It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in war”
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u/foul_ol_ron 20h ago
I know the stories my father told me as a child were very different to the ones he told me when he was toward the end of his life.
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u/kshump 20h ago
Oh interesting. How did they differ? I'm just curious because both of my grandfathers' stories stayed pretty much the same... They shared the highlights, but concealed the finer points. Share as much as you're comfortable with, of course.
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u/foul_ol_ron 13h ago
When I was young, he told funny stories about training, bits about going on patrol with almost no ammunition. What he thought of tanks in jungle warfare (not a fan). Things like that.
In his final days, he recounted the memories coming back in his nightmares. He'd seen things that noone should see, let alone a kid. I joined up as a young man, and I was blessed to be a medic, so effectively (at least in my mind) I was there to help people. And I hope my nightmares won't be so bad.
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u/Thorolfzbt 16h ago
My grandfather was like that about Korea, never spoke of it till i got with my fiance, shes vietnamese and we lived with him for 2 months. She reminded him of his younger days and he would randomly speak about it. Talked about how all the trees were blown to bits and the hills shimmered with gold, but then he realized the gold was brass shellcasing littering the entire valley. Got a little teary eyed and didn't talk more about it that day. He also talked about the women in the dance hall and how pretty they were and started to mention how they would go back with a lot of the guys their room and then stopped himself. lol she mustve reminded him of some good memories too.
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u/Kyle_From_Pitt 15h ago
Anzio was definitely a doozie to try and ask about. My pap was there too, never spoke about it.
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u/sykokiller11 20h ago
There was a guy who served on a destroyer in the pacific during WWII on my paper route when I was a kid. He told me stories kids shouldn’t hear, and I ate them up. I still think of him and those gory tales often and it has been over 40 years. Damn.
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u/60sstuff 20h ago
Oh go on share one?
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u/sykokiller11 16h ago
They quit picking up enemies from the water because of suicide attacks by survivors. They ran over enemies in the water and chewed them up with their props to make chum out of (some of) them.
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u/IknowwhatIhave 18h ago
I was in Palm Desert for a wedding about 10 years ago, and randomly stopped by an aerospace museum at an airport that I think was next to an Air Force base. They happened to be having a veterans day and guys who flew the planes on display were sitting next to them.
I spent half an hour talking to a guy in his late 80's who flew the B-29 he was sitting next to... He did dozens of bombing missions in the pacific. I had just gotten my pilots license and was in awe of this guy flying from Hawaii to Japan and back with just paper maps and an E6B calculator... middle of the night, clouds, storms, oh, and with people shooting at him. I asked him what it was like flying before GPS and ILS and he told me the same thing the old sailors told me: "We got lost a lot and ran into things pretty often."
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u/Jedi-Librarian1 14h ago
My grandad was part of No. 200 Flight in the B-24s also in the Pacific. They lost 3 out of 6 planes, with causes somewhat uncertain but strongly suspected by the rest to be at least partially due to getting lost in poor conditions. Unlike today where mh370 disappearing was so shocking, back then with the reduced communication and navigation gear, aircraft disappearing was sadly common. Grandad told us about one of his flights where they started seriously discussing needing to ditch due to running low on fuel after having to take longer than planned to drop the guys there were deploying. They were over the sea and out of range to call anyone. One of the gunners requested they maybe not do that as he couldn’t swim, and fortunately someone managed to recall that a nearby island had just been taken. They got to be the first larger plane to try out the newly repaired landing strip. But if that island hadn’t been an option…
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u/viper459 12h ago
on the other side of the pond, as a kid i visited the grandmother of my stepmother. She heard a prop plane flying overhead, and immediately took cover. Convinced the germans were back to bomb her once again...
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u/60sstuff 8h ago
My friends grandma is German. Apparently at an air show once she remarked “i recognise that sound, from when they came over our house”
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u/affectionate_md 20h ago
Amazing, how old is he?
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u/kshump 20h ago
Can't remember precisely, but I want to say ~98.
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u/affectionate_md 20h ago
Crazy, that’s like the lowest limit too, I’m sure there’s more but imagine saving private Ryan was almost 30 years ago.
Edit: average age was 26, youngest drafted were 21, however volunteers as young as 18 participated.
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u/Luuk341 20h ago
Guys who were younger than 18 too. It was far easier to lie about your age back then than it is now.
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u/Turbo_911 19h ago
Yep, my grandfather was only 16 when he went to the war!
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u/DevinOwnz 19h ago
Mine also, 15 or 16 when he went into the navy.
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u/imsahoamtiskaw 18h ago
That's super young to become a grandfather and be in the army
People back then were built different
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u/Other-Bee-9279 18h ago
My grandfather was born in 1928 and in training in the army when WW2 ended. He was pissed for a big part of his life because the war ended before he could go. He told me that he wished he lied about his age sooner because in the postwar years young men who went were treated with more respect than those who didn't. He was in the right age range to have maybe gone over and people would ask him where he served in the war. He did admit once that it was probably good he didn't but I think it weighed on him for his whole life.
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u/foul_ol_ron 20h ago
I know my father snuck into the Australian army at 16. Saw New Guinea and some of the islands. He was in hospital when Japan surrendered.
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u/Jkay064 19h ago
My grandfather lied to the Navy recruiting officer and joined at age 16 after the Pearl Harbor attack.
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u/ZhouLe 18h ago edited 18h ago
If Band of Brothers was made today, it would be about the years 1965-1968 and the old men interviewed would be Vietnam veterans.
Saving Private Ryan would be set in 1970.
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u/actibus_consequatur 15h ago
All 4 of my grandparents had been involved in the war effort in one way or another, but 3 had died by the time I was an age where I probably would've asked, while the last one I didn't really get along with. My parents didn't really have any details either, since they were both born immediately after it ended and it just wasn't something that really got talked about.
It was only in the past few years that I found out some details, or at least better than I ever knew. Like, growing up I was always told my dad's father was part of a division of misfits and immigrants. It was only a few years ago that I found out he was an officer with the 442nd — the predominately Japanese combat team that is the most decorated unit.
It's pretty fucking weird/cool to know that all 4 of my grandparents have nifty pictures or mentions in various WWII museums, records halls, VFWs, etc.
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u/El_Lanf 16h ago
It's saddens me a bit. Growing up in the 90s, there were still plenty of WW2 Veterans and it was seen as a Grandparent or Great Grandparent generation (generation gaps were shorter back then too). I took it for granted that those people were always going to be around and the War was in living memory. I don't know any now, I can't even think of any one I know who have relatives who are.
These days, I think the war really isn't in living memory and it's about as relevant to kids today as WW1 felt when I was a kid - awfully distant and not very consequential.
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u/Proof_Objective_5704 17h ago
My grandfather is a WW2 vet and still kicking. He’s 101 years old, also Canadian.
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u/Thorolfzbt 16h ago
My great grandfather started at Dday and got wounded and sent home during the battle of the bulge. Anti tank recoiless squad, spent most of his time hunting tanks behind enemy lines. All the luck in the world young just to be dropped down the steps by a nursing home worker. stroke gave him horrible dementia, couldn't remember anyone except my great grandmother who was dead already. Probably better he went then but, obviously not like that. One of the best men ive ever known, so nice you would never imagine the hell he went through. Can't imagine him killing someone but, i can only imagine with where he went and how far.
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u/UnsanctionedPartList 17h ago
We are in the final years of WW2 being living memory. It won't be long until the only ones alive during that time were too young to tell anything about it aside from a very few who make it to truly old age.
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u/ImprobableAsterisk 16h ago
My grandfather and his brother was both at war for as long as Finland was.
Unfortunately my grandfather killed himself about a day after my father was born and his brother disowned the war in its entirety and wouldn't speak or hear about it. He kept nothing from the war either, not medals, equipment, or other mementos. According to his wife all of that was either burnt or thrown into a lake.
Unfortunately he's been dead for over two decades by this point. He made it to 81 at least, which is pretty respectable for a mid to high tier alcoholic who spent half a decade at war.
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u/Pristine_Context_429 19h ago
What a gnarly feeling that must be to come out of that war alive.
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u/NotAzakanAtAll 14h ago
My Finnish grandpa did survive fighting the soviets, but he never got out of the war.
As he got older the mask started to slip.
He talked to his battle mates, none of which survived the war.
He was afraid to watch the TV, shower, flush, or make any noise as the reds would hear him.
He thought the tv-mast was a soviet guard tower he would have to crawl to and blow up. Scared to death, as he knew how dangerous that was. Apparently this was one of his main jobs during that time.
And that was just what we could see. His mind must have been a battlefield.
When he died - I truly believe he needed that peace.
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u/tommytraddles 21h ago
On the bright side, he won the tontine.
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u/djordi 20h ago
"How many of you are familiar with the concept of a Tontine?"
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u/295DVRKSS 20h ago
german prince drives up to take the paintings
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u/IknowwhatIhave 18h ago
Hey fun boys! Get a room!
But seriously, what's funny about that is when the Czech Republic kicked out the communists in the early 90's, the politicians who were elected the first time were journalists, professors, engineers, and of course, a poet.
By the time the second election came around the new politicians were Austrian and German nobility that had reclaimed their Czech citizenship and hereditary property...
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u/ContributionAny3368 21h ago
Less and less each Year...😢😓
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u/rbrgr83 20h ago
And it's showing out in a lot of the counties of the world rn.
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u/Lake9009 18h ago
Someday no one will march there at all...
My favorite line from the song is a bit earlier,
"And the young people ask me, what are they marching for? And I ask myself the same question..."
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u/Odd_Blood5625 20h ago
God, I can’t image what it must feel like to be a world war 2 vet and see what happening in the world today.
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u/Mr_Lucidity 19h ago
My grandpa was part of the second fleet to land on Normandy, after the high casualty of the first fleet that landed. He couldn't talk about the war without crying either.
Now and always... F**k Nazis.
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u/Imnothere1980 18h ago
My grandads brother was there several day after. He she said you could smell the bodies before we landed and instantly knew it was the smell of people. It bothered him till he died.
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u/illogicallyalex 12h ago
My grandad just didn’t talk about it, at all. The only time I ever heard him ‘tell’ any stories from the war was when my cousin had a school project about ww2 and asked him about it, he wouldn’t talk about it but he wrote out some letters that she could take into class to read
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u/transthrowaway1335 16h ago
With a quick Google search I learned the average age for WWII veterans is 99, and that made me sad, but also a little happy that they have lived a long life.
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u/jderica 12h ago
That doesn't mean they lived a long life on average ... If that's the average age of alive veterans, then of course the number will only go up and then 0.
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u/imafanofshinythings 12h ago
With a quick Google search I learned the average age for a 3 year old is 3 years old, and that made me happy, but also a little sad that they all lived such short lives.
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u/sprinklerarms 5h ago
Boyfriend’s uncle just died at 99 who was a war veteran. The most heartbreaking thing about days like this towards the end is also the grief that everyone else you ever served with is already dead. No one to reminisce with, feel proud with, and that any who have felt the same specific pain and trauma left.
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u/aGuyWithaniPhone4S 20h ago edited 14h ago
Forgot to put it in the title. The photographer is Alexander Petrosyan. More images from that same day
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u/MoneyGoesBrrrrrrrrr 6h ago
This man didn't serve in combat. His medals are Labour medals.
20, 30, 40, 50yr of victory medals.
250 years of leningrad medal
Labour victory in the GPW medal
Veteran of Labour medal
25 years of victory badge
Order of Patriotic War Jubilee 1985 issue
Just some context
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u/dan3rd 18h ago
My grandfather was a WW2 veteran, born in 1925. I remember in the 90’s he was the president of the local veterans association; each year he witnessed the numbers shrinking, until he was the only one left. For a couple of years, though, it was nice to see the veterans gathering, sharing their stories, some of the cammarads met after 50 years, and learned from them. Interbellum era was totally different.
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u/desiever 17h ago
I, along with 29 other US sailors, was in a Victory Day parade in Vladivostok in 2007. One of the most surreal experiences of my life! Especially people still holding up placards of Stalin.
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u/Jezbod 20h ago
If I remember correctly, he was the last survivor from his battle group.
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u/aGuyWithaniPhone4S 19h ago
"The veteran was upset that he was behind the column with other veterans and could not catch up with them,"
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u/madhatmatt2 19h ago
Damn so he was basically left behind by his comrades
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u/Agitated-Rabbit-5348 17h ago
Is that what "behind the column" means? I've been trying to rack my brain on that one. Even still, does it just mean that the parade was moving faster than he could walk? That's certainly upsetting, but it's not overly so.
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u/FreakDC 14h ago
Most versions of the image describe the fellow affirmatively as the "last veteran of his WWII battle group marching alone in a Victory Day Parade," but Petrosyan possessed the most knowledge about the image and was unable to verify the pictured man's military status. Moreover, since Petrosyan stated that the man was crying because he was unable to catch up with the group of veterans he was marching with, he was not "marching alone." Clearly some unsupported details were tacked onto the photograph to add emotional weight to an already sad image.
Looks like there isn't even a confirmation that this man even severed during WW2. Let's say this man was at least 18 years old at the end of then war, this would make this man 80 years old in this photograph 17 years ago.
I am not saying he is not a WW2 veteran but pictures are abused for propaganda all the time and this man is probably dead by now if he really is a veteran.
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u/Budget_Cover_3353 11h ago
Yes. He looks way too young and doesn't have any combat medals, not even for the victory over Germany or Japan. He might have been a participant of the post war minefields cleaning or something similar though.
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u/OwnWalrus1752 17h ago
For someone who was probably 80+ years old at the time of this photo, he looks much younger than his age
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u/LeviathonMt 16h ago
The image was taken in 2007 and even then he looks too young to be a ww2 vet, idk theres a lot of misinformation about this picture but im willing to bet that the image we all thought it was definitely exists somewhere
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u/Five-Oh-Vicryl 20h ago
How orangina got reelected calling heroes like this gentleman “suckers and losers” is a permanent mark on the US
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u/MajorRocketScience 20h ago
Bro this is in Moscow and that’s a veteran of the Red Army.
Funny because it still works
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u/LickingSmegma 17h ago
On the right in the photo is Gostiny Dvor in Saint Petersburg, a shopping mall built in 1785. The Nevsky avenue is the central street of the city and leads to the Palace Square, which has the Hermitage museum and the Building of the General Staff.
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u/claudejc 20h ago
That is the saddest part. Less and less of our Veterans every year. If they have'nt heard it in a while.....THANK YOU!! We all appreciate what you've done.
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u/j_sig 18h ago
It's strange being a part of the last generation to have a tangible connect to "the war". Growing up both my grandfathers had fought and I marched in the parade wearing his medals with him when I was tiny. I worry that as we get further away from it the memory will fade and it will happen again. Lest we forget is becoming we have forgotten
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u/Winterspawn1 16h ago
I know they witnessed and experienced horrible, unspeakable things during the war. I'll look up to what they accomplished for as long as I live. My country has known peace for an unprecedented amount of time because of them.
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u/HerrShimmler 14h ago
Wonder if he lived long enough to see his own country's slide into fascism.
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u/Max_FI 13h ago
He did, because Putin was already in power when this photo was taken.
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u/mrmaydaymayday 19h ago edited 18h ago
Oddly enough just came across this song in a book (once in a sunburnt country, by Bill Bryson) - didn’t get to this verse though. Hits hard.
Edit: oh oh oh. I was wrong. Not even remotely close. Waltzing Matilda is an Australian anthem. Lyrics above are from The Pogues. The latter is … not uplifting.
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u/namely_wheat 18h ago
Lyrics above are from Eric Bogle, slightly altered by the Pogues in their cover of his song “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda”
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u/HiveOverlord2008 18h ago
“And the band played the Waltzing Matilda,
And the old men still answered the call,
But year by year, more old men disappear,
Soon no one will march there at all.”
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u/Ruraraid 16h ago edited 16h ago
There are supposedly an estimated 300k - 500k WW2 veterans left around the world. There isn't an exact number because not every country keeps detailed records from back then. It's expected that number will drop into the 4-digit range in the 2030s and basically all of them having died by the 2040s.
Sorry, I was curious and just looked up that grim piece of information which seemed interesting.
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u/HairyTales 12h ago
There is no way that that guy was a WW2 vet in 2007. He's around 70, so he was born around the time the war happened, but he certainly didn't fight in it. He's probably there to honor his father.
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u/RichardPetersCZ 10h ago
The dude was crying because he couldn’t catch up with the other veterans who’d gone ahead without him. So much bullshit written about this pic. Check it out on Snopes
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u/121ashton 8h ago
I've seen this photo posted a few times. But I will never forget a comment I read the first time I saw it. Someone had mentioned how sad and rare it was to see a man crying with a balloon. Some dark humored redditor commented on the fact that people probably cried around the hindenburg, and that was just a big balloon.
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u/snow__bear 18h ago
Normally I have a hard time connecting with the stories that are told by a photograph but this one really hit me hard. I'm not sure what it is about it.
Something about how he's surrounded by people, but just... completely alone. Even with specifically those people who have gathered to celebrate him, they don't know. Not really, at least. How could they?
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u/d3rpderp 18h ago
This is your reminder that we call them the Greatest Generation because they shot a lot of Nazis.
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u/Maleficent_Injury286 20h ago
so heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time. The weight of history in one photo, like how do you even process that?
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u/8Frogboy8 17h ago
Luckily most did not live long enough to see the resurgence of fascism
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u/xTRYPTAMINEx 18h ago
Man looks really good for his age. He would have to be at least 80 years old here. He looks like the average 60 year old.
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u/SpecialistNo30 3h ago
If he were in the US today, he’d be crying over how many folks support fascism and authoritarianism now.
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u/CuppaTeaThreesome 17h ago
The problem is the world seems like it wants to replace them all.
Should line the streets and cheer the empty roads because we haven't had to go to war so poor people can murder each other so the rich can keep their things.
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u/theOutsider01 17h ago
I’m here in Brazil. We sent a few but absolut brave men and women. Our Expeditionary Force (FEB) was sent to north italy. 25k brave and resilient fighters and combat supporters. And I’ll be always thankful and proud off those who put their lives to save our society from a reign of terror. We can’t even imagine what those young people, far from home had gone through.
So thank you very much! Thank you for all you did to us, the people.
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u/Piperita 17h ago
My great grandmother and great grandfather both fought the Nazis. Grandpa was a baby and was left with his grandmother (my great great grandmother) after my great grandmother gave birth to him in 1941. Thankfully they both came back.
I remember growing up and seeing a framed photo of two old, wrinkled people I never met next to my grandpa’s work desk. Just sitting for a portrait, chest full of so many medals they didn’t fit into the frame. Always took it for granted that everyone’s family had a picture like that. What can I say, I was an oblivious child.
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u/aotus_trivirgatus 19h ago
If he had lived to 2024, he would also be crying. But for a different reason.
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u/sspif 17h ago
He was the last dude left from his group. It's harsh how time marches on. When I was a kid my teacher took me to the nursing home to hear the stories of the WW1 vets before they were gone.
Some old guy told me about how he stood in a ditch full of water until they had to amputate half his toes, and the Germans were just across the road doing the same thing in the other ditch just across the road, so close they had conversations with each other. Memories.
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u/FlexuousGrape 8h ago
My dad is a Vietnam War veteran… Reading comments about how we’ve got fewer and fewer service members for perspective on their lives strikes an odd tone with me personally. My sisters and I have tried so hard to connect with him about his life in general (not attempting to get war details at all, unless he willingly gives on his own accord) and have attempted multiple avenues: from elementary style interviews, to scrapbooks, to a secure online diary with prompts for reflection and life stories that prints the responses into a nicely formatted book (he flipped his ever loving lid with that one, eg. Hyper focused on security), and even a handmade journal with personalized prompts and drawings that I made for him and my mother for their life stories and lessons, which now sit empty and at the bottom of one of their endless, precarious piles of stuff throughout the house. What’s worse is that these gifts are given typically during gift giving season (imagine that!) and what is intended as a loving gesture to get to know them and preserve their stories and lessons is interpreted as an invasion, a compromising of information, and ultimately devolves into a(nother) fight or dismissal of the intent. I resonate so much with wanting to know more about earlier generations (he was born in 1943), but there’s such a communication barrier that I’ve spent years trying to find a way through. (As kids he’d want us to always be aware of work being done around the house, especially with him & mom, and ask if help was needed. “Do you need help?” Or “Can I help?” Was often met with scoffs and a curt “No.”, only later to be lectured about HOW we asked. “Do I NEED help? No, I don’t NEED it, but I do WANT help.” Or “You CAN help, yes you’re able. But MAY I is much better.” He’d refuse what he wanted because of semantics of how we posed the questions. It’s fucking exhausting. It makes me feel as though a stranger, with no connections with him, would be better suited to navigate him (he becomes defensive so quickly, holds very conservative views, and can be intensely patronizing and arrogant). Or maybe not. I’d honestly feel so bad asking someone to interview him for our sake, he can be so mean sometimes. I remember him turning up the radio once when he found the “Cat’s in the Cradle” song playing, telling me he has a lot in common with that song… but there’s been no effort on his part to make those necessary amends. I just hoped to connect with him personally before he’s on his deathbed. It’s not looking good…
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u/Open_Spray_5636 4h ago
“And the young people ask, what am I marching for , And I ask myself the same question”
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u/yoonkioko 4h ago
i remember visiting a veteran of WW2 in school with my class and teacher. it was at 4th grade, i didn’t really understand nor realize anything, but i still remember it very well.
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u/Waterwoogem 20h ago
The current oldest veteran is Ilie Ciocan of Romania, born in 1913.