Each infantryman, regardless of the time spent facing the enemy in attacking or in defensive action in any given territory has stories to tell of the horrors that would frighten the listener or reader to a point of disbelief, so it’s best not to speak of it.
~John A. Aller

Granddaddy was a machine gunner in World War II. He was in the US Army 83rd Division 331st Infantry Company H along with the man quoted above, the author of I Saw it Through. They landed at Normandy a few days after D-Day and continued fighting through Europe for over 330 days, basically following General Patton’s path. In addition to oftentimes intense fighting, they liberated some concentration camps.

Granddaddy didn’t talk about the war. Occasionally he would mention things like the hedgerows, but mostly he kept silent. Once my sister discovered his bronze star for valor. When asked how he got it he said by being stupid. Apparently he was in the third row of machine gunners. They were engaged in a firefight with the Germans when Granddaddy’s machine gun jammed. He noticed the gun in front of his was open so he moved up a row. That one, too, jammed. He noticed a gun in the front row was open so he moved up again. He continued to shoot until the Germans stopped shooting. That’s when he learned that his group had retreated. He hadn’t heard the order. I wish I had more stories like these, but Granddaddy kept them to himself and I can’t ask him now since he died almost 10 years ago.

I Saw it Through was a book I had to read, but didn’t want to read. I had to read it because I wanted to know more about what Granddaddy went through. I didn’t want to read it because war is terrible and the author didn’t sugarcoat things. The best part about reading it also made it hard. The grammar is terrible (“we was going”, tons of extra commas, etc.), but it so reminded me of Grandmomma’s letters. She wrote the same way. I really felt as I read it like I was sitting at the feet of an 80 year old man telling his stories about the war.

As I was nearing the end of the book last night, I realized that as Granddaddy was beginning to fight in the Battle of the Bulge, Grandmomma was giving birth to Daddy. Daddy was born on Christmas Eve in 1944 (Grandmomma’s mother told her not to get pregnant when she went to see Granddaddy while he was on that weekend pass…). Ten months later Granddaddy met his son and was reunited with his three year old daughter and wife of four years.

I have a new appreciation for Granddaddy. From the beaches of Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge, he saw it through.

We really need to mow our backyard. It’s not even like it’s a big backyard that would take a long time to mow. It’s tiny (we live in a townhouse). But something always comes up – have to be somewhere, rain, whatever – and it doesn’t get mowed. But I think thanks to all that grass it’s attracting the attention of critters in addition to our regular squirrels and neighborhood cats.

We’ve had caterpillars back there. Of course they started out in the front yard and were moved to the backyard by the kids. Now there is a cocoon back there and the kids are wondering which of their little “pets” it is.

Then the other day the big kids swore they saw a snake. Upon second thought they decided it wasn’t a snake after all but instead the tail of something. Ani went through an animal encyclopedia and decided it was definitely not a hedgehog, but wasn’t sure what it was. By their description it sounds like they saw the tail of a rat or a opossum.

Following the… whatever… tail there was more excitement when a turtle came to visit. Ani took tons of pictures of that little friend.

Finally, we’ve had a raccoon visit us. Ani told us there was a raccoon up on our fence. I figured she was just mistaken and had actually seen a cat since the cats are always walking on our fence. Then Sunday evening she called us to the window saying she had seen the raccoon again. Sure enough she was right.

So the big kids are quite enjoying the animals that have come to visit and we’re jokingly calling our backyard a wildlife habitat. Maybe we should just leave the grass long and see what else decides to come visit our tiny little backyard.