Thursday, November 11, 2010

War Stories

My grandfather was in World War II. He told us that he never killed anyone, and I think he was in the Aleutian Islands during the majority of the actual action in Europe.

I remember once, though, a story he told us from when he was driving trucks in Europe--I believe it was either Germany or France, and it must have been after things had quieted down a bit, at least in that part of the world.

They used to warm cans of food up on the engines of the trucks as they drove around, delivering supplies or what have you. Once, when they were driving around, they decided to heat up some food on the engine, as usual. Probably it was a can of beans.

This time, though, they forgot about it, and left it on the engine. Of course, it kept getting hotter and hotter, until eventually it exploded, bursting and ricocheting noise and beans all over the inside of the truck.

It being wartime, an explosion of any kind was probably terrifying, but once they found out that it was beans and not enemy fire, I'd wager they had a good laugh about it, while hosing down the inside of the truck's engine.

My grandpa used to wear a hat that said WWII Vet on it. It was dark blue and had gold lettering and I am proud of him.