European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 30, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Columns cafe from above photo by Chuck Vinch War memories Are in the mind of the beholder by John Windrow staff columnist my grandmother on my mothers Side could never get my Grandfather to March in the memorial Day not he was in world War had spent More than a year overseas and seen considerable he never talked about it to me but when he said he used to grow so weary he could lie Down under the Field guns while they were firing and go to and once his unit was Cut off from the Supply lines and he was so hungry he picked up the old potato peelings off the ground and ate i longed for stories of Bayonet charges and howling but he  accommodate my grandmother told me about her ancestors stirring role in the civil when the men set out from to go fight the she they elected one of her for bearers Captain of the then when they got about a Niile out of they remembered they had left to Jorte to protect the women and they if Jenother she said and picked to return to was of so i never pointed out that it sounded like our Man had fouled up so badly he was sent Home before the first on the other Side of the j had my who hid deserted from the family had a joke about grandpa Evans they and the confederacy the Little town i grew up in was peppered with veterans of world War my ideas of that War were shaped by comic books like Rock and his howling was that what it was shooting up hordes of the enemy every Day before breakfast making wisecracks while bullets ripped through your shirtsleeves whenever i met a Man who had been in the War i asked him the same question what was it like one told me about Hunting tigers in the Jungles of it was he the Man who had been a prisoner of War in Germany always told me about the Day he was How much he How drunk he that was what he chose to an Emmarine told me gory tales about fighting on the Pacific of land fighting hand to but another Man who been in the same theater always told How the japanese were starving and they had captured a japanese Soldier in the Chow trying to get something to the tenant Farmer Down the Road who had lost an Arm in the Pacific would Only Tell me it was very people talked about his pension like it was a great he gets a they every month for the rest of his and then there was my old who got his High school diploma and his draft notice the same and went off to Europe with one of patterns infantry we had a shoe Box in the closet with his Bronze purple heart and some it had the Wallet he was carrying when he was shot from it was the biggest joke in the he Windrow was shot in the butt with a burp the Wall t had a Bullet Hole through he has a tear from the my Mother would but he cant show it to his stories were about the Small the everyday happenings jumbled up with All the confusion and the of waking up in the morning in the German Woods covered with an overnight of washing his hair with water helmet and having it freeze before he could dry of marching in the night toward a fight the next Day and tripping Over a dead his was with one of the first units to break through to the besieged american forces at Bastogne during the Battle of the he visited me in Europe before he died and we talked about where were you when the Battle of the bulge broke out i asked he shrugged and shot a Little Grin at awol in i was drinking in a bar in Montmartre with two of my we knew we were supposed to head Back that night but they we rent going anywhere so i didst worry about then the Battle broke out and we went running up toward by the time we caught up with the unit there was so much confusion they forgot about it and we never got in any trouble for he and i were camping in the Woods once years we were digging a latrine for the he stopped digging and looked up at the we were standing around the latrines once in he and some German air planes came Over just about As Low As the tops of those he waved his hand at the Oak Trees around they started shooting at us and some of those boys jumped Down in the he i lust  do that so i stood there and watched the bullets come he shuddered and started digging i realized then that theres not much use in asking what it was you have to have been May stripes Magazine