Tag: Veterans Day
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Remembering a lucky man
In the summer of 2015, days before I moved away to Brazil, I took my son and went to say goodbye to my grandparents. He was 1. They were past 90. They saved him packs of cookies from the retirement home cafeteria, and I let him eat all he could because it made both parties so happy. After a hug and goodbye, as I closed their apartment door, I wondered whether it might be the last time I’d see either of them. They seemed healthy enough, but past 90 is past 90. And as it turned out, Grandpa had less than two months left.
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Emotions and experiences of war remain fresh for Tom Showalter, one of the U.S. Army’s remaining survivors of WWII
Farm life prepared Rockingham County native Tom Showalter for the strength required for enduring World War II, but not for the terror he would face — when landing on Utah Beach in one of the subsequent waves after D-Day, then facing German soldiers or when a shell exploded near him while on guard duty sending shrapnel through his leg.
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