damik's Diaryland Diary

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What does it mean anyway?

I miss my sir.
These last few days seem longer then normal. I don't like comming home knowing that he still isn't going to be there. I just have untill Thursday, I can make it through.
*sigh*
I have been contemplating the meaning of hero while he's been away buring his grandfather.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Opa, he's a good man, dedicated to his family, funny, a hard worker.
Its an issue I've always had, and have never quite been able to reconsile myself with it. May just be the playground jeers.
Will's grandfather was truely a hero, he fought in the European and Mediteranian theaters in WWII. He recieved a purple heart for his servous. He defended his country when they needed him.
My Opa fought the war, too. Spent time in a POW camp he never talks about. I just don't know what I can consider his service.
He didn't fight to protect his country. It didn't need protecting. He never wanted to fight. He wanted to fix airplanes. To do that he had to be in the union when the war started thoes who joined the unions had to fight. Thats how he explained it to me. Thats all he ever really told me. I figure that he had to have fought in Russia because thats where he was a POW.
When we learned about the war in school we were always taught that the Alies were good and the German soldiers were murderious, evil, heartless killers. If you were good, well you didn't fight for the bad guys.
Seriously, that was my childhood preception of how the text books presented it. I don't remember which grade you first learn about the subject in, but it didn't occure to me right away that my Opa fought as a German soldier. Though other kids it did and I was mocked that whole week and called a Nazi. You'd think in the late '80's earily '90's it wouldn't be a popular playground prejaduce, but children will latch onto any fuel they can find. A most obvious German last name must equal the grandchild of a Nazi.
In Jr. High english/history class we had to do a report on one of our grandfathers. At this point I'm not sure if my mother was admiting that her father was actully alive or not, but I chose my Opa for the report. This is where I get what sketchy information I have on his experences in the war.
We were supposed read our reports to the class but I didn't because at the time I had grown ashamed that he had fought for the Germans. To me there was no honor in that.
Today I know that that preception was wrong. That had he not fought he most likely wouldn't have lived to see the end of the war, that he was just a simple man trying to survive.
I don't know where that leaves me on the issue of heros. I guess its a moot point anyhow, my Opa couldn't ever be a hero, he didn't play football or appear on a box of Wheaties.

12:12 p.m. - 05-11-04
0 comments

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next