The Great Uncle, Bill

I came across a Hero today, and I am moved to share him, as he is my great Uncle Bill. Although the above photo is a rendition of the pre World War II cavalry which my other great Uncle Johnny served in that Great European conflict as an officer, I can not bring myself to ponder nor relate warfare where fine war horses were blown to death by massive artillery rounds.
I love the cavalry, but am pleased for the horses they no longer are fodder for war, even if their loving natures bred them for it.

Uncle William was a Veteran of World War I whose letters I remember as a child coming from Sarah Palin's Idaho. Uncle Bill would have loved Sarah Palin as he had excellent taste and was always in the most satirical of humor this child of the plains.
His letters in those years as he wore a patch over one eye in being blind and was old as Methuselah were about his loathing for Jimmy Carter. Uncle Bill could not stand the man and let it be known constantly. He loved Ronald Reagan.

In his obituary, I saw how he was quite the cat with 9 lives and a few to spare in World War I. He served with the 89th American Division in Europe.
He fought at the battles of St. Miheil, Meuse, bloody Argonne, the Defensive Sector and the AEF.
He almost med this end at Limey, France in September 1918 month before the war ended on a date no one much cares about now in November, and was discharged in 1919.

In an era of massed machine gun, massed artillery, trench disease, chemical warfare from Germany in mustard gas, my Uncle Bill somehow survived 5 major slaughterfests when Rudyard Kiplings beloved son was slaughtered moments into his Heroic march to eternity.
That is amazing to me in the amount of ordnance expended, exposed charges, and yet in the wrong place, Uncle Bill got caught at Limey for his "purple cross" as it was termed for being wounded in battle.

I have always hated World War I as it was the most murdersome of wars. The British officers marching out hundreds of thousands of massed troops into German massed machine guns was the greatest waste of humanity for no reason. The Americans under Pershing were a bit brighter, but to think of the bravery of men getting out of trenches after having the Germans volley artillery on them for hours to soften them up, in that mud and cold, to just go forward into certain death, it is bravery beyond compare and yet shameful that nations put such Heroes in such harms way.

I loved that feisty old man though and was pleased in his departing years to have had his influence on my life. I will always remember his remark about his only son in satire once that the Bible speaks about burning in passion, but Bill didn't think that kid had much fire in him.
It was always the way of those ancestral Canucks. They just never had a great deal of anything but sedate in them.

I have a smile on my heart though in remembering these two Heroes who the world has forgotten, and it is fitting as one was nicknamed Happy. I will never forget their wise eyes nor for how their just making it through the great wars made me a richer child in studying them in silence as they would relate the stories of the old days.

I realize that there are people of God's quality in these immoral days, as I am one of them, and the people who filter through this blog are of that same caste of striving to be something more even if only God is watching them tend a Veteran father in a nursing home or praying protecting for her children who are serving America, but I fully realize how spoiled I was as a child in being around 90 year old people from another century in all of them were of the highest order of humanity. They kept their word and you could trust them with your bank accounts.

There are fewer and the ranks are thinned now in these Americans and western peoples, and it why the fabric of our nations are coming apart and things like Barack Obama are looked to as false gods for the idiotry to hide behind.

I miss them though more and more with each passing day for the marvelous people they are who were Heroes and are Heroes which gave America her grit and spine.

Uncle Bill never had a funeral, just a memorial service stuck in the regular Sunday Christian service........but I remember him in my living memory.

I remember you though the years are past
From beginning to end, to first to last
The vintage wine of bottle empty
Upon my hearth the glass menagerie
A prison full of heart's memories
Treasures kept by lofty degrees
A blinded Veteran whose eyes could see
The heart of America from sea to shining sea
I remember you from first to last
In each heartbeat you are present now and not just past

agtG