I’m a tad shaken these days.
I called my parents to hear how they were doing and to share the positive feelings coming from the receding of this friggin’ Covid, and to ask, since the situation is getting all right, when they would come see us at home, as they’ve been saying for quite a while now. After three years during which we always drove over to see them because they had some health issues and, after that, because of the disease.
My dad declined the invitation. He told me rather plainly, that he does not feel like moving out of home because of the current situation.
I replied that we’re doing ok where I live, and that Covid is practically a non issue now, but he said that it’s not for Covid.
It’s because of the war in Ukraine…
I was flabbergasted!
Dad, I said, it’s so far away. We’re not involved yet. Why are you saying so?
And he told me that he started remembering the night he, his sister and Mom had to leave home and escape south. Of being put on a cart with the few things they could bring with them and of the seemingly endless journey. He’s not leaving home. Period!
I started replying that it was a rather exaggerated reaction, but thought better while talking and added that I was sorry for that and that, if he didn’t feel any better soon, I’d load the “Gang” in the car and drive over for Easter.
Looking at that…thinking about what so many kids have to endure now in Ukraine and always in some other parts of the world, made me think of… of scars.
I have a few.
Coming from small and bigger accidents with bikes, motorbikes, playing American Football, skying, doing jobs… I always look at them and remember how I got them.
It is always a positive feeling. I did some stupid thing, or had some accident and got over it. I learned from it. And I have a sign for what happened.
But these scars I saw on my dad are scars of the soul…
Earned in 1944 and resurfacing in 2022.
Just like that.
And dad is a tough guy, not some kind of snowwhite…
This has started changing my perspective about world history.
I’m…confused.
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My paternal side of the family, same experience, but a few years later (early 1950s) when the journey (in secret) happened. It affects my father to this day but he'd never admit it and my grandfather, who knows full well what was left behind. My dad would have been about 10 at the time--leave your entire world behind. My grandfather is past his mid 90s--but the memories don't seem to fade.
I'm not the type to put much family detail anywhere online but I am happy to say that things would have worked out much differently had very welcoming Italians in, first Trieste, and then in the vicinity of a UNDP camp much farther south, not lent a hand.
I have work acquaintances in Ukraine that have kids very close to the age of mine. It is tremendously sad what is occurring.
My dad though British enlisted in the RAAF and trained and qualified as an engine fitter in 1941 he then went o/seas to N.G and a few other places before the war ended only once he spoke to my b/in law about an experience he had at an airfield as the latter is a VN vet.
All dad said was "The Japs bombed the airfield, and it was not very nice." my dad never ever spoke of the war, never went to the RSL, never attended ANZAC Day or wore his medals which I have in my safe so somethings etch themselves into ones soul and are to painful even many decades in the past.
My B/inlaw replied they were at a base that the VC mortared which he said was chaotic he and a mate dove under a truck to escape all what was going on, when the barrage finally ceased they wiggled out from under the truck happy to be unscathed.
They noted the truck was loaded and well went a bit grey together as it was chockers full of ammunition so a hit on the truck and I guess they would not have known much about it, he also does not talk much if at all about his Asian holiday.
One funny story years later he went back to Vietnam to the tunnels of Cu Chi where you can to fire weapons like the 30 BMG, Garand, M16 & the AK so Merv decided to have a go of the AK the guide complimented his knowledge and use of the AK47 as he proceeded to send lead down range. (When I went there I fired the 30 BMG and the Garand which broke the F/P.)
As casual as could be he replied "The last time I was here I wasn't a tourist." such a laconic response......!
I was talking with my ex-missus the other day, and she said how she was glad he mother had passed away 6 month before Covid hit, not just because of how she would have been at risk with that due to her health, but now because of the war in Ukraine which she would have been horrified at, having been born in Lviv in 1930 when it was part of Poland.
But, that part of Poland was handed over to the Soviets with the pact with the Germans after the German invasion, and her and her family we loaded into cattle trucks and sent east to the Siberian camps. Her older sister died during the journey and her was thrown out of the cattle truck at the next stop by the Soviet guards.
She endured 2 years in the Soviet camps before being one of the lucky ones to be released into British control after Churchill did the deal with Stalin of people for war equipment, and she made the journey via train with others from Siberia down to the border with Iraq and into British care.
The British sent them all to refugee camps in South Africa until the war in Europe ended.
They were given the chance to stay in SA or come to UK before going back to Poland, which many of them agreed to, but by the time that was arranged and they spent the weeks on a boat back to UK, by the time they landed in UK, it was clear they were never going to be able to go back to Poland because of the Soviets taking control of eastern Europe, so she was stuck in the UK.
Some of the stories she told of about the Soviets was stomach churning.
Just the thing for putting round holes in square heads.
The Russian doctrine appears to be victory at any cost, no I think some of these scars that our grand parents or parents suffered were in their minds and purposefully left buried to become the fog of war.
I think its a coping mechanism which we all have but the experiences that as a free people we have pale into insignificance as to what some others have been through during those terrible years some of those were not that long ago.
One things for sure about what's going on you have to question the mindset of the whole dam circus with firing onto the largest working nuclear power station in Europe a sure way to decimate quite possibly all of us on this rock its really getting out of hand infact has been right from the get go, Special Military Operation my a*se...........!
We talk weaponry on this site and avoid Politics if we can, but it would be remiss of me not to mention the apparent effectiveness of the Javelin System provided to Ukraine by the U.S and the UK with training.
It had its outing in Afghanistan, but was not used in the right role there!
If the news we hear is correct, it is being used correctly in Ukraine in the stalling of Russian convoys and taking out of armoured vehicles by those brave users. Those armoured vehicles are now numbering in the hundreds, and probably why Russian Morale is so low.
Lets hope that continues, and they return home, however, the sadness in this whole war, is SLAV's fighting SLAV's, most probably many related too.
Lets hope it ends soon.
Last edited by Gil Boyd; 03-05-2022 at 11:58 AM.
'Tonight my men and I have been through hell and back again, but the look on your faces when we let you out of the hall - we'd do it all again tomorrow.' Major Chris Keeble's words to Goose Green villagers on 29th May 1982 - 2 PARA
Both my parents lived through WW2, as children, and both endured air raids. I have described some of father's wartime experiences in detail on this forum previously and so I won't repeat it all again here. At the war's end he had serious damage to both ears caused by being dive bombed in which 4 people died and suffered from PTSD caused by the experiences he had witnessed in the war, such as seeing a Spitfire pilot burn to death after crash landing and not being able to get out of the cockpit before it was consumed by fire. The recurring nightmares lasted into the 1970's and he received no medical help until after the end of the war and never had any help for the PTSD.
When my father's "call-up" papers landed on the doormat in 1952 from the army, during the Korean War, he was quite willing and fully expected to serve his country and if necessary fight in Korea. There was no "trying to get out of it" because of what of happened to him in WW2 and no trying to think up "excuses" why he shouldn't do National Service. When my father reported to the army base for his medical the result from the army doctors was that he was unfit for any military service due to injuries received in WW2. He was told to report back again in 6 months time to repeat the process, which he did with the same result.
Growing up in the 1970's WW2 was constantly discussed and talked about and all the war films watched. Another, less obvious way, that the war affected my father was that nothing was thrown away and there always had to be several "spares" of an item in case it became "in short supply". As an example after my father passed away I found more than 20 "spare" kettles, at least 10 televisions and around 6 vacuum cleaners in the house.
The father of a fellow I know was bombed in Trieste as a young boy. It seems the trauma eventually drove him to suicide when quite an old man, according to what he left behind, and certainly troubled him all through his life in different ways. Can think of a German woman I met once who was more or less ranting and raving about similar experiences. I believe there is some research that suggests that the more self-absorbed or one might say narcissistic a person's inherent nature, the less able they tend to be to overcome such experiences.
Last edited by Surpmil; 04-19-2022 at 01:19 AM.
“There are invisible rulers who control the destinies of millions. It is not generally realized to what extent the words and actions of our most influential public men are dictated by shrewd persons operating behind the scenes.”
PM
