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underpants

(182,281 posts)
Mon Nov 11, 2013, 09:21 PM Nov 2013

Since it is Veterans' Day let me tell you a little about Johnnie

"Johnnie" was what everyone called my grandfather down at the VFW local in Milton. We called him "Pappaw".

Pappaw went to a really good Catholic school in Huntington WV. His dad was a lawyer. His mom died early in Pappaw's life. Pappaw wasn't my actual grandfather - HE died when my mom was 10.

Pappaw was in the Army in WWII. North Africa and then the glider corps in Europe - if 50% of the "pay load" survived it was a good landing.

He was just climbing out of a foxhole when a mortar landed in it. Everyone died but him. He spent 2 years at the Greenbrier Hotel which had been contracted by the V.A. as a hospital. We used to do that for vets.

He came home and worked in a nickel plant and married "Susie". Susie already had 4 kids.

My stepfather who served in the Marines during the Korean War - so they weren't that different in age - was sitting at the dinner table with him and asked him, "Johnnie, with all that with the GI Bill sitting there why did you marry a woman with four kids?"

Johnnie replied, "Because I loved her"

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Since it is Veterans' Day let me tell you a little about Johnnie (Original Post) underpants Nov 2013 OP
I've got something in my eye shenmue Nov 2013 #1
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