My Great Uncle was a WW1 veteran

[byronius]

13. My grandfather was a WWI veteran.

Five years in the trenches manning a machine gun — for Germany. He surrendered to American troops at the end, learning to speak English while washing pans alongside the American cooks.

He emigrated to Mexico when the war ended, leaving behind generations of family in Bochum. He brought his wife and daughters to Texas, raising two additional sons in San Antonio. I met him when I was six — my parents dropped me off at his workshop. He allowed me to play with his carpentry tools for an afternoon.

He was a kind and thoughtful man, devoted to his wife and children. He never returned to Germany, hated Hitler, died in his late eighties.

I did extensive research and wrote my first 800 page novel about him. His sons said he hated machine guns, and war.