The Greatest Generation...

Today I attended a ceremony here in our quaint little burg of Seneca. The ceremony was to honor the veterans here in our town and Oconee County. It was a nice, well attended event and the weather was perfect. There was a soldier currently serving there as well as veterans of the current conflicts, the first Gulf War, and Vietnam. The group that I focused on were those who served in WWII and Korea. Tom Brokaw has included the WWII vets in what he calls "The Greatest Generation". I like to include the Korean vets in this group as well. This Greatest Generation is a quickly shrinking group. Some statistics point to the fact that we are losing close to 1000 of them each day.
My grandaddy, John B. Sanders, was part of this group. To the day of his death, he carried German shrapnel in his side. This left him with only one fully functioning kidney and probably contributed to his passing as he fought an infection in his last days. Grandaddy talked sparingly about the war. I remember sitting outside on the porch with him when I was six or seven during the summer. Back in those days, there was a cargo company or some small regional airline that flew a DC-3 over our house every evening. The DC-3 was the civilian version of the Douglas C-47, one of the main transport planes of early WWII. The C-47 was nicknamed the Gooney Bird because it's wings flexed up and down so much on take off. Grandaddy flew in these and even took the left hand seat a couple of times back in the war. Sitting on the porch each night, he would begin to look up whenever he heard the drone of the Pratt and Whitney engines. We would always find the slow moving bird and were disappointed on nights he didn't fly over. Grandaddy would talk about the P-47's as well. The "Thunderbolts", as they were called, screamed over Grandaddy and the rest of the troops as they fought hedge to hedge in Europe. The P-47 and the Gooney Birds were amazing planes because you could not kill them! Grandaddy told me stories of seeing both planes landing with half a wing shot off or their rudders almost gone.
Grandaddy also talked about Lindbergh and how he and his friends were wowed in 1927 as Lucky Lindy flew solo across the Atlantic. We talked about that alot. That's where I got my love of aviation. Many years later, in 1994, I went to the National Air and Space Museum for the first time. There was "The Spirit of St. Louis" suspended in forever flight. We walked to the second floor of the place and you could all most reach out and touch her. I stood there alone for the longest time, in tears. There was the plane of my hero. Most of all, my grandaddy's hero. I wished he was there with me.
Just like I wished he was there with me tonight. There to receive the thanks from all of us, given to all the veterans, for their sacrifices to keep this the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Hug someone from this Greatest Generation and thank them for building this country. They won't be around forever.
I love you Grandaddy.
SSGT John Benjamin Sanders
USARMY
Purple Heart Recipient
WWII