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My paternal grandfather was an MD in WWII. He marched the entire Burma rd. I don't think there was a ton of heavy combat, but he still won't really talk about it.
My maternal grandfather was in the airborne as a 17 year old in 1945. He was stationed in the Pacific waiting to be dropped in for the invasion of Japan. As we know, the invasion never happened. Instead of combat, he ended up spending a year in Japan after the bombs were dropped. Apparently, as a 6'2 220 lb American, he was very intimidating to the Japanese citizens who were propagandized that the giant Americans would storm in and rape and pillage. After the bombs, I imagine they would believe anything about Americans.
My dad enlisted in the Navy around 1966. Put in for 3 ships that went to Vietnam. He ended up stationed in hawaii. His ship was involved in bio and germ warfare tests so he has regular checkups at the VA.
My wife's grandfathers were both in wwii. Paternal was an MD on a ship in the north sea.
Her maternal grandfather was a tank commander in the 3rd armored division in Europe as an 18yo. I would hate to think the Pacific was much worse. His tours ranged from getting dropped on beach in Normandy while everyone in front of and around him were getting killed. He was also in the battle of the bulge and liberated the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp, which had about 5000 dead bodies and thousands of starving people when they found it. They gave hershey bars from their rations to the prisoners, which killed many of them.
He is in his 80's now and has only talked about the war in very limited amounts. When my wife's brother tried to interview him for a school project about 15 years ago, he broke down and couldn't talk about it.
Those guys went through hell and I think about it almost every day that we are losing the last of them. It scares me...
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