The Greatest Generation and My Uncle Bill

Boyhood memories of tales from the WWII front

I missed the last reunion but tomorrow, I’ll be on the R train headed for Bay Ridge to visit my brother, my sister-in-law, my father’s third wife, and most of all…my 99-year-old Aunt Ellie! Her late husband…my Uncle Bill…will not be attending because he died 30 years ago. Still, my memory of his influence on me is as vivid as if it were yesterday.

Bill was a curmudgeon to the nth degree — and nowhere near the cut-up my daddy was. But when my father failed miserably at parenting, he picked up Big Bob’s slack! It didn’t matter how young, spoiled or self-centered I was. I got it! Daddy may have been the life of the party…but Bill had my back!

On family vacations, Uncle Bill used to march us around the woods on some hike or other. My father would complain bitter. Just not his scene! He didn’t understand that Bill was exorcising his World War II demons. We’d stop for a break whereupon Bill would ease his butt onto a convenient boulder to reminisce “just like in the army! March 50 minutes…rest 10! And then do it again!”

Daddy bitched like the child I was…but I trudged on like a little grunt! There was something in Bill’s facial expression as we humped the trail that I understood and respected. He’d been there and done that! It was just 10 years before that my uncle had been in Europe as a medic, patching up fallen soldiers. And his pain and pathos came through loud and clear! Daddy fought the war on the BMT leading the band out at Floyd Bennett Field. But it was different with Bill. He watched people die. He did all he could to help them but obviously, he couldn’t save them all.

My uncle used to talk to me like I was an adult. Somehow, he could tell his tales of pain weren’t falling on deaf ears. And one night for what reason I have no idea, he described to me what it was like to go into battle with the medical corp…watching his fellow medics shoot up morphine trying to deal with the fear and loathing of all the guts, gore and death they knew they were about to witness. Just 8 years old, I listened intently as he bore his soul…dealing with the post-traumatic syndrome he was clearly experiencing.

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