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Thanx, Erik ... I would hope so.

Every time I spot an older man in WalMart with some indication they're a vet (usually a ball cap), I make the effort to introduce myself, shake their hand and thank them for their service.

MY days were '65 - '67 and they were not combat.

I try to engage these men in conversation (So far, the hundreds I've met are pureity 100% American), and glean what I can about the war days of WW2 but more often Korea and mostly Viet Nam ... we're losing out history teachers.

Apparently my Uncle would never talk, at least to his sisters, wife and daughter, about his WW-II Navy experiences. At my grandfather's ninety-something birthday, (He died at 99+), that Uncle and I found ourselves off to the side in conversation. (I was on my way to my first annual tour at may last AF Reserve unit). Uncle M, who is now also deceased, related a few experiences of his time on a seagoing tug. Nothing too gruesome, although he said the worst was cleaning up after the big Typhoon, worse than what the Japanese had done to the ships they hauled back to port, or fought fires on. But on the way back to my Mom's house, she said, "Uncle M never said that much about his war experiences to anyone in the family". I felt honored, although I expect that he did to his sons, one of which was also Navy during the Vietnam era (but who never left San Diego) and another of which was an Army Artilleryman, in country, towards the end of the Vietnam war.

My paternal Uncle was also Navy, Naval Armed Guard on the Liberty ship "George Rogers Clark,",sunk by U-boat in the Greenland sea in November of '42. He was picked up by a British armed trawler, and only lost a couple of toes to frostbite. He never spoke of any of it. I never even knew anything other than he'd been in the Navy and had frostbitten toes. Didn't know about the couple of days in a liferaft watching the civilian captain and mate motor off towards Iceland ... never to be seen or heard from again.

Dad was Army, searchlights and radar to direct them. Later training cadre, and finally sent overseas, just in time for the Battle of the Bulge. His was one of those "green units" that you read about getting massacred when the Germans attacked through the forrest. But he wasn't with them, he was in Le Harve France, getting his appendix out.