Mike: So sorry for your loss, and as others have said, remember the good times and share them with your family, that way, he will live forever in your family's memory. My folks are in their 80s and my dad was a WWII top gunner in light bombers in the Pacific. A few years back I asked him what it was like doing missions every day not knowing if you would come back. His said the way they dealt with it was to treat it like a job with your mates. Each day they get up and breakfast with their crew, go to briefing together, get in the plane together, get to target and drop payload, then pray that the plane makes it back over nothing but open water 4-6 hours after the drop. Repeat. Their generation possesed something few of us will ever experience, the exception being other veterans, and once you find out what your fathers and mothers did in WWII, I don't think you ever again take anything they say or do lightly. Once I knew more, I appreciated his life more than I did before, that is about the only way I can describe it. My grandfather was a telephone lineman in WWI in the trenches of France and Belgium. I only learned recently of how he earned his medal...quite unbelievable, wish I had talked to him much more when he was alive, he was a quiet shoemaker, and I would not in a million years have guessed he possesed such bravery. Next time I get to Australia to see my folks they will spend many hours in front of my video camera, everything else will be secondary.
