QotD: Veterans Day

Today is Veterans Day.  Is there anyone you know who has served or is serving in the military that you'd like to honor today? 

George.  My Great Grandfather.  He was in The Green Howard's during World War One, and fought at a number of the infamously bad battles such as The Somme, Flanders and Ypres. I know very little about him, as he died long before I was born, but I do know from an old newspaper obituary I read when I was a kid that he won the Military Cross for running ammunition along the lines at Flanders.  He made the front page of the local paper when he died.  I have great admiration for the bravery of everyone in that war, but those who risked their lives in situations where they could not fight back (stretcher bearers, running ammo, etc) really do stun me by their bravery.  He took shrapnel in the lungs, but fought through the whole war.

After he left the military he became a bank manager and eventually died, in his 60's, because he had some sort of attack that should not have been fatal, but because of the shrapnel in his lungs, he couldn't breathe through it.  I am very proud of what he did, even though he's not actually blood relation (his son was my mothers adoptive father), it's odd to feel so proud of someone you never knew, but he's the personal face of that most terrible of wars for me.

It makes me sad because I can find no more about him, the lists seem generally to cover only those killed in action, or who won the VC/GC, but he was MC & MM.  He also had a common surname, which doesn't help any! It makes me wonder how many more brave people aren't properly remembered.  There should be an online roll of honour with every soldier who fought during both world wars, along with any info/press clippings about them.  Lest we forget.

There are others but I know very little about them, I know that someone else on my mothers side of the family (my Grandma's cousin, I think) was murdered* by the Germans at Dunkirk.  He was in a tank trying to protect the access to the beaches and a dive bomber got him.  They never recovered the body.

All this makes me very sad.

* - Dive Bombing retreating soldiers is murder, it's not war when they're cowered on a beach and can't fight back.