Last week most of my maternal side of the family (minus my husband and brother-in-law, oh, and aunt that talks to horses) went to Tampa to memoralize my grandfather with his friends in the community where he had a home since 1979. Good old Regency Cove. The place has changed in lovely small ways in the past 27 years, thanks in large part to my grandpa. He was what my grandmother kept referring to as "an icon" in the community. Now, I'm not quite sure she actually knew the definiton of the word icon, but I think we all got what she meant, and if it helped her to feel better in her grief, why not let her hold on to that belief?
Anyway, I digress, after I returned home I decided to look up Grandpa's old battalion to see if I could find out more about this soldier who had served his country proudly in WWII. I was thrilled to see his batallion had a website talking about their time serving. I got to know a little bit about the pioneer my grandpa was. Apparently, his batallion rode into the Marshall Islands and Guam on these amphibious vessels called Amtanks. They had never been used before for any reason so it was a risk and an experiment. They would go from water to land in suprise attacks on the beach. Many men were killed as they were learning to use them and there was no manual for really how it would work, so they were brave to be the first. thankfully, Grandpa made it through and lived 81 wonderful years to tell about it. Go Grandpa!
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