The GREATEST of the Greatest Generation

It’s the 70^th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.  It’s also National Donut Day.  I had spent more time this morning figuring out if a donut place was on our errand running route than considering the sacrifice that so many of our grandfathers made on that day and the years surrounding it.  Then I took a few minutes to scroll through some D-Day pictures posted on Facebook, which left me in tears of awe and gratitude.  Both my Grandpas served in World War 2.  My Grandpa, Donald Erb, was an army private in the Philippines.  His experience was so scarring, that he has only recently started talking about it.  My Grandpa, Donald Whattoff, served as an officer in the Merchant Marines.  His ships shuttled troops and weapons over the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean.  
 
 

Grandpa Whattoff is 96 and loves to tell stories, so I’ve grown up hearing about many of his experiences during the war.  He took a bet to jump off of a ship and swim to a buoy, which landed him in the Captain’s office being reprimanded (he won the bet:-).  He sailed in convoys where the ship in front of him and the ship behind him were sunk by German torpedoes.  His favorite story was of loading tons (literally) of bombs onto a ship followed by hundreds of soldiers.  Word got out among the soldiers that there were bombs on board.  The captain gathered the soldiers and assured them, “Word has it that there are bombs on this ship, boys.  Don’t believe it!”  

I’ve always been enthralled by my Grandpa’s stories, but today might be the first time that the weight has fully settled on my shoulders.  Scrolling through the pictures, all I could think about were my three, precious boys dressed in uniform and headed off to war.  My Great Grandma Whattoff knew that feeling first hand.  I can’t imagine how worn her knees must have been from praying.  I can’t imagine living in a port city for a few months before moving to the next.  Working odd jobs, boarding with elderly women.  Following my husband’s hop-scotching ship in hopes of seeing him whenever he was in port.  My Grandma Whattoff knew that feeling first hand.  The joy and relief she must have felt when the war ended and she was a lucky one traveling home with a husband and a baby growing inside her.  

I am blessed to have four living grandparents who sacrificed and suffered through the greatest war in history.  And these same grandparents continued to sacrifice long after the war ended, raising large families with faith and love.  The type of families whose children build houses on the family farm, and take shifts caring for aging parents still living in the home where those children were raised.  

I’m convinced that my four grandparents are the GREATEST of the greatest generation.  They have set the bar unattainably high when it comes to faith, child rearing, strong marriages and maintaining a sense of humor through the rollercoaster of life.  I will never measure up, but I will honor them with my attempt.