Most things have stories

I was talking with my brother and asked him if he remembered seeing a war medal among my father's personal belongings. He also recalled seeing the medal but couldn't remember where or what happened to it. I was pleased that he confirmed my sanity, but wished he would have known its location. I wondered if the medal belonged to my grandfather.

My father never disclosed any of my grandfather's military experiences. I'm not sure if his lack of story telling was do to limited knowledge because my grandfather never shared his stories, or he didn't realize the importance of passing on the information.

As a kid I remembered going to my family's manufacturing company and sitting at the large wooden desk in the president's office. This was the desk my grandfather used to sit at when he ran the company. Two items of special interest to a young kid sat on this desk. One was a replica of a Howitzer field artillery canon, which doubled as a cigarette lighter, and the other item was two large shells mounted on a stand with an American flag between them. I recalled looking at the shells and thinking that they were 50 cal machine-gun bullets.

It wasn't until writing the book that it dawned on me that the canon on my grandfather's desk was a copy of the Howitzer he fired during World War One, and the shells were small reproductions the six inch shells fired by the artillery piece.

The medal, canon, and shells were items surrounded by stories that were never told. It took 64 years for me to learn what these items represented. Unless my uncle can recall the stories, they will be lost.