Just imagine what he had seen in his life, everything from the mundane to the overwheming.
I wonder how many of us would swap our time for his?
I missed my first Remembrance service in about 30 years last year due to illness, I still feel bad about it.
A couple of years ago I was at my Mothers for Christmas Day and an old Great Uncle was there, ashamed to say that I never knew him very well, Saving Private Ryan came on the TV. After the first few minutes, when the landing craft ramps go down and all hell breaks loose, he said: 'Bloody hell boy, they got that spot on, thats just how it was'. We were gobsmacked, he had never mentioned that before to anyone and never said anymore than that. He wasn't upset or anything but you could see that he was thinking about it. We knew that he was in Europe during the war as he married a German girl, but to think of him on the beach on D-Day was quite a shock.
The stuff that his generation had to deal with makes you feel pretty lame when you are moaning about some prat at work or your truck failing it MoT!
JC