Memorial Day pt. 2

Here is some more information about my grandfather Bill Hart, who was a Marine who served in WW2. He was an identical twin. My grandmother said his father couldn’t tell the two sons apart. Haha, good times. She said she could, but not many people could tell the two brothers apart.

Bill enlisted in the Marines when he was 17. His brother enlisted two months before him. Bill was known to like to have a good time. Since I think I’ve inherited that party spirit from my Irish brethren, that makes sense.

Bill ended up fighting battles in Guam, and Okinawa, Japan. He fought an enemy that would fight to the death, which always means more casualties on both sides. My grandma said he came back a changed man.

She told me that Bill had gotten malaria over-seas, and would be bed ridden every few months until he got it out of his system. She said he would stop and shake whenever he heard horns because he would think there were bombings coming.

She said he eventually got over it. She even laughed that they thought it was funny that his brother got to stay in the US and not see combat and they sent him around the world. (That generation seems so much more well-adjusted than us.) Bill said he wouldn’t have traded the experience.

From what I understand, Bill and Jean started a family not long after that. He was someone who people naturally looked up to. Again, a hero.

P.S. when I was 17 I got to watch one of the finest groups of females to come of age. Thank you Colts Neck High School 2001 to 2005. And thank you to my grandfather Bill Heart. For fighting for our freedom so I didn’t have to spend my teens battling in a jungle on the other side of the world.