americantakeout
tasty bytes from China
Categories:

Archives:
Meta:
July 2011
M T W T F S S
« Jun   Aug »
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
07/10/11
Not Made in China
Filed under: General
Posted by: @ 11:23 am

fbcak

 

Yeah, most American things are made in China today, including the All American Girl Doll. But American heroes will always be made in America.

And over Independence Day weekend, my favorite WWII hero died.

My Uncle Charles.

He was the favorite Uncle of all of my nieces and nephews.

Uncle Charles had a player piano, every game Milton Bradley created plus a barber chair that spun around like ride at the carnival.

If that wasn’t enough, he had real live ponies he’d saddle up to ride.

As a kid, my Uncle Charles made my mother do his paper route, paying her a penny on the dime.

She’s still a bit tiffed about that.

But when WWII rolled around, Uncle Charles joined the Air Force and became a B-17 Tail-gunner, part of Squadron 413, the 96th Bombing Unit.

He would talk about eating Hershey’s bars on the plane, flying at 20,000 feet where they would freeze instantly in the below zero air.

No chocolaty mess there.

But then Uncle Charles plane got shot down during a mission over Germany. He had to bail out as the plane nosedived down.

When he jumped, he had two things:   a small bible his older sister gave him  stuffed  in his pocket and,a faulty parachute.

First, his parachute wouldn’t open. After a few punches, it bloomed into a jet-puffed marshmallow.  To avoid landing in telephone lines, Uncle Charles steered into a tree where he hurt his back.   

Local German farmers gathered around the tree waving pitchforks at Uncle Charles. They locked him in a small chicken coop until German soldiers came.

Uncle Charles became a POW at Stalag 7A outside of Munich. 

He told us how he had to eat grass soup and rock hard bread, fantasizing about those frozen Hershey’s Bars.

He was released by Patton two months later.

These WWII experiences made Uncle Charles passionate about his faith.

So over the years between pony rides,  spins on the barber chair and playing Racko!, Uncle Charles would hand out mini bibles out to everyone, from waitresses in a five-star restaurant to strangers on the street.

He’d even make sure hotel rooms had one on the stack of yellow pages.

But all that changed on July 1st .  Uncle Charles was one of the twelve hundred WWII vets who died that day. His life was honored with a 21 gun salute on July 5th. You can read his obit here.

So if  you see a vet, shake his hand for my Uncle Charles.

Or better yet, slip him The Great American Chocolate Bar.

 

comments (0)