Yesterday turned into one of those great days in a person's life for me. My sister and I were going through some boxes of very old family pictures that were stored away in one of our Mom's many closets and struck gold...There at the bottom of a large cardboard box was a big fat manilla envelope labled "George M. Nelson...WWII letters home." I nearly passed out from shock (and Joy!) I have always known that Dad wrote letters home during WWII, but had almost given up hope of ever locating them, as his parents died long ago and I figured they had probably been thrown away or lost by one of his remaining siblings. I'm sure that my mother forgot about them long ago and before Dementia began to rob her of her precious memories, or she would have given them to me years ago. In any case, I haven't counted them or read them all yet but I'm sure there must be 50-60 letters her that were written (mostly) in 1944 and 1945. I'm not ashamed to say that this brought tears to my eyes either, but they were tears of joy, as I have always wanted to know what he was like as a 17-19 year old serving in the US Naval Armed Guards during WWII. In the few letters I've read so far he talks about joining the Naval Armed Guards service and his experiences in Gunnery School, where he trained on everything from a pistol to 5-inch guns,including all the anti-aircraft guns like the 20MM, 40MM and 50 cal.machineguns. Of course being a 17 year old boy, he enjoyed this very much. I will share more later, as my Carpal Tunnel/Tendonitis is barking at me now..
Wahoo!
