Memorial Day

  We honor our soldiers today. Back in WWII my Uncle Jay was a soldier in the Army fighting in the Pacific. I think they would go from island to island and fight the Japanese. He saw some of the most horrific things one could ever imagine and told us about it. I remember him struggling, he would often close his eyes and grimace, blotting out his memory maybe, blotting out his incongruence with his ordinary reality perhaps. He was suffering from an intense form of PTSD but at that time in the 50s no one had ever heard of PTSD. They called it shell shock and treatment was not part of the equation. Jay took his own life in the late 50s, it was a shocking point for our family and for me as a young child. All we have left now of Jay are a few worn photos. Essentially he gave his life in support of WWII as so many others did.

Chicago Tribune: Memorial Day 2014: WWII vet remembers one that was left behind