I Didn't Know My Father.. Until I Found His War Diary

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That's L-E-T-S-F cancer.com to learn more. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. Today you're going to hear from Sally Grove.

She'll be sharing with us a story she wrote called How I Came to Know My Father. I was 20 years old, fresh out of college, and in my first year of teaching. It was a difficult first year. Why did college prepare me so little for my own classroom?

Finally a break, a time to breathe. I went home for Thanksgiving. There I talked with my dad about my living situation and my finances, both in dire straits. I lived in a basement apartment with a bathroom that leaked water into the kitchen.

And the landlord who lived richly didn't care about the problems of his tenants, even as they lived in his own basement. Car payments. Dad had warned me not to buy a new car.

Not one to listen. I bought a new Honda Civic and was now living the consequences. I loved my shiny red car, but the car payments on an $8,000 per year teaching salary were a killer. On Thanksgiving Day 1977, my father invited me to move back home to relieve the pressure.

I could save some money and have some support from my family as I got my feet wet teaching and paying my new expenses. I cried that Thanksgiving and gave dad a big hug and kiss, telling him how grateful I was and how much I loved him. A day later, while sifting through a trunk in my family's unfinished basement, I found a small stenographer's notebook. Its brown cover was worn and well traveled, with edges frayed. I opened the notebook very slowly and deliberately.

Its contents were gradually revealed like the plot of a mystery novel. The practiced and perfect handwriting came into focus, and I knew this writing to be my dad's. On April 15, 1943, I took my examination for the U.S. Army. It was on this day that I ate my first sandwich consisting of bologna.

Was that my father? I had never seen him eat a bologna sandwich. In fact, I know his menu by heart. Vegetables consisted of peas, corn, and baked beans, and any kind of potato.

Meats were always dry and overcooked. These were his meals and thus ours. Friday night was always tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. These are the foods that dad liked, the foods mom cooked for him, and the foods that we all ate and loved.

We ate like our dad, all six of us, much to my mother's chagrin. In the morning of April 22, my last day home, I went up Carroll Creek and caught seven beautiful trout, my last as a civilian. When I was small, our family would visit Poppy and Frederick. I used to stare at the stuffed fish that adorned the dark, dusty, shadowed walls in his house. The fish hung as a testament to his youth and his sense of adventure. My grandfather was a fisherman and he taught my father to fish. I have a great picture of my dad standing with a fist full of fish fanned out for the photographer's film.

Was this a picture of dad on the day my grandfather caught the big one? Our train ride took us through western Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. We arrived at our new station, Fort McClellan, a very tired bunch of rookies. I got along very well eating most everything we got for meals, although not liking it very much. His first big adventure via train, how exciting. With six kids, our family's adventures now consisted of camping in western Maryland for a week in Ocean City. We rode bikes each morning on the boardwalk and had breakfast at Happy Jack's Pancake House.

At least in Ocean City, dad ate what he wanted. I took the air cadet exam the 12th week of basic. The passing grade for the cadet exam is 83, and I made 100 percent, the third highest grade. On February 16th, 1944, I made my first flight to the school, and by March 11th, I had completed 10 hours of flying. I really loved flying. Wow, 21 years old and learning to fly. I didn't know dad had ever flown planes.

Why didn't he tell us? I remember when we were little, dad took us to a penny a pound day at the local airport. For a penny a pound, we could go on an airplane ride. I remember being frightened and not wanting to go. Dad convinced me it would be okay, and once we were in the air, I couldn't get enough of flying.

The houses and streets looked like a miniature Christmas village below. No wonder dad loved flying. Arrived at Santa Ana Army Air Base on the 23rd after a very exciting trip across the U.S. by first. After taking the test for three straight days, I was a classified pilot. But then the tragedy came.

An order from Washington calling back all cadets. We were former round four students, and so my dreams of flying were crushed on April 1st, 1944, by a single piece of paper. Well, I guess that's why my father didn't tell us. His dreams of becoming a pilot were shattered. What other dreams did my father have for his life? Most of what I know of dad revolves around the time he spent with his family.

Were we a part of his life dream? And you've been listening to Sally Grove, and she's talking to us about how she came to know her father, and it came when she decided to move back in with her family to try and get herself settled as a young teacher. In trying to make ends meet, she finds a trunk and a notebook, and the writing, well, it was all her dad's.

His handwriting. I never knew he could fly, she said, when she found out he'd learned to pilot planes at the age of 21. Why didn't he tell us? Well, we're going to find out the answer to that question and so much more. Sally Grove's story continues. Her father's story continues here on Our American Story. Lee Habib here, the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country.

Stories from our big cities and small towns. But we truly can't do this show without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they're not free to make. If you love what you hear, go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot.

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Sign up today at plus.nfl.com. Terms and conditions apply. And we return to our American stories and to Sally Grove, sharing the story of finding her father's war diary and learning so much about him that she did not know. Let's pick up where we last left off. January 11th.

We left the good old terra farmer of the USA for Europe. January 21st, 1945. We landed at La Havre, France. We had a cold reception on landing. The temperature was below zero. We rode 60 miles in open trucks to Camp Lucky Strike, coldest ride of my life. We arrived at camp at 2 a.m. frozen stiff. Our night was far from over yet as we had to pitch tents in the snow. And when we finally did get to bed, we were too cold to sleep. I took US history in high school and I guess I should have known that dad fought in World War II.

Still dad never talked about the war. The camp of former German airfields with a large concrete runway was infested with mines and booby traps. We trained in snow and then knee deep mud for about a month, making very hard marches. During that time, my feet were frozen so badly that I couldn't wear shoes for several days. While studying history is nothing like reading a journal from World War II, they did not know about the cold and the suffering the soldiers went through in our textbook. Feet frozen so badly that you couldn't wear shoes.

Thankfully, that is a cold I have never known. On March 25th, we moved up to the west bank of the Rhine. We arrived at 8 p.m. 8 and at 10 30 p.m. With but two hours sleep, we started our assault crossing. For hours, our artillery had been hammering the east bank and now the forest was a blazing inferno.

Our company crept down twisting trails to the river's edge. As we reached the riverbank, we were fired upon by a hail of machine guns and 20 millimeters, which pinned us to the ground for half an hour. The railroad station to our front was ablaze as a result of the firing. The second platoon tried to launch several boats but was mowed down before they could load them.

Finally, in desperation, Captain Brown asked for a boatload of volunteers to try and make it across. Our whole squad stepped forward. My dad was a part of the assault on the Rhine. We learned so little about World War II in my history class. We learned almost nothing about the Holocaust or how the United States declared neutrality at the start of World War II in Europe. What we did learn was about troop movements. My limited memory tells me that the assault on the Rhine was a big deal.

It precipitated the beginning of the end. We got out only about 30 yards before they spotted our boat. Everything broke loose at us but we kept going. Halfway across and by this time about two blocks downstream, we again received heavy fire but again, puddled through it.

Finally, we were about 40 yards from the jerry side, right opposite a high wall on which the machine guns were mounted. This time the jug heads had our range and were peppering the boats. So we decided to swim for it. Stripping off all equipment but our guns, we dove overboard. I was in mid-air when I felt a hot sear in my shoulder. I found that I could not use my left arm but I managed to swim with one arm to shore. I was the only one of the seven in our boat that was hit. As we hit the sandy beach, they resumed firing on us and the engineer on our boat with us was hit and fell at the water's edge.

The rest of us took cover at the base of a wall about 25 to 30 feet high. I've seen that scar on my dad's shoulder since I was a kid. The scar is as much a part of dad as the dimple on his chin or his chipped front tooth.

I knew his tooth broke during a childhood flight over the handlebars of his bike and mom always said dad's dimples made him look like Robert Mitchum, a movie star from their generation. But the scar on his shoulder, I knew nothing about the event that had caused it until now. The engineer was in terrible agony and laid groaning and praying in a blood-chilling voice. We could not go to his aid as the Jerry's kept showering the area with lead.

A little later, however, we crept over to him but it was too late. A mullet had hit his spine and he was dead. Dad saw a friend and a colleague die? I can't imagine my father enduring such a tragic loss.

Did a soldier's training prepare them to go on when they'd lost a friend? We made our way back to the safety of the wall as shells were hitting directly out from us in the water about 20 yards away. We were pinned down between two lines of fire, one from the Jerry's and one from the U.S. troops.

This sounds like a scene from an old war movie. Pain teared my body. I don't know why but one of my first impulses was to spit to see if my lung was hit, which I guess it was not as I did not spit blood. I could see the bullet holes in my jacket right at the point where the sleeve and the shoulder seam is but could not find where the bullet left, although my chest and the heart area was very sore and full of blood as well as swollen. My whole shirt was blood-soaked and I feared I might bleed to death, although the blood did not now seem to be running from the wound.

We lay very still along the wall. The hob-nailed boots and Jerry's sounded just above the wall and we could hear them loading their machine guns and talking and talking in low voices. My arm was stiff and throbbing now like an engine. This wasn't an old John Wayne war movie. This battle was real and my dad was the main character. How frightening it must have been for him, bleeding and in pain, waiting, not knowing what would happen next.

The design of his future was out of his hands. Where I lay, there were two more of my buddies, so I crawled back along the wall trying to locate the rest but could not do so. The Jerry's must have heard me for just then a pebble dropped from the wall about 10 feet away.

I realized that it might not be a stone after all. I hugged the ground as tightly as I could, pushing my body against it. I also in that split second turned my face against the wall. Then it happened. A blinding flash and a deafening noise. I could neither see nor hear. Dirt flew all over me. A grenade had taken my father's sight and his hearing.

A dark veil hanging over his bright blue eyes. How it must have magnified his fear. I felt my face for I was sure it must be bleeding, but then my sight returned and gradually my hearing, although my ears kept ringing. I looked at my buddy in front of me and his head was smeared with blood as well as his foot and legs. I shook him thinking he was dead, but he moved. Then another grenade, not quite as close, hit the ground.

A blinding flash and blast followed. However, it did not touch us. Concern for others, even in the face of adversity, does not surprise me. Although my family didn't have much growing up, we never did without thanks to my father. Dad had just three suits, one for winter, one for summer, and one to wear when the in-season suit was getting cleaned.

His children, on the other hand, went shopping each September for new school clothes and each spring we shined in our new Easter outfits. I knew then that they would keep grenading us till we were dead or came out. I never prayed so hard and so desperately in my life. I know that anyone, no matter what his feeling, put in the same situation, would ever deny God. I have never known a more loving man than my father, so I'm not surprised that he professes his belief in God.

Still, he never talked to us about his faith. And we're listening to Sally Grove tell the story of her father's service in World War II, service he didn't share with his family, but that she found out about stumbling upon a notebook, a memoir. When we come back, more of Sally Grove's story of her father here on Our American Stories. Plus, stream the entire NFL postseason and catch Super Bowl 58 live on phone and tablet. That is unbelievable. Plus, stay connected throughout the offseason with special content of the NFL scouting combine, NFL draft, and more all in one place. Sign up today at plus.nfl.com.

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See dkng.com slash football for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms and responsible gaming resources. Hi, I'm Martine Hackett and I'm hosting the second season of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a production from Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenix. Sharing real stories of MG, CIDP and other autoimmune conditions, we hope to share inspiration and educate the larger community about these severe and often overlooked conditions. I can't fix this.

I can't cure this. And you know, I'll take my treatment day by day, but I want to try to be engaged, be involved or be as helpful as I feel I can with the limitations I have of working full time to children. So I participate in like market research to provide information to hopefully benefit others because it's a small margin of people that have the mycenia. But then to get pregnant, it's an even more narrow margin. You can never have too much information as an epidemiologist.

Yeah, exactly. Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back with our American stories and the story of Sally Grove's father and how Sally came to discover his life through reading his war diary. When we last left off, she was reading about her father hiding out in World War II from the Jerrys. In those few minutes, which seemed a year, I saw visions of my favorite fishing places in hunting territory, saw them clearly as if I were there. I pictured mom, dad and all the family, as well as all my friends who I was sure I would never see again. My dad's sister, Aunt Kitty, told me that dad was her best friend. They were the closest in age of all their siblings and played together as children.

They fished in Carroll Creek and rode their bikes through the streets of Frederick. I once read a letter that dad wrote to his father. He signed his letter. Love, your fishing buddy, Tommy. Again, a grenade dropped within 20 feet and I pressed into the earth. A voice spoke in broken English. Hello, boys. Come out.

We know you are there. I scarcely breathe, for each breath sounded like a bellows, at least in my ears. I was soaked to the skin in blood and water and was shaking like a leaf in the wind.

I thought of my first aid kit with its sulfa drug to keep my wound from infection, yet I dare not move, for every move brought a grenade. The waiting must have been torture. Dad knew that the Germans were close and they had his life in their hands.

Night started to fade, empty boats loaded by. Then we heard footsteps on the beach. The Jerrys were afraid to come down in the darkness with fear of ambush. They had waited until they had light enough to see and then investigated. We were prisoners.

I can't imagine dad's fear when he heard footsteps approaching. The soldier became a prisoner. At least the constant fear of uncertainty and falling grenades was now over. We had lain under the wall from 12 till daylight. Four and a half hours of terrible uncertainty. Awaiting death or capture would possibly help. How did we not know this?

Dad relinquished one state of uncertainty for another. Perhaps being a prisoner of war was better than laying in wait for an unknown fate. We were searched and stripped of all equipment but our clothes. Even our first aid pouches were taken as well as our cigarettes, water, rations, and anything that Jerrys decided they wanted. I refused to give up my pay book and finally they agreed to let me have it.

I then tried to get the other fellows books back but they would not allow this. Why was his pay book so important? What did it mean to a soldier?

Certainly a soldier got paid whether they presented a pay book or not. Thankfully by the time I knew my dad he had given up cigarettes for a pipe. I know that pipes are bad for you but to this day pipe smoke makes me think of my father. We had four guards for the eight of us and we were forced to carry a 50-pound box with us. We climbed up a steep rocky ridge just before the sun peeped over the horizon. The going was rough.

Those hills were hundreds of feet high and very steep. Our artillery had begun firing again and we were in constant danger from our own shells. We were really scared.

I never thought we would make it through there alive. I'd seldom seen my father show raw emotion except that is when dad made a decision to reverse a doctor's recommendation for our family. I was 10 when my brother Craig was born. We didn't know it for several years but Craig's brain had been damaged during the birth process. Craig was developmentally disabled. The doctors told my parents that Craig and our family would fare best if Craig moved into a group home. Unfamiliar with the plight ahead my parents followed the doctor's recommendation and placed Craig in Kenporn home. Our family wasn't allowed to see Craig for a month. When we finally visited it was raining.

Song sung blue played on the radio. My family's hearts mirrored the rain as we visited with Craig. My father decided that doctors do not know best. Craig came home with us that very day and my family never looked back. A cold March rain came to add to our discomfort. My arm was now stiff but the bleeding had stopped. My buddy's head and leg were giving him plenty of trouble. We had to slow the pace and take turns helping him along. We often went through forests on trails and dirt roads.

Tanks and guns concealed in the forest. We were constantly wet and chilled. Our guard stopped at a house in the next town and ate while our stomachs just growled with hunger. At 4 p.m. we came to a little German town and sat down while the guards talked to a German captain.

We had been walking since 5 a.m. and we were a tired and hungry bunch of Joes. Dad had been going for at least 20 hours straight. I doubt anything that life dealt my father after the war could compare with what he had experienced in Germany. No wonder my dad was always grateful for the small things in life.

He taught us all to stop and savor the view. To hear the calls of Bob White's and Whippoorwills echoing in the air at sunset and to know that in our family we were rich beyond money. One at a time into the house the Jerry's captain interrogated us. I was next to be questioned and was glad my time had come for the uncertainty of waiting was terrible. I went into the room and the officer behind the large desk asked, what's your name?

I answered with my name, rank and serial number. He then asked my outfit. I wouldn't answer so he told me the answer.

The division and also the regiment I was from. I was not surprised that he knew the division but I was given a great surprise when he also named the regiment. I still cannot understand how he found out unless he forced one of the other fellows to talk, which I doubt. Or found the answer on a letter or paper of some kind someone was carrying.

He then asked whether we were Panzers troops or if we were whether we were Panzers troops, fliers or infantry. And I guess then that he didn't know much about our outfit. I refused to tell him and he got very mad and threatened to hit me unless I talked. He even drew back his arm in a motion to strike me but it turned out that he did not strike. I was very mad when he threatened me and I'm sure that if he had struck me I would have gone over the desk after him and killed him for I know I could not have taken a slap without fighting back. It is good that he didn't for I surely would have been killed if I had tangled with him. I can't even imagine my dad having the thought of killing someone. He was the gentlest soul I've ever known. And you're listening to Sally Grove tell the story of her father and along the way some dramatic readings from that memoir, from that book about the war, his war diaries essentially. How did we not know all of this? He said about her dad. Perhaps being a prisoner of war was better than being in battle in an unknown state. No wonder my dad was excited by the little things in his life having gone through what he went through.

When we come back more of this remarkable story, Sally Grove's story of her father here on Our American Stories. Throughout the offseason with special content of the NFL scouting combine, NFL draft and more all in one place. Sign up today at plus dot NFL dot com.

Terms and conditions apply. Draft King Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NFL playoffs, is bringing you an offer that will help you make the playoffs electrifying. New customers can bet five bucks on any game and get 200 instantly in bonus bets. Download the Draft King Sportsbook app now. Use the code BOBBY SPORTS. New customers can bet just five bucks to get 200 instantly in bonus bets with the code BOBBY SPORTS. Got to put in the code BOBBY SPORTS. It helps us.

It helps you. The crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit www.1-800-GAMBLER.net. In New York call 877-8 HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY 467-369. In Connecticut helps available for problem gambling call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org.

Please play responsibly. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino and Resort in Kansas, 21 plus age varies by jurisdiction. Void in Ontario. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance.

See dkng.com slash football for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms and responsible gaming resources. Hi, I'm Martine Hackett and I'm hosting the second season of Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a production from Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenix. Sharing real stories of MG, CIDP and other autoimmune conditions, we hope to share inspiration and educate the larger community about these severe and often overlooked conditions. I can't fix this.

I can't cure this. And you know, I'll take my treatment day by day, but I want to try to be engaged, be involved or be as helpful as I feel I can with the limitations I have of working full time to children. So I participate in like market research to provide information to hopefully benefit others because it's a small margin of people that have the Mycenia but then to get pregnant, it's an even more narrow margin. And you can never have too much information as an epidemiologist.

Yeah, exactly right. Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. And we return to our American stories and the final portion of Sally Grove's story, the story of how she came to know her father through discovering his diary from his time serving in World War Two. When we last left off, she was reading about her father being interrogated by the Jerry's captain.

Let's pick up with the rest of the story. After he had finished questioning all of us, he said that since we would not talk, we would have nothing to eat until we decided to talk. We waited for about two hours in the rain and cold March wind while the guards ate and we looked on with watering mouths and hungry eyes.

Finally, we were told to go in the house. We were brought in a small bowl of cold potatoes, about one apiece, but they vanished in a flash serving only to sharpen our hunger. Gosh, Dad hadn't eaten since 8 p.m. the night before.

He'd gone 24 hours without food. About half an hour later, the three of us that were wounded were told that a truck was waiting to take us to a hospital when the rest would march on to the concentration camp. I almost wished to go on to the concentration camp rather than split up with the rest of the fellows, but I would not have been allowed. So we parted our little group that had been through so much together. What would have happened had he gone to the concentration camp? Would things have turned out differently?

Thank God his life took the turns it did or I would not be here to tell you my father's story. It was dark and we rode for ages in the small truck and went through countless towns. Finally, about 11 30 p.m. we were taken into a large German house which was being used as a jerry field hospital. We gave our name, rank and serial number to a jerry orderly at a desk and then sat down among half a dozen wounded jerrys to wait our turn with a doctor. I was taken into a room equipped for operating. Our radio was playing an American song.

The first American song I had heard for months. A beautiful young blonde-haired girl was helping the doctor. He told me it was his daughter. I laid on a table and was stripped to the waist then strapped down hand and foot. The doctor drew out a large scalpel and laughed as he drew to across my throat and motion to cut it. If he had not been laughing I would have been very much afraid but I knew it was a joke so I laughed back. My father had a great sense of humor a gift he gave us all. We still laugh when we think about my dad learning to play tennis. For all our lives my father came home from work and changed from his suit into blue jeans. Blue jeans were his primary play clothes so when dad played tennis he played in jeans.

That was fine in cool weather but when the mercury skyrocketed along with my dad's passion for tennis the problem had to be fixed. For father's day my siblings and I bought dad tennis shorts. My father appeared in the hallway to show them to us. The boxers were hanging inches below the shorts. That being a time before it was chic to have boxers showing beneath shorts the whole family dissolved into laughter.

Dad not only graduated to shorts that summer but was introduced to briefs as well. The doctor said don't feel so good now do you? He told me in broken English that he had studied medicine in Chicago and I felt a little better. Sadly this is where dad's war diary stopped. He didn't explain how long he was held captive.

When he was liberated from the Germans, where he recuperated from his wounds, or when he returned to the states. Thankfully my father had lived through these horrendous events and lived to write a part of his story. Slowly after reading the last page I closed the stenographer's notebook. My dad was a writer. This was my father but outside the lens of my experience. Were his memories too horrible to speak? Did dad write this journal to have an outlet to express his feelings hoping that in the writing of the words the horror would be erased from his memory?

My mind's camera had always framed a gentle quiet man. The man I had known came home each afternoon by 4 30. He took a nap his eyes closing and his body surrounding to a fast deep sleep the very moment his head made contact with the mattress on my parents carved pineapple post bed. As kids we rushed to see dad when he came home.

If we were two seconds late our sharing had to wait until dinner at five. I clutched the notebook to my chest my heart racing as I slowly ascended the stairs. Now that I knew all of this I couldn't pretend that I didn't know. Standing on the landing images of my dad were rolling in my brain and in my heart.

The camera lens had changed from close up to wide angle or had a change from wide angle to close up. My vision included a man who had suffered greatly and had put this pain behind him choosing to live. I opened the door and found various members of my family sitting around our house.

I relaxed my grip on the notebook looked at my mom and each of my siblings knowing that I knew what they did not. I don't remember how it happened that day but I shared dad's notebook with my family. You see my father died when I was 20 the day after Thanksgiving. He had gone hunting fell out of a tree stand and hit his head.

They tell us he died instantly. I remember vividly too vividly the night that my father's station wagon along with another car pulled into the driveway and my aunt kitty got out and walked to the door. I assumed that dad had finally gotten his deer. When in anticipation I opened the door to my aunt and uncle I knew I was wrong.

Their faces said everything. I don't know how I held it together that night. I told my aunt I would tell my mother when she returned home from her quick grocery run.

Somehow my family made it through that night and then days and nights that followed. The next day the day after my father died I would descend the stairs to the basement. I would go through my father's belongings wanting so much to touch him to hear him to know he was there. I would open a trunk and find a small stenographer's notebook, its brown cover worn, well traveled, its edges frayed, my father's war diary. I would learn things about my father that I had never thought to ask.

Some questions to this day remain unanswered. Still the journal provided me with a glimpse into a man I didn't know and this is how I came to know my father. And a terrific job on the production by Madison Derricotte and a special thanks to Sally Grove for sharing her father's story and in a very real sense her own story. So often we learn much more about our parents as we get older not just through experience walking through their shoes as we raise children of our own but often discovering things about them that they didn't share and that generation of parents well they weren't big sharers. They were trying to protect us in the end from the things they'd gone through and that's what her dad was doing for his daughter, for his family. He'd survived the mess, the carnage, the chaos. Why impose that? Because he was the one.

Why impose that on anyone? Moreover so many of those World War II vets, well they had a place to go called the American Legion and the VFW halls and that's where they could go and share the stories of loss, of grief, of what so many called the terrors and I think it helped them all get along doing it this way. Moving forward in life while periodically getting together with comrades and sharing that camaraderie. I think it's what our Iraq veterans and our Afghanistan veterans did not have that our World War II veterans did. The scars on my dad's shoulder, she had never understood where they came from. I'd seen them all my life but knew nothing about the event that caused that scar until the diary. It didn't explain how long he was held captive, his diary, and how he would return to the states. So there was still some unfinished business, some mystery.

By the way there's not always anything wrong with having some of that mystery. My father suffered greatly and chose to put that suffering behind him and move on. He died when she was 20 years old deer hunting. Imagine this getting through World War II and dying falling out of a deer stand. I don't know how I held it together that night but the next day I would descend down to the basement and touch the things that were a part of his life.

A beautiful story, the story of Sally Grove's father and in the end Sally Grove herself here on Our American Stories. NFL Plus is your ticket to the NFL postseason. With NFL Plus stream the entire NFL postseason and catch Super Bowl 58 live on phone and tablet. That is unbelievable. Plus stay connected throughout the offseason with special content of the NFL scouting combine, NFL draft, and more all in one place.

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