On 01/05/2014 10:58 AM, John Grossbohlin wrote:
"basilisk" wrote in message
...

My FIL passed away New Years day, another of the Greatest Generation,
that did not know the meaning of "quit" or "couldn't".

This message is timely... I was on the phone last night until about 1:15
AM comforting a friend whose father John passed away a year ago on
1/4/2013. John earned two purple hearts... D-Day at Normandy and another
that neither of us know the details of as he NOT ONCE discussed any of
it. It was only after he died that his wife told us about Normandy... He
never gave up on anything right to the end.

During the last conversation I had with him a day or so before he passed
he told me that he wanted me to have his tools, amongst them are also
his father's tools, both in their original wooden tool boxes. Both men
were professional carpenters and I understand that the older tools are
beautifully ornate. I told him I was honored... If all goes well I'll
be picking them up from FL this spring and getting them back to NY where
they started from in the first place. I think that to keep two complete
sets of hand tools together in their original wooden tool boxes is
something special and I'd never break them up.

John's workmanship was impeccable and I've never seen any paint work
that was better... In that last conversation I thanked him for teaching
me how to paint.. This as John helped me paint the house he built for
his mother that I purchased before they all moved to FL around 1979.
John was a great guy... quick of wit as it sounds like William A. Posey
was... brothers in arms though on opposite sides of the globe. Not many
of them left...

John

I had a number of relatives that were in WWII and most spoke little of
their service, my Grandfather was in the army and I would have never
known except for a single framed picture of him in uniform.

You're right their numbers are dwindling fast, seems like a year or so
ago I read an article that said WWII vets were dying at the rate of 1500
a day.

basilisk