I spent the day with my Uncle Ernest Huber, veteran of World War II. He is 93 years old and has a respirator to help him breathe part of the time. He is confined to a wheel chair mostly, but gets up and pushes it around to get where he wants to go if he's feeing well.
This fellows wife (Ann, my mom's sister) died from cancer two years ago. Fortunately one of his children has taken him into their home and is looking after him.
My 20 year old son met Ernest at a funeral in March of this year and cannot stop talking about him. Seems Ernest mentioned the war and my son is almost an expert on the subject.
Today we drove to see Ernest, something I should have done without the insistence of my son and we visited until later this afternoon. Among the photographs of Ernest with the troops was a Purple Heart and a Distinguished Service Cross. My son recognized them and ask if he could hold them.
Ernest picked them up and placed them in my son's hands and when my son remarked how very few people had received both these and lived this long, tears streamed down Ernest's face.
Ernest then told how the Germans hid big guns in buildings and when the US Tanks came down the street, they swung open the shutters and fired, hoping for a kill with one shot.
Ernest had his head outside a Sherman tank when this happened and received shrapnel in his back, shoulder and left side of his face and scull. The medics saved him.
Later there was a fire fight and Ernest bailed from the tank to pull a fellow GI from harm and got tangled in the tread of the tank which was moving for cover. His boot and clothing got caught and his foot shredded.
One surgeon suggested he amputate the foot, another said bandage it with antibiotics and see what happens, the third suggested working on it right away in an attempt to save it.
He took the advice of the last fellow and although his foot is mangled, it works and he lived on.
A few days before he was to return home he was in a personal carrier that went off a bridge and fell about 50 feet. His neck, back, ribs and arms were broken in several places and for awhile the doctors were not sure he would walk.
When Ernest returned home to Ann (they married three weeks before he shipped out) and they had three children and Ernest worked for Katy railroad and farmed the land west of Waco, TX to make ends meet.
Today he has 9 grandchildren and is diagnosed with congestive heart failure and emphysema.
I ask him today how he was feeling and he said, "Albert John, I have it good. My family is here, we have fresh vegetables from our garden, the kids are playing in the yard and I am happy."
Sometimes we need a dose of reality to make us count our blessings.
