Today I would like to honor my uncles who served in WWII. Otis Lee Tucker and Clarence Edward Tucker served as tank mechanics in Italy and never saw action. Roy Eugene Brandon left a West Texas farm to serve in Europe and returned a sergeant and an alcoholic. My dad said once that what Uncle Gene saw in the war changed him. He isolated himself from the family and eventually died of alcoholism.
But while I knew him, he was the greatest uncle--He took me to the fair and gave me my first ferris wheel ride and bought me more cotton candy and popcorn than I should have had. I have a locket he brought me with wings on it as a souvenir--I guess he must have been in the Air Force. My Uncle Clarence still has his uniform packed away and a German gun--but he never talks about the war or shows off the leavings. I never heard my Uncle Tuck (Otis) say a word about the war.
This "greatest generation" deserves our love and respect for the protection and safety they brought us in the last just war. I do pray for those families like the Reiders at Otter who have sons and daughters in Iraq now. May they all come home safely. Oh, God I pray for peace in this generation and for peace among all your children.
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