Dee, my Dad never talked about his time in the military until he waw getting into the mid stages of dementia. He was on the battleship USS Nevada and while he never was on the ground fighting they saw their share of combat during every major battle in the South Pacific in WWII. He talked about the suicide planes that attacked them and killed all his friends in the gun turret next to him and being awake for 2 weeks at a time while they bombarded the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He was a gunners mate and his job was to dial in the coordinates that the forward spotters called in to make the large 14 inch guns hit their target. He basically aimed the guns and gave the command to fire. He was worried that he was personally responsible for killing thousands of Japanese and that he might not be able to go to heaven to be with my Mom. Luckily through a friend I was able to find a preacher who was a Marine on the ground in the same battles who was able to talk to him and give him some peace of mind.
