Happy Veteran's Day

So usually I am a sarcastic asshole in my blogs....is just who i am...and believe me i have plenty to be a sarcastic asshole about....however, I just read my friend Amy's blog, which typically is very thoughtful and introspective (with the exception of the trumpet teach stuff, which is just funny) and she posted a fitting tribute for Veterans Day and her grandfather, who incidentally, is one of the sweetest, cutest, nicest guys i have ever met (as is the rest of Amy's family).
It got me thinking of my grandfather Thompson and his service in the Navy. Now, my grandparents were slightly younger when the "War" started but my grandfather graduated high school and entered the navy in 1946, at the tail end of the war. He got 2 weeks leave soon after he entered the service and came back to Jersey City (the thompson/keegan homeland) to marry my grandmother, his high school sweetheart, after he gave her 3 weeks notice.
In the navy, my grandfather was a radio/radar man and was assigned to several ships, including the USS McKinley and the USS Iowa. Soon after, his naval position posted them in San Diego, where my grandmother rode to alone by bus, 3 months pregnant and "puking all across the United states" as she put it. (it was actually funny---we used to talk about US landmarks like the painted desert and she would be like "yeah i threw up there"....gotta love my grandmother)
During his service, his ship was sent to the atmoic bomb testing at Bikini island. He was present for 3 of the atomic bomb tests, two of which he was underneath the deck, However, he was on deck for one of the tests, where they were mearly told to "turn " their back and "close" their eyes to protect themself from the blast. My grandfather often recounted that he wound up with a second-degree sunburn through his clothing. He also used to recount how part of the ship he was on was "closed" for the remainder of his tour of duty because it was radio active....and then it remained radio active for many months after..
Later on in life, my grandfather became a sickly man at a young age and had chronic heart failure, which led to his early death in the late 1980's. It turned out that many of the servicemen present at the time of the testing(including my Aunt linda's dad, who was acatually send on the radio active "dummie" ships to see what happened to the experimental animals on them) had similar symptoms and ailments to my grandfather and it turned in to an agent orange/gulf war syndrome trend, whch the government pushed under the table, as they do so so well.
I always found it interesting that although his service in the navy had made him so ill for much of his life, he always spoke fondly and proudly of his time in the navy. He even saved a memorial booklet from that tour of duty (i have it---its cool). He was a really funny guy with a somewhat dry sense of humor. He would proudly wear his USS Iowa and USS McKinley ball caps and never missed an Army/ Navy game. He used to talk about ths Bikini Island testing and would always tell us the one thing he learned from that experience was that if an atomic bomb was dropped the only thing you could really do is bend over and kiss you ass good bye...and then he would laugh.....as he always did.
So, happy veterans day to all and thanks to BOTH of my grandfathers for their service....and thank you grandpa T for your sense of humor...its what i remember the most about him...