OUR
STORY

My grandfather lived to be 103. Ever since I can remember he would wear a green beret all the time when he’d go out. People would give him military discounts on his meals and crap. I knew he was a veteran in the Army, he told me he was special forces.

When I was a little kid I remember asking him what wars he fought in and what guns he carried, because I was obsessed with guns as a kid, and I had one of those illustrated books filled with guns and all their specs. I knew them all, their names, caliber, rates of fire, etc.

Anyways, he told me he was in WWII and Korea, carried “a sub machine gun… and a pistol” and this was a very unsatisfactory answer to me. I wanted details, but he never gave me anything. He would just deflect and say some generic things about war being awful.
 

Anyways fast forward thirty years to when I'm an adult and my grandpa passes at the age of 103. I'm going through some of his old pictures and records, I find his military history stuff. He served in the Army— as a PT instructor for two years during WWII. Stateside. Never saw combat. Didn't deploy because of his eyesight or something.

Everything was a lie, the old bastard.