History of WW 2 ,Armed Services Memorial Edition

[julie]

Hi all

I thought some of you might enjoy this little "adventure " I had a few weeks ago about the above book .

I was on the way to the store and saw a sign for a garage sale.

I stopped at this one,and here stands a very elderly man in his driveway . His sale was very small . I immediately saw a really thick book laying on one of the tables .Walked straight to it, asked how much ( ONE DOLLAR) ,and gave him 5 . He proceeded to tell me that he had been in WW 2 ,"met up with" another old fellow a few towns away,who gave him the book many years ago . This elderly man had served in WW 2 ,so was greatly interested in reading this book. He began reading it awhile back,but his vision started going. Got worse, and came to find out he was slowly going blind. He is now legally blind and can no longer read ,so decided to part with the book .

I know some of you may think I sound like a fruitcake,but I picked the book up, and it felt like I was holding something very important... not like a normal book,but like someone's LIFE was in my hands .

I originally bought it for my husband,since he loves reading books about WW 2 . I bring it home, rub my hands over the cover and still feel this same odd URGE about the book.

I started leafing through it, looking at some of the photos .Notice it had someone's name written in front, and on the other side ,a name and address sticker . While leafing, I opened it up to a page called Battle of Coral Sea.

On this page, there was a very small photo clipped from a newspaper and placed on this page.It had been there so long, it has left a permanent yellow "square" where the photo has been. All it had on the bottom was a last name . ( DETWILER )

SO ... being ME , I drove back over to the little old man's house to ask him if he knew anyone by that name,and he said no . Then I asked if the name in the front of the book was his,and NO, again . The name was the man's who he got the book from originally .

So I asked him where this other man lived (the one whose autograph was inside).

He told me the town,so I got in the car, drove to that town library.Asked if they had a resident by that name in their town. They had one listing of a LADY with the same last name . They gave me her address, so I drove out in the country to her house and asked if her last name was the one written in the book and she said yes .Asked if she knew anyone with the first name JACK . She replied yes, that her father and grandfather were named John,but her grandfather had used the name Jack. Asked if he was still alive,and sadly, he had died in the 90's . She did give me her dad's phone number ,so I called him .He said yes, the name and address were his father's and he HAD served in WW 2 ,as had his 4 brothers.They all came back safely .

I asked him if he knew of anyone named DETWILER who his dad may have known. Come to find out, this DETWILER boy was from their same small town ,had served in the war , was the ONLY child in his family, and had died ,age 21 at Coral Sea. The picture is of a young,slim,handsome ,smiling soldier .

This man told me that after this boy died, his parents died soon after .Seems he was their whole world,and they both gave up on life when they no longer had him . He is buried in their small town cemetery . I plan on going over to visit his grave soon .

I thought maybe some of you would find this interesting .I know it sounds freaky, but when I picked that book up, it FELT in my hands like something magical was inside, or something I needed to do .. hard to describe.

I'm not a fruitcake,although it may sound as if I am ..... I just strongly believe in things happening for a reason,and sometimes in life, you need to folow those odd feelings you get . Never know where it will take you .

 

as a short PS -----

I offered to give the book back to the man's son who originally owned the book ( the name in front ) . He asked what I bought it for, and I told him for my husband to read . He said after he is done with it, he'd love to have it as a keepsake to pass along to HIS son .

Very ODD,but this fellow lives about 5 minutes from my house !

 

TRUE STORY !!!

Edited October 26, 2011 by julie