Tears Ran Down my Eyes

Sometimes I think when I’m home, they ask, the wife and them ask me something and I say to myself, “Ah, did this really happen? ” I’m back here, you understand? I’m home! And the only thing when I went back overseas on my second term, you know, it was peaceful and quiet and everything like that. But when I went home, when I went back this time, the 60th anniversary, and I went to the war cemeteries, then I really realized, “Hey, what the hell had happened.” And when I looked at Groesbeek, when I was in there and when I looked at the names, and the ages... One of the graves I looked at was a young lad seventeen years old. Tears run down my eyes and I said, “How in the hell could that happen? ” And then I looked, said to myself, “Hey, you were there, you should know. You were only seventeen, eighteen yourself!” And I think every, every Veteran that went back after the war and went to the graveyards and grave sites, that’s when they felt it the most, knowing that all of their buddies that didn’t make it back home. That’s when it really gets to you. That’s when it really gets to you. So many young people, so many young men. They gave up their lives to make it better for everyone, not only just Canadians, for everybody else.