I would never join the military after what happened to my grandfather. During WWII, he pretty much became a savage, like most other soldiers. He killed, and killed, and killed. To add to the savagry, he stole shit from every nazi he killed. Now we have nazi armbands, pistols, and the ceremonial sword of a nazi Major that he killed. (though admittedly, the sword is pretty fucking cool). That is, untill he reached the concentration camps. That place messed with his mind. It disturbed him enough that untill his death, the concentration camps were the only thing from military days that he refused to talk about. So we still don't know what happened to him over there.
When he got back from the war, he became a wreck. First the guilt started affecting him, about all the people with families that he had killed, who had been just doing their job. He started taking up drinking, and became an alcoholic. He started suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. Because he was always hearing the war around him, he kept a pistol under his pillow, afraid that the nazis were going to come after him. On multiple occasions he woke up in the middle of the night and almost shot my grandmother while thinking that she was a nazi. I think the only thing that was keeping him from killing himself was his christian faith, with the threat of hell upon on his shoulders.
I also need to mention that he was an alcoholic even though he knew that we have a genetic defect in our family that can cause heart attacks after drinking too much alcohol. And that's how he died. He drank himself to death. Had a heart attack and died.
And after all of that his silver star medal was given to the wrong person and he never got it. Fucking hell.
