Jeff Hajny

    Last Monday, the nation celebrated Memorial Day. Memorial Day is viewed as a time to remember those who gave their lives to keep America a free country.
     When we think about the war in Iraq along with all of the wars that have been fought in U.S. history, they just seem so far away and feel like they happened so long ago that they shouldn't impact us.
     To tell you the truth, I don't think I know one person who doesn't have at least one connection to a war in history, whether it would be a grandpa or just a family friend.
     Odds are we all know someone who spent time fighting in a war and who is impacted by Memorial Day.
     It's always so interesting to sit down and talk to these people just to see what they remember from their experiences.
     It's highly likely that everyone has at least one relative who served in a war. Both my grandpa and great-grandpa served in World War II.
     My grandpa Emil Hajny served in the U.S. Coast Guard during the war. He was stationed outside of Puerto Rico. He said you could look through binoculars and see Nazi soldiers sunbathing on the decks of their submarines waiting for the word to attack. It's weird to think of how close to the United States that the war actually could have been.
     Another story he always told me when I was little was how he and his men trained a parrot on board the ship to talk. When their commander came on board the ship, he inspected everyone from top to bottom and when he walked by the parrot, it squawked a torrent of obscenities at him. My grandpa still laughed about it every time he would tell me the story.
     My great-grandpa Thomas Shonka worked as a doctor in Europe. He spent time as a doctor on Omaha Beach during the Normandy Invasion and also took part in the liberation of the Ohrdruf Concentration Camp in Germany.
     One of Tom's claims to fame was during his time as a doctor in the war, one of his camps was visited by Gen. George Patton.
     The hospital was about to be attacked and he received a call from Gen. Dwight Eisenhower telling him to instruct Patton to leave. It's not every day you meet someone who got to boss Gen. Patton around.
     Both Emil and Tom are gone now, but I still remember some of their stories and how emotional they could become at times while telling them.
     Every time I talk to a veteran of a war, it's hard to imagine some of the things they saw while fighting.
     I don't know how I would react if I was in a battle with bullets flying all around me and watching my friends die. I really have no idea what I would do.
     I love talking to veterans. Every time I do, I think to myself, "These guys are true heroes. All the war movies I've seen, they've actually lived."
     Wars in history have had a great impact on all of us and I'm sure that the war in Iraq has an impact on all of us as well. Many of the people I graduated from high school with are now over in Iraq or spent some time fighting over there. Sometimes I wonder what kind of stories they can tell.
     Who would think that something which is happening 10,000 miles away or happened 60 years ago could have such a big impact on us?
     Memorial Day is a time to think of those who fought for what they believed in and may have lost their lives for it. If you have a friend or relative who served in a war, ask them to talk about it some time. Every veteran has a story.