I love the movie "The Patriot" with Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger. I imagine the Revolutionary War to be a brutal event in our history. All wars are that. It is a miracle that our small population was able to oust the British. My family history (mother's side - Hawley) fought in this war, I understand they came to the colonies about 10 years after the Mayflower and early groups.
My father, Alfred L. Knoper, Senior Master Sargent, deceased, served his county for 26 years.
He served during WW2 and would be 99 yrs if he were still alive. I have only recently understood his military service during the war. He was based in England, and went on some 25 bombing missions over Europe. To survive this posting was not "normal". Most men perished long before the missions would allow them to "go home" alive.
His own father and brother were both culpable of taking everything he owned...clothes, shoes, money sent home. When he came home he had nothing.
Nothing!!!
He had no choice but to reenlist into the Air Force. He married my mother,
therefore I grew up an "Air Force Brat".
Maybe it was the era, Baby Boomers and all...I am a Patriot. There is nowhere else on Earth that I want to call home. People from all over the world want to live here, in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.
This lifetime of emotional trauma affected him all the rest of his life. As children who had no notion of the situation...we had a difficult childhood. He was a terrible father. As I understand more and more about this secretive generation...I am both less confused and more confused.
My uncle, his brother, gave us a huge estate upon death. My thought is that his treatment of his brother had been a debt he didn't payback when alive.
