All we know is failure, all we have is us.

I wrote a huge three page dissertation on life versus slavery, but I decided you wouldn't really enjoy it, so you get this instead.

I'm sure you all have met people that have changed your life, someone who has put something to you in a way you never really considered, or helped you through a tough patch....

My grandfather, on my mom's side. He had been married to my biological grandmother since before I was born, so he was pretty much my grandfather. He was a self made millionaire (one of 10 kids, all of which became very wealthy, I'm sure I will tell all their tales some day, but this about just two). My whole life he was very stand-offish, I wasn't his blood, and I was more than a disappointment. This was wholly justified, why would someone who brought himself from nothing to greatness have any pride in a chubby little idiot who had everything handed to him.

He may or may not have sexually abused my mom....I just don't know. I do know that when his death was imminent, we bonded. Not in any deep, emotional way...we just..understood each other, in the end. He knew he was dying, and I was the only competant aire to his legacy. Despite the man shady past, i found myself captivated by his stories, and it was my first real face to face with a man who never thought he would die, dying in front of me. Fuck what an evil, heartless man this was, he did what he needed to, prospered and now...it all came in the heap of shit that faces us all.

This was one of the stories he told me.

Garner's older brother, the second oldest of their brood, lived on the family farm in 1941. He was involved in a horrible accident with a piece of machinery, and escaped with only the loss of his right index finger, and half of the next two fingers. He also received massive scar from his hairline to his jaw.

Like many Americans at this time he enlisted in the war effort, but because of his injury (he had no trigger finger, and was thus unfit for combat duty) he was given desk work in England. When the Germans made their push in 1944 (later to be known as the battle of the bulge) the allies were desperate for warm bodies. This was his chance, they were taking all volunteers, blatantly needing warm bodies to catch bullets in the greatest German offensive of the war.

There he was, finally in combat. Anyone who knows anything about this time in WW2 knows it was luck and pubic hair that held the allied army together. My grandfather's brother found himself in a foxhole when the retreat was called. He was so scared and fucked up that he ran....

Straight into a German fox hole. He had retreated the wrong way and had charged the german lines! HE jumped, stupidly into a foxhole and started shooting. HE killed nazi 5 soldiers who were so surprised they could not react.

He realized what had happened and ran back to his comrades. He was awarded the Medal of Honor, and heralded as a hero.

This, is only the beginning of one of the most amazing stories I have ever heard.

end transmission.