A Funeral For A Friend

The man who services our air conditioner, shares the family business with his father. Many times, when we had a problem, our friend's father would take the call and fix our air conditioner. We got used to seeing this older man, bring a chair with him and in his own time, work on our AC. He said that it gave him purpose, in his old age and more power to him. I was quite in awe of him.

We haven't seen him in a few years and I guess he finally got to the point where he couldn't take calls anymore. This week, we found out why. Our friend and air conditioner repairman, Nelson, had passed away. That is the 2nd death I have been involved with, so far this year.

You can read his formal Obituary, HERE.

I swear, you never know the history of a person, until the funeral.

I found out at the service on Saturday, that he was a World War II vet, who took part in the Invasion of Normandy and received a purple heart.

The story goes, that he was not wearing his metal helmet and his buddy was. When a bomb went off, his partner was killed because he was wearing the helmet. I don't quite understand why this is so, but OK.

Nelson, who was not wearing the helmet had it hit his leg and he received a compound fracture from it. So there he is, in the water with a compound fracture. The first boat comes over to pick him up. It was a troop transport, so it had the front of the boat that comes down, so troops could disembark to the shore. Nelson is pulled onto the boat and they gave him 2 shots of brandy, to warm him up. Because of the fact that the boat had the ramp down, the boat ended up sinking and he ended up back in the water. The next troop ship that picked him up did the same thing and gave him 2 more shots of brandy. It had the same result happen to it, as had happened to the first boat and Nelson is back in the water. When he got picked up a THIRD time, Nelson had had enough. He shouts at the crew, "Get me onto this boat and bring up the ramp!" Well, the crew thought this 20 year old was an officer and so they followed his directions and he finally was rescued.

According to him, the month he spent in the hospital, he was treated as an officer and yes, he did receive his purple heart for this.

Godspeed Nelson.