By Roslyn Ryan
Editor

I recently heard a story about my grandfather, a Navy pilot during WWII.

Half a century after the war ended, looking at a museum exhibit featuring the plane he flew, my grandfather reportedly turned to my uncle and just shook his head.

“God,” he said. “I can’t believe I flew that thing.”

By that point my grandfather had served his country, raised 10 children, and concluded a successful career as a lawyer.

He had also comported himself for as long as I knew him, with the confidence of a person used to having most— if not all — of life’s riddles figured out.

Until I heard that, in fact, I had always assumed that my grandfather, and so many others veterans just like him, were supposed to be soldiers.

I realize now how just how naïve that was; like millions of other people who served, he did not have designs on being a soldier before the war. He wasn’t a pilot, just someone who answered when his nation called.

And if he and so many other young men made it look easy — like learning to fly, or drive a tank or repair a jeep was always part of the plan —  well, that’s just one more credit to them.

Like my grandfather, so many of those heroes are gone now. But their values and the things they stood for live on in the men and women we saw gathered at Powhatan High School on Monday.

Like modern day, real-life Supermen, they spend much of their time living normal lives, doing normal jobs. But when they are needed they stand up to do the things so many others don’t have the strength or the courage to do.

“Heroes,” said journalist and World War II chronicler Tom Brokaw, “are people who rise to the occasion and slip quietly away.”

I can think of no better description of the men and women of the 180th Engineer Company.

We here at Powhatan Today would like to echo the community in thanking them for their service. And we can’t wait until we can welcome them back home.