Contrast essay alternate ending

My grandfathers lived in the same town, about a mile from each other. Both were in WWII veterans, were decorated, and were war hero’s. I don't remember ever seeing them together or them talking about the other even though they knew each other. One was outgoing, upbeat, physically active and had a large family. The other was a home body and could often be found in his chair in front of the TV. Both men were loving and cared about there families. But how they carried themselves in daily life were quite opposite.

My grandfathers were great men in my eyes. I have always regretted not knowing them better, but that is a sad consequence of me growing up in Maine and them living in Massachusetts. My father's, father was Ralph, and my mother's, father was Art. Both men grew up in the area around Northborough, Mass. through the depression. As I got older I was very curious about their childhoods and would press them for stories. Art's recollections were very different than Ralph's. Grampa Ralph would say that it was a horrible time to be a kid, that times were tough and he can always remembered being hungry, and the house always being cold. He had to move in with relatives and there were six children sharing the same bedroom. Ralph recalled his father telling the older children at dinner one night, that they were going to have to stop going to school for a while and work on a nearby farm in exchange for food for the family. Art's stories were so different in their tone I still wonder if he may have embellish a bit to make his stories sound more adventurous than they really were. He would say that it was an exciting time. Talk about being self-reliant and resourceful. About having pride in making due with what you had. He would say how fun it was to be out hunting for rabbit or squirrel in the woods behind his house, by himself, when he was ten or eleven years old.

Probably the largest contrast between the two was their experiences in WWII. Ralph was finely accepted into the Air Corp after being rejected by the other branches for having “Flat Feet”. He was shot down over France and spent two years in a P.O.W. camp. I believe this would define the rest of Ralph's life. It was a very difficult time and he had great difficulty adjusting when he returned home. He spoke about it freely, and with great detail, as I remember. He would sit my brother and I down and tell us all about being shot down, getting wounded, and being a prisoner. But looking back I can tell that this troubled him greatly. Today we talk about P.T.S.D. and the like, and all the ways that we can help our vets who have been through such horrible experiences. Back then there was nothing to help him cope with this and he had difficulty with reliving those experiences. How he tried to cope with his war experiences was with alcohol. He drank and smoked heavily and as he got older, alienated much of the family because of his drinking. When we would visit he would often start drinking around noon and by the late afternoon he would be swearing at us kids in German, and yelling amazingly bigoted statements over the fence at the neighbors. If he was not my Grandfather I would have said he was a rotten, bitter, old man. Which, in fact, he was.

Art on the other hand never spoke of the War. He was the classic “Greatest Generation”. He was always upbeat and positive. I never remember him yelling or even being cross about anything. My Mother tells that when she and her brothers would ask what he did in the War, he would just say that he did nothing special and that he build bridges. He would down play his role in the War and say he just did his job like everyone else over there. A few years before his death my Grandmother convinced him to write about his experiences so that his children would know what he had done. He was a Combat Engineer and was decorated for saving ten men when their boat sank during river crossing. Art and another man jumped into their boat, which was made for 5 men, and were able to get to the men before they drowned. I asked him about this once and why he went out after those men in a much smaller boat and risked them swamping his boat, he said “because we were closest and somebody had to do something.” The company the Art lead, later received a Presidential Commendation for building the first bridge over the Rhine River and thus pushing the Nazi's back into Germany. He made history and would only acknowledge that he “did his job, like every other man over there”. Art had a big family and as my mother would say, he worked very hard but always made time for his family. This is what defined his life.

Both these men grew up in the same small town, went to the same schools, raised there families very near each other, with many the same values and beliefs. Similar enviornment.  Both men were very similar in that they were caring men, who loved there families and worked very hard to provide for them. But they were polar opposites in there everyday life. I often wonder how my parents came together when they came from such different households. In Ralph's house you were ofter called by a bigoted, derogatory nickname. He would refer to my mother as “The Frog” when she and my dad were dating. He even called his wife “The Dumb Swede”, and those were the tame ones. Ralph was a hard drinking, chain smoking, bitter, sour old man that my brother and I feared. He blamed the fact that he was mean, and alienated his kids and neighbors on his experiences in the War. He loved his family, I have no doubt of that, but he never showed it. In Art's house his kids were taught to always looking for the positive, smile, and you were always getting hugged their. He never blamed anyone else for the things that he did wrong, he owned up to them and said he was sorry. You were encouraged by Art and praised when you did something good. It was truly a positive environment, in contrast to the extremely negative one at Ralph's. Is it related to enviornment or just personalities?  I don't know.  With such different upbringings I don't see how my parents stayed together, maybe it is that opposites do attract.