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Memorial day
Posted by
sHooter
,
28 May 2011
·
144 views
I'm sure we all have someone from our family and friends, past or present, who gave their lives in service to our country. Let's keep good thoughts about them in our minds and hearts this weekend. Let's remember who and what they suffered and died for.
For myself and my family our thoughts are with Sgt. Bernie Canterberry, who served with a Tank Destroyer Battalion of Patton's 3rd Army. He was a man who loved a good joke; who could dance and drink the night away; was a popular barber in his unit when he wasn't doing his military job as a gunner in an M18 Hellcat tank destroyer. At 19, he was drafted into the Army in 1940 after Congress authorized our first "peacetime" draft when France fell to the Germans and America began to really wake up to the threat that the Axis posed. Bernie was badly wounded when a German tank round destroyed his thinly armored M18 in February of 1945 during the 3rd Army's advance thru Belgium toward the German border. He died in regimental hospital 3 days later.
His wife, Jimmie, had married him shortly after he was drafted and followed him from Camp to Camp in the States living where she could get a room so as to be near him and spend time with him when he got the occasional pass and could get off post. When his unit shipped out heading for Europe she went home to her parents and waited for him to come home. Of course, he never did and, after giving his $10,000 government death benefit to his parents she later remarried to a good man, had 4 children and lived out her life in peace and prosperity passing in July of 2009. I know this because Jimmie was my mother-in-law. She honored Bernie's memory by sharing their story. He was, truly, the love of her life.
For myself and my family our thoughts are with Sgt. Bernie Canterberry, who served with a Tank Destroyer Battalion of Patton's 3rd Army. He was a man who loved a good joke; who could dance and drink the night away; was a popular barber in his unit when he wasn't doing his military job as a gunner in an M18 Hellcat tank destroyer. At 19, he was drafted into the Army in 1940 after Congress authorized our first "peacetime" draft when France fell to the Germans and America began to really wake up to the threat that the Axis posed. Bernie was badly wounded when a German tank round destroyed his thinly armored M18 in February of 1945 during the 3rd Army's advance thru Belgium toward the German border. He died in regimental hospital 3 days later.
His wife, Jimmie, had married him shortly after he was drafted and followed him from Camp to Camp in the States living where she could get a room so as to be near him and spend time with him when he got the occasional pass and could get off post. When his unit shipped out heading for Europe she went home to her parents and waited for him to come home. Of course, he never did and, after giving his $10,000 government death benefit to his parents she later remarried to a good man, had 4 children and lived out her life in peace and prosperity passing in July of 2009. I know this because Jimmie was my mother-in-law. She honored Bernie's memory by sharing their story. He was, truly, the love of her life.
