My hero while growing up and more so now, was my uncle, Norman Wills. Despite teasing me about 'girlfriends' when I was little and harassing me about my bowling form when I was at the alley with my teen friends, he was always a positive male role model for me. He never smoked and drank very little unlike every other adult in my family.
From the earliest age I was instructed to never ask him about 'The War' that played such a huge role in my parents generation. He had terrible nightmares and was trying to live his life by forgetting the horrors he had experienced.
When he entered the service he was asked if it mattered which Theater he wanted to serve in since his mother had immigrated from Germany at the age of three. He essentially said that it didn't matter to him. So he went off to England after training. He fought from the day after D-Day (his boat was at the back of the landing force) until he was wounded and captured in Aachen on September 21st, 1944. At that time he was Staff Sergeant Squad Leader in the 36th Armed Infantry Regiment of the Third Armored Division, a "Spearhead Doughboy". As squad leader he was 'in charge of the operation of a light machine squad of 9 men, including gunners, crewman and half-track drivers and led men in battle'. During close house to house combat a German grenade was thrown at him and he was badly wounded in the leg and then captured. "They only asked me if I was American or British" he told me. Several hours later the Allies advanced, the Germans retreated and left him there. When he was recovered in the field of battle his long journey of healing was just beginning.
He spent 23 months in military hospitals in England and in the U.S. healing his badly broken and infected leg. During all of this time he was married to my mother's sister, Alice, who was raising their young son Dennis.
Uncle Norman was awarded a Purple Heart, two different Bronze Battle Stars and served in the Normandy, Rhineland and Northern France campaigns including the liberation of Belgium and the Battle of the Bulge. The only time I heard him talk about his experiences was on the 50th Anniversary of the D-Day Invasion. I was at home visiting them in their living room on peaceful Cherry Street in Lockport, NY. He said the local VFW had contacted him to be part of the celebration. "Why would I want to celebrate something that I have been trying to forget for the last 50 years?" was what he said to us.
Once, later, on the phone I encouraged him to write down some remembrances for future generations of our family but he gently re-buffed my request.
This man who always gave a warm greeting, a big smile and who had a gentle way of encouraging you had a hidden secret that he bore with dignity, never complaining. He continued to hunt, fish, bowl and garden into his later years. I still recall him in the back yard on Cherry Street pitching wiffle balls to my two young daughters. The limp as he walked, reminded me of his secret, safely tucked away...
Norman Wills
February 10, 1917
October 28, 2003
