ShelfLife@Texas

I have recently found history to particularly unsatisfying.
My grandfather, Charles Henry Dills was in the 5th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry and was in Fort Ridgely when it was attacked by the Sioux. Later he was sent south and was on the outside at Vicksburg and later in the Tennessee River campaigns. He was mustered out at the end in Demopolis AL and went back to become a farmer in Minnesota.
I was a fighter bomber pilot in WWII flying 94 missions strafing and divebombing in Italy, Corsica and Southern France, flyng three different airplanes.
I have felt a kind of kinship with him and have been trying to find out just what he went through but eveything I’ve encountered so far has been the grand battle view from above, the movers and the shakers.
My grandfather went in as a private and he was a private when he mustered out 3+ years later. He must have had great stories of what he was involved in but I can’t seem to find anything that is not some generalized plastic image with no definition.
Having been an orphan at 14 in 1936, then a fighter pilot in WWII and knowing so little of my own family I decided I would have to leave my miitary story to my children. I wrote it all down for them thirty years ago, but now I have a grandson. I’m 87, my son is 45 and my grandson is 7. He will never know me but at least I can leave him my story. So I have been filling in the before and after for him. He is going to be able to know me, not the grand overpowering story of WWII. I wish I had that from my grandfather.

—Chas—

February 21, 2010

Dear Professor Brands,
I just recently discovered your books. I finished your Woodrow Wilson and Andrew Jackson books and I am now into the Teddy Roosevelt book. I plan to read all of them. I particularly am looking forward to your FDR book. The FDR presidency as presented in grade school and high school history books in the 50’s and 60’s was certainly a sanitized (maybe saintly) version of the man and his presidency. You have become one of my favorite historians/writers. You paint a wonderful picture of the people involved. You turn these historical figures into real people. From your books, the reader can understand the person and the times, Whether you like the person and his politics or not, you can understand them and their political decisions.

January 30, 2012