Saving sand and dirt: You might remember this scene from "Saving Private Ryan:"
...although for all I know someone saw HIM doing it himself, and so he--your uncle Carryl--is the man who inspired that very scene.
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One other: I was privileged to know a B-25 gunship pilot who served in the Pacific Theater. He was shot down not far off a Japanese held beach, but managed to survive it (the Japanese were on their way out to get the air-crew with a gunboat, but I have the idea a submarine snagged them away to safety in the end). Five of the six who crashed that day survived the war.
Unlike so many WWII vets, he would regularly give talks about it, and of the things he said that one comment which most stuck with me were his words about the one crewman of the six who did NOT get out of that B-25 before it sank: "He's still guarding the plane."
Oh...boy. That one always gets to me.
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Not long before he passed away a vet-support organization apparently found the wreck a few-hundred yards off the beach. It seems the natives had pretty much looted the wreck over the years, but the two engines were still there.
And I guess someone thought to bring him a jar of sand from the crash-site. Pretty damned nice of whoever it was, or whoever they were who did that.
He passed a short time later, I think. Maybe (?) content in the end?
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If I'm ever lucky enough to see him again, I'll ask him.