Our Parents Who Served

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Originally posted by Garry Shipton
Thought I'd chime in about my dad-the CMP D-Day Dodger.Reference the photo in the Liberation Album on the motorcycle,plus his photo in the book "Lancaster at War".All I can say is he was a very quiet guy,loved kids,had nightmares till his end.He was just a nice quiet guy from Kingston Ontario who gave his all and which,in the end,killed him in 1976.Volenteered in 39-England/Sicily/Italy/the continent-and finally home.He ended up re-enlisting into the RCOC & received a bar to his CD.

When I gave the eulogy for my Kangaroo friend {"Red") a year ago last summer, I had a long talk with his youngest daughter. She told me of a litany of the same, stresses from deep down inside him which plagued his early years after the war and affected everyone in the family. There are some things he never could forget, and because we were friends and he trusted me as a fellow soldier, there are things he told me about which no one else has ever heard. It seems you carry some of this with you your whole life.

To me, that makes these men even stronger, knowing that they survived the peace in spite of it all.

They are truly giants, the like of which we shall probably never see again.