On November 16, 2012, I received an email from WordPress.com telling me that gpcox had liked several of my posts and suggested that I check out their Blog, pacificparatrooper.wordpress.com, which I did. I read about the 11th Airborne Division and their war in the Pacific. I also enjoyed reading, with humor, a letter from Smitty to his Mom describing a recipe for “Jungle Juice”. The similarities between our posts was not lost on me and I sent a comment to gpcox. Since we had both started Blogging in September of that year, I thought we might be able to connect and give each other encouragement and advice.
As we emailed back and forth I learned that there were more similarities than I had imagined. Our fathers were born in the same year and drafted within months of each other. There were also sharp contrasts between our…