<VV> Veterans' Day

[Tony Underwood]

At 06:32 PM 11/11/2011, Lonzovair wrote:
>Cliff, my dad was in the Navy in '43, his grand dad served in the 
>Army during the Spanish American War in 1898, and HIS grandad served 
>in the Army from 1862 to 1865... Confederate Army, that is...



My great great great grandfather, Charles Admire Wills from Bedford 
VA (the home of the National D-Day Memorial center 30 miles east of 
here), died from wounds received in combat while in service to the 
Confederacy in Richmond in the summer of 1864 after the battle of 
Drury's Bluff.  Union forces either confiscated or destroyed many 
records when they advanced through Richmond thus today no one knows 
where Charles A Wills is actually buried.  He left a widow and 
several children behind.   One of his sons was the father of my great 
grandmother who died less than a year after giving birth to my 
grandmother, leaving behind a widower with a year old daughter, who 
herself eventually only had one child, my mother.   I sometimes think 
about what Charles A Wills endured while in service to his nation, 
which had become shattered and split following secession of the 
southern states, and how he had fought for what would in the end 
become a lost cause.

...thought about him as well during this Veteran's Day.



tony..