Random thoughts...

Ehhh... Not a Nazi, but forced to fight, as we're most men of age. He didn't want to fight, but no choice in the matter. He told a story of how a drunk Russian soldier stole his bike, his commanding officer asked him why he didn't shoot him and he told him his gun jammed. So, he definitely did not want to fight. The south America thing is just dark humor, although it might have an ounce of truth. My grandfather ended up in Arizona, with the help of said missionary.

@yaasshat I feel a little embarrassed but I was slightly off about my grandmother's birth year by a few years. She was actually born in 1923. Her husband was born 1909. He was a World War II pilot for America.

Passing ships in the night, we are. Genetically speaking, that is(They say there are only five degrees of separation from everyone on the planet.) .lol My grandfather was born around the early twenties, as was my grandmother. Soooo... It's a fair assumption their parents were born at least in the 1890's. Couldn't tell ya about my dad's dad, never met the man. To say he was a shit stain, that would be an understatement(Stories.. that and trying to rape his daughter, amongst many other stories.) . I mean, my dad didn't care when he died. Soooo.... Yeah. My dad's mom? Sweet grandmother, at least. Anyways... Both of them would've been born twenties or just a touch earlier, too. We're getting old, man.lol

Yes. Also fragile. And expensive. I'm dirt cheap and brawny. A true find at the scrap pit.

I never got to meet my grandmother on my dad's side, she passed away from cancer sometime in the nineties though. Though my dad thinks the sickness was caused by stress and heartache from her life, she was born in the Jim Crow era and witnessed her friend get shot and killed by a racist white man when her and her friend wouldn't accept his advancements ('flirting') on them. She was only 12-13 at the time and had a bullet stuck in her hand all her life due to not being able to receive medical aid. She sounded like a great woman though! Apparently our mom is the white version of her according to our dad XD.

A boy often times tries to find his mother in his partner. We tend to seek that familiar comfort, that warmth which brings us home and holds us in a loving embrace. We are nothing without the strength and heart of our partner. At least, not once we meet that part we never knew we were missing. So, it sounds like your dad got rather lucky to find yet another woman as strong as his mother.

@yaasshat Not just lucky, blessed ^^. His mom was his biggest cheerleader in life and when his mom passed, our mom became that for him too. The beautiful thing is that before his mom passed away, she actually told him to marry our mom after seeing her in passing when he went to college, he said that she said that our mom was his wife and he'd do well to marry a woman like her. He definitely did well, cause he married her and had six kids with her XD, while another six are with Jesus now.