Memorial Day

What a perfect day to blog about my grandpa.  My grandpa passed away from brain cancer on May 9th and we attended the funeral last week in Seward, NE (the greatest small town in the world!).  We drove up on Sunday with Brody, who did AWESOME in the car both ways, and made the drive home again Wednesday.  It is always so nice to see family and friends you do not see often enough, but we all knew why we were brought together...an extremely sad and emotional day.  My grandpa, who is actually my step-grandpa, but the only grandpa I have ever known since my 'real' grandpa passed before my sister was born.  To some people he is remembered as one of the POWs from Vietnam, but I remember him as a rough-around-the-edges guy with a kind and gentle heart.  During his Navy days, his plane was shot down and he ended up being captured and tortured for 7 years in Hanoi.  My grandpa Wendy (short for Wendell) had the most amazing stories and would tell them with such detail that is was almost as if these events happened a few days ago, when in fact it happened many years ago.  We (Gabe and I) had never attended a military funeral before and let me tell you how amazing it was. Grandpa totally deserved all of the wonderful things the US Navy provided at his funeral.  Of course, they draped the coffin with a US flag which they folded and passed to my grandma, 2 Navy jets did a fly over, and also a 21 gun salute.  Just amazing, simply incredible to witness for someone who gave so much for our country.  He is definitely a hero in all sorts of the word.  

Captain Wendell B. Rivers