Men Lost to War

Elle as a young lady

When Elle married Sam he tore up photos Elle had of any men in her past- old boyfriends and especially photos of Skeets. The only surviving photos are the ones Mildred had at her house..and she kept everything. There was another reason Elle took the path of least resistance in having her marriage annulled with Skeets.  When he had to leave her shortly after their marriage she didn’t feel she could bear the potential heartbreak of losing him as another war victim. Two men she had cared for were already killed in the war.

Elle’s first boyfriend in high school was a guy named Lou who loved her and told her when he left for duty that as soon as he came back he wanted to ask her to marry him. She really thought he would be the one man of her dreams. When Elle asked Lou why he had chosen to become a paratrooper he said it was because he could earn $30 more pay per month. Lou was killed on D Day in Normandy. Practically his entire battalion was killed. Elle still has Lou’s military pins. Later in high school Elle met another nice young man at the Lutheran church who was also killed in the war. The affect of these war losses was enormous and Elle still has tears now when she talks about this part of her history. This was not an uncommon tragedy for many women to process and is something only a few of us can understand nowadays. Women still lose husbands, boyfriends, fiancees and sons to war but not to the extent that Elle's generation experienced.

Lou not long before his death as a paratrooper at Normandy on D Day.