dec 26th, 1944.

i'd always heard that my grandad had spent his 21st birthday in the train station of florence during the War. he never talked about his experience over there - though we know he marched all over italy. well, in one of the boxes, we found this picture - it was written on as dec 26th, 1944 - which would have been 4 days after his 21st birthday. i never ever saw him with a mustache, but here he is sporting one. it makes me wonder who took this picture... and since he was less than sentimental about stuff, how did it survive and makes its way all the way to IN?? maybe he mailed it to his parents... i dunno, but it feels very poignant to me to see him at 21, in the middle of war - i can't imagine what he saw over there and i doubt any of us would want to.