A true hero

Last April, just a few days after the Boston Marathon bombings, Mark took this picture of me on the boat out to see the Statue of Liberty.

Luckily, I was sitting a row behind Mark and the kids.  I was sobbing.  I always get emotional when I see the Statue of Liberty, but I was a mess this particular day as the emotions of the terror attack combined with my love for the Statue and all she stands for turned me into one big crying mess.

The reason I love the Statue so much is because of my grandpa.  We have always loved to listen to his stories from WWII.  He was a decorated war hero.  And not the kind of hero who gets awards from calling the shots off far from combat.  He was right in the mess of everything--the Normandy invasion, the Battle of the Bulge, and his Hellcats was involved in the liberation of Buchenwald.  He told most of those stories without much emotion.  But one of the stories that always brought him to tears was the story of coming into NY harbor.

Here is a one-minute clip from a documentary my grandpa was interviewed for.  You can see where I learned to love the Statue of Liberty.