On Veteran's Day: In Search Of "The Greatest Generation"

Published: Sunday, November 11, 2012

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Estimates are that there are about 1,000 World War Two veterans dying each day. When America and the rest of the world commemorate the 70th anniversary of the D-Day Normandy invasion in 2014, and the anniversary of the end of the war in 2015, the ranks of those who survived the epic battles of the war will be thin.

World War Two occupies a special place in American culture, even today. Perhaps that's because it was the last war fought by the U.S. with such clarity of purpose going in, as well as clarity of victory at the end. It is rather amazing that there were five feature films released in 2009 and 2010 starring Hollywood's most bankable stars set in World War Two. Books continue to come out, and more movies are in development to break when we mark the anniversaries again in a few years.

There is hardly an American family that doesn't have a connection to World War Two; parents grandparents, uncles, cousins who fought in the war or at least played a role in defeating the Axis forces of Germany, Japan and Italy. In that war, after all, unlike the wars fought today, even civilians played a big role--living through food rationing, organizing metal and rubber drives, selling and buying war bonds and even training as coastal airplane spotters.

My father, Charles Kiley, led a story-filled, exciting war. A correspondent for the Stars and Stripes newspaper, he finished the war at the side of General Dwight Eisenhower, covering the future President as he and his staff negotiated the final surrender by Germany. But he had a brother, Eddie, who lived a very different war. An infantryman in the Fifth Armored Division, he was killed on December 11, 1944 at the age of 24 in a place called the Huertgen Forest in western Germany.

For most of my life, all I knew of my Uncle Eddie was what I could see in a painting done by my Uncle John. Too, there was a photo of my father and Eddie in London when they found themselves together on one of Eddie's few leaves. But that, and just a few stories my father imparted, were all I had to go on.

He was a mystery that tugged at my curiosity for years. Before all the WW2 veterans are gone, and we can no longer commemorate and mark their sacrifices with them in our midst, I wanted to forge a closer connection to the uncle I never knew.

In the summer of 2011, I began working on a book to chronicle the war in Europe that my father lived, along with the war my mother lived stateside. As part of my research, I took a Jeep Wrangler from Berlin to the Huertgen Forest to see the place where my Uncle fell, and then on to Belgium to the American cemetery where he is laid to rest. Why a Wrangler? Jeep recently celebrated its 70th anniversary. The brand started with the Jeep Willys MB, and the Wrangler is the mechanical descendant of that Jeep, which General George Marshall said was "critical" to winning the war.

I know that the only time my father visited his brother Eddie's grave was during the war. And he drove a Willys Jeep MB from Liege, Belgium to his initial battlefield resting place. I thought I would recreate that visit as closely as the modern day allows.

Watch the video here, and journey with me into history. We hope it may inspire you to find your family's connection to the war that so defined what author and newsman Tom Brokaw called "The Greatest Generation."

[To read posts about our trip, the places we stayed and some of the sites we saw in Berlin, please go to David Kiley's posts on AOL Travel here.]