Uncle Vance

My Uncle Vance died last week. He's my 3rd family member in little over a year to pass away. This is gonna sound coarse, but at least this wasn't a surprise. He'd been fighting cancer for a long, long time and was able to make his peace and leave on his own terms. Uncle Vance was a WW2 veteran, and I used to love staying up late and listen to him tell stories about the war, while he and my father and their brothers and sisters played cards, drank and smoked. He was always fun to be around - I can't remember a time that he didn't make me laugh. One story in particular will always stand out - how he beat up Hitler during the war (his actual words were that he kicked Hitler's ass). As a 3rd grader, I couldn't wait to tell my teachers that one. And yes, I got in trouble for arguing with them when they told me my Uncle hadn't beat up Hitler (he did, in fact, beat up his racist sergeant and spent a good deal of time in the brig during the push towards Germany).