All of us, whether we live in a large city or the smallest town know the routine when out of town guests arrive show them the sights: maybe it is the tallest structure in town. It might be a grain silo or the Empire State Building. Hit the museums or maybe the local mall. Shop till you drop at Macy’s, Von Maur, maybe Farm and Fleet. The point is-show them your town, its local color, its cuisine. Take them to dinner, Tavern on the Green, The Elks Club, maybe Applebee’s. See the tourist traps. Show them what they think they want to see, what you are taught to show them.

Nothing profound usually happens on these ventures. Sometimes though, time can be made to stand still. A man’s deepest secrets spill out onto the floor and whisk away your vision of a mild and gentle man. A grandfather always at the ready, a pack of Wrigley’s Spearmint gum in his pocket for the children big and small who always flock around him.

Another drive to the routine, up Bear Mountain over the Hudson River and off to West Point. At the war museum a mural of Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah and Omaha beach hangs on a back wall. Just another exhibit, until Guy Randolph McKinniss approaches it and Sergeant McKinniss appears. The years melt away; the posture snaps straight, the words rush out as if they have been trapped for 40 years. All who stand with the sergeant are transported back in time. You are on a Battleship out to sea, your heart pounds as you embark on the “Duck” that will lead you into hell. Seasickness overtakes even the most seasoned sailor, which you are not. The shells crash around you in a surreal manner. The smell of vomit is as palpable as the smell of death in front of you. You describe to your visitors the journey to the beach, the noise, the shockwaves that make it nearly impossible to move, but you press forward. Stepping, crawling, falling over comrades who have paid the ultimate price. Their heroism marks a point on the beach just ahead for you to conquer. Time stands still. A millennium might have past, but you have taken the beach and made your way to the top. Paratroopers fall from the sky like snowflakes during a hard Indiana winter. Some land in a minefield, explosions thunder pieces of natures near perfect form all around you. You and your fellow soldiers traverse the field and carry the delicate half vaporized victims of chance out of the disaster. You carry a fellow sergeant out, but leave his legs behind, in a brilliant red and gold field in Normandy.

Time slips again and maybe a month has gone by, but has it? The blood of thousands seems to constantly slosh around at your feet. The battle has ended, victory has been achieved. Comrades who left the ship with you lie somewhere behind, cold and alone, their dreams snuffed out for the future, for freedom, for you.

A French girl maybe 18 or 20 stands in front of you like an angel, she offers you cheese made from goats milk and the little farm is your first real taste of the quiet you left behind. Your wife and little daughter can’t comprehend the terror you have wrought on the enemy, the terror the enemy wrought on you.

Guy Randolph McKinniss was my grandfather. But more importantly he is a hero. At West Point, he relived a reality that makes one’s worst nightmares childish.

Now almost sixty years later the soldiers who came home die at a rate of six thousand a day. With the armed forces spread so thin in our current war, the 21-gun salute is reduced to one gun fired three times; six other soldiers silently point their weapons to the sky. These are not young soldiers freshly in service, but old and frail veterans of WWII. Paying honor to another comrade who begins his final journey, back to the little family he created with his loving wife Lorraine many years before.

He was a man who's greatest pleasures in life came from the little things, Basketball especially Purdue and for years sitting on the bleachers at Jeff when his Grandson Rex was playing. I have yet to see how anyone could derive the pleasure he found in a pit of clay, a horseshoe and a metal stake but he did love to play. He also spent countless hours watching a baseball team he knew would never play in the worlds' series …Go Cubbies!

He had a great capacity to love dogs …especially those that adopted him as protector…. Silas was one of those dogs… many of us were witnesses to Dad fixing toast for Silas making sure that the jelly was spread all the way out the edges and cut into perfect squares…and then the two of them would eat breakfast like this was the way everyone started their mornings…. Then came Lady the dog he adopted not so willingly but loved her more than…well let just say he loved her. Everyday he walked or drove Lady over to the sign shop where the boys had made Dad chairman of the board. He and Lady had a special bond and in amazement the family watched as…… anything that Lady wanted Lady got!

He was really witty… one time he asked my dad “what do you know” and my dad trying to be funny told him all he knew you could write on the back of a postage stamp. Ranny without any hesitation replied to my Dad “Now you are bragging” He enjoyed getting a rise out of Lorraine…. When she decided she wanted something or needed something done around the house he would drag out the decision making her so angry and at that point he was satisfied. The bigger decisions in life would drive us all nuts…he would drive a car so long that most people didn’t recognize the make or model…. all the family would be pushing for the new car and then Lorraine would come to his defense….. “You kids know Dad always takes forever-making decisions it’s just his way”… a trait that he passed on to his son….. That has developed my patience to an art form…. and then he’d knock on our doors with a smirk because he wanted to surprised us with his new car. I think he and Elvis collaborated on the song “I did it my way”

For the grandchildren he always had that stick of gum and a Twinkie and of course the main staple of his life was his pickles and cheese. When Grandma was pushing milk….he always had a stash of cokes. One of his favorite things to do with the kids was to send someone down in the basement to knock on the ceiling while he told them of the one armed man that lived in the basement. He was a big tease and the kids loved it. I loved to watch him, as he would carry the joke to the point the kids were screaming and he would be laughing until he could hardly breathe.

His ethics alone were a guidepost for all of us. He proudly worked the same job for 40 plus yrs as an electrician He served his country for 3 yrs during World War II. In a time when so many are serving our country so that we can enjoy our freedom…I personally want to give honor to a man who was on the beaches during the invasion on D-day.

For me I am thankful for the man he was… because his son is a carbon copy of his father. Dad instilled in him the meaning of loyalty, honesty, kindness, and integrity. Dad was the perfect example of a real man, he did not demand it but gained everyone’s respect.

There is one thing Dad passed on to Bob that I wished he had saved for one the daughters…….Dad wrote the saying if it is not broken don’t fix it but once it is broken then you keep fixing it and fixing it but then when it is really broken you save it because you never know when you might need it…this was definitely passed on to his son …I will never be able to park in my garage!
As the years pasted I was able to watch what I am sure will be my future and the heritage he passed to all his children …

A love that was unending for his wife and family until his last breathe. As only the family knows his last Christmas was his most generous but beyond the material things left behind I know he would have listed his greatest treasures as God, Country and his family.

All my love forever:
Your favorite daughter-in-law
Loretta