I don't have any details yet, because I found out about this on Facebook, when I posted about Duncan passing away. My buddy Steve heard that the funeral was on Jan 3rd.
Wasn't I just here earlier today? I can't believe this. Sometimes it's hard to keep smiling, when bad news, after bad news arrives on your doorstep.
This one is particularly tough, for I actually knew him. He was one of the first vets I got to meet over the phone; a man from my father's unit.
One of the first things I remembered about him was his KEEN sense of humor. We never had a conversation which didn't consist of 75 percent laughter. That was him all the time.
Many of you will know him because of my documentary, and many of you will continue to see his smiling face and encounter his laughter and his great outlook on life. In this, I am very lucky. So I will have a piece of him with me, and with us, forever.
Farewell Cliff. You are now with your dear wife, who passed away a mere few weeks ago. I am glad you will be reunited, but you shall be missed here on earth.
I have been busy scanning in a lot of his photographs and papers and recently came across names to go along with most of the photographs. Once I have them all labeled and straightened I will post them.
The other day one of our store reps came in to take our order and also to give us a calendar. Cool. As she was leaving she handed me the calendar and said it was pretty nice, as it featured many dates related to all kinds of things. So she flips open the calendar and she randomly reads off a few to me including one about Hitler coming to an end. Her comment was something like, Hitler, now who would care about that?
So I looked at her and said something like this, "Well I would, it was a very important event, and as a WWII historian, means even more to me." She looked back at me totally perplexed, and didn't say a thing as she walked out the door.
This is a photograph of my grandfather Sgt. Frank Altman with the 157th © Engineer Battalion, Company C.
