Hi, stumbled upon this thread and it got me thinking about my relatives, pretty much all of them. So, perhaps I’m late in the party but here it goes. I’m a Finn, and many of my relatives were in the war. Maternal grandfather drove a horse carriage in the Winter War, and later in the Continuation War he served as support gunner using Lahti-Saloranta M/26 automatic rifle. He was in his early 40s then. He died before I was born, but at one point I researched his war path. I don’t think any Finnish regiment had it easy, but his was in some of the hardest places. After the war he lived in a big farm, but couldn’t personally slaughter animals anymore, they had to hire help. He couldn’t stand to hear a gun being fired either.
The war also reached my grandmother shortly. She was the owner of that big farm. She, and her two small daughters (my mother and aunt) were captured by a spy/saboteur one day (“desantti” in Finnish), while grandfather was far away in the front. The spy stormed in one night pointing a gun at my granny and demanded lodging and food for a night, as he was evading the patrol sent to capture him. He left next morning, luckily without harming anyone. Granny was weird, sort of an angry and tough woman, her upbringing had been very hard. I got along with her fine, but even as a kid I could see she didn’t like most people. Nevertheless, even if she didn’t like the people she respected their human value, and so during the wars she used to bring food to a POW camp not far from her home, to be given to the prisoners.
Grand uncle was a machine gunner, decorated, I remember him well from my childhood. Used to read Donald Duck etc. comics to me when I was little. Both were named Otto. One uncle I remember as well, but his name escapes me now. He had a double sided scar in his wrist, the bullet had gone through. He had a great sense of humor, sort of a boyishly enthusiastic personality. He once told me, that in war people don’t die like in movies, they don’t say memorable words and then close eyes, instead they just fall, usually eyes wide open and stay there motionless.
My father came from a big family of 7 boys and 4 girls. Two of his brothers were in the war. One of them was killed by a machine gun fire, while he jumped over a fence, he was hit several times. Another one was hit in his jaw and belly, but survived. Dad told he was his dearest family member when they were growing up, always cheerful. Sadly, his spirit was crushed and he lived an anxious, reckless and relatively short life, dying accidentally in the 1950s.
My dad, luckily, was too young to serve. He lived a long active life, staying cheerful, his spirit always positive.
