Posted by Bobbie on July 7, 2011:

Don and I were kids when we got married - I was 18 and he was 23. He had just graduated from West Point and I was just out of high school. He said, "If you marry me, I'll take you to Europe". I said yes and he did. We saw a lot of Europe by camping in a pup tent. On one of our trips to Italy, we left my passport at the campground office. After traveling one hundred miles across treacherous mountain roads, we remembered. We tried to talk our way through one border crossing but it didn't work. Don had to be back on duty the next day so we didn't have time to go back to retrieve my passport. We went to another border crossing and in the end he smuggled me across three borders - Austria, Switzerland and back into Germany in the back of our old Opel covered with camping gear. We didn't get caught. If we had he might not have spent 29 years in the Army. Don never changed. He started out as a small town boy and remained that way his entire life. His loves were his wife, family, friends, Army football, World War II history, nature and travel. He never needed fancy cars or the latest gadgets. Seeing deer on the nature trail was more important to him. He would never tell anyone but in 40 years of earning a paycheck, he never missed a day of work. When we got the diagnosis, his first concern was me. He made certain I had all the information I would need when the time came. We always thought it would be better to go quickly but I value the time we had to walk down memory lane. We laughed and cried when we went through pictures and memorabilia. We would look at our family and have no regrets. At the end, he was surrounded by our loving family and nothing went unsaid. I am going to miss his great laugh and comforting presence but I appreciate all the wonderful years we had together. Godspeed My Love. Be Thou at Peace. Bobbie

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