A grandfather’s quiet service worth honoring

Abram Villarreal served as a Seabee, but he hardly ever spoke about it.

My grandfather never talked about the War. In Spanish, he called it “la Guerra.” In the 1990s, as a World War II veteran heading into his twilight years, I was a teenager that wanted to know more about the War.

We read textbooks about it and watched short films of it during history class. My history teacher made it sound like the War was the biggest event in the history of the world. Maybe it was, but it was hard to see from someone who fought in it and never said anything about it.

Grandpa Abe was a Seabee. I was named after him. His first name was spelled Abran and his last name is still misspelled to this day on his military headstone. Most people spell our last names with one “r” instead of two.

I remember his funeral. The folding of the flag. The shots fired in the air. The salutes. The solemnity that comes with someone who gets a special kind of recognition for serving his country. I learned more about his service by being at his funeral and by reading about him in the newspaper. I didn’t know much from what he said about it because he never said much about it.

A soldier who made it back home.