Joe Herman, Jr.
Remembering my Uncle Ben, 2015I remember my early encounters with Uncle Ben at the Herman Place where he and his brothers grew up under the supervision of Papa Herman and Grandmother Herman. As grandkids, we were all told that the razor strap hanging in the kitchen was to apply to our behinds if we erred too much from doing the right thing. It got our attention! As far as I know it was never applied to any of us grandkids but we somehow thought it must have played a part in the upbringing of our parents, aunts and uncles and for me that included Uncle Ben. I had full confidence that they would always do the right thing. I donâ??t know where we learned to say it, but we would say Uncle Ben shot a goose and killed a hen. We would laugh at that not really knowing why it was so funny. I remember Uncle Ben demonstrating his marksmanship with a 22 rifle in the road in front of the farm house by tossing 22 shell casings in the air and shooting a 22 rifle with open sights and hitting the shell casings. It was amazing. I never even tried that. I felt fortunate to hit my earth bound targets.Uncle Benâ??s real love of the outdoors was in fishing. Jan and I along with our two children at the time, Jody and Janell, were fortunate to meet with Uncle Ben and Aunt Sara at their cabin on the shore of Lake of the Woods on the Canadian side of the border of Canada and the US. We went on a family fishing trip with Uncle Ben and Aunt Sarah each day we were there. We caught fish and enjoyed Uncle Benâ??s and Aunt Sarahâ??s famous shore lunches. We enjoyed good visits on the boat and shore and also in the cabin during the evenings. We were there for almost a week and it was one of our most memorable family vacations.When Uncle Ben would make some work related trips to the Washington, DC area when I was in high school and would visit with us in Arlington, VA, he would work in at least one fishing trip. I got to go on a couple of those with him and enjoyed doing so. It was fishing from shore on those trips and Uncle Ben knew how to fish and catch them regularly!Uncle Ben could spin some very interesting tales about his adventures along the old muddy Boggy creek. It always sounded like a very mysterious place with a lot of squirrel hunting to be done and fish to catch and water moccasins to avoid! I remember hearing some of Uncle Benâ??s war stories. He was a forward observer for the artillery and had as a target one of the bridges over the Rhine as I recall. He had fine tuned his target to be one of the towers on the bridge. He had one locating round fired and then with the confidence built up in his continuing days in combat made the adjustments and ordered â??fire for effectâ?. The tower was destroyed. Yep, that was one of the Herman stories!It was only in the last couple of years of Uncle Benâ??s life that I learned that Uncle Ben had landed at Omaha Beach on D-Day. I was amazingly proud to learn of that.I am blessed to be a part of Uncle Benâ??s and Aunt Sarahâ??s extended family.Joe D. Herman, Jr.