May 9th again

May 9th – What fun it was to be in Ukraine to celebrate the end of the Great Patriotic War (we call it World War II – I never really thought about other people calling it other things.) I know WWII impacted us in the States. My grandparents were alive, my dad’s uncle even fought in the war. I have heard stories, I have seen movies and read books, but somehow in Ukraine, I am closer to that war. It seems every person and place in this country was touched by the war. Ukrainians were kind of in the middle between Germany and Russia. Everyone was impacted. Today, nearly every town has a monument of some sort to those who died in the war, everyone has a story.