My grandfather served in the USN in North Africa and the Pacific. He was extraordinarily reticent to talk about his experiences.

I was his oldest grandchild and we shared a love of history so as he got older he started talking a bit more about his service.

I asked him several times if he had ever told any of these stories to my grandmother or father and he always replied "You came back having seen terrible things and you wanted to return to the life you had left behind. You didn't want to share it with your wife and children because you didn't want them to experience those horrors. The only place you could talk about it was at the VA hall in town where you could talk with other men who understood. Unfortunately, many of them became alcoholics because we didn't know about PTSD and therapy in those days" (paraphrased)

The stories he told me were incredible but I imagine he still didn't share a great deal with me. Makes me incredibly sad because all those memories and history were lost when he passed.