Coolest veteran story I recall. An old dude w an atraumatic swollen knee. Needed it drained. Said that every couple of years it just swole up for no reason. Looked pretty benign so I went to tap it.

While doing the procedure we chatted. He said the knee issue began with an old injury. I asked how it happened and the story was pretty epic. See, he was on a destroyer in the Pacific in WWII.

He was in the crows nest (yes they still had one) doing lookout duty. He saw a Japanese sub surface and loose a couple of torpedoes at them. He sounded the alarm and quickly started to climb down bc he didn’t want to be stuck up there if those fish hit.

The skipper threw the boat hard starboard and the torpedoes missed. But the sudden turn caused the boat to heel and he fell off the ladder, wrenching his knee.

The knee was badly damaged enough that they evac’d him from the boat and that was the end of the war for him. But while he was waiting for transport home a hurricane hit.

The destroyer went down in the hurricane with all hands. He reflected that he was pretty lucky to have had that knee injury as it saved his life. But he was still very sad about his friends who died.

And anyways here we are sixty-some years later and sometimes the knee swells up which is sort of a pain but makes him remember his friends who died.

My jaw was hanging wide open at this story but for him it was literally ancient history, told as an amusing if slightly wistful anecdote. How many other stories must there have been that we never heard?