I was very young, not more than nine, when my dad first told me the story of his own father. My grandfather, before he married Grandma and settled down to run Hodapp Nelson Clothing Company, earned two silver stars for bravery after successfully taking out a German machine gun nest during World War I. I listened intently to the story, but there were holes in it my young mind could not fill in. What is a machine gun nest, I had asked, and what is a cartridge belt? My dad patiently explained:

My grandfather's name was Philip Hodapp. He was a United States Marine, fighting Germans on French soil, when he received a letter from home. The letter explained that his father, Frank Hodapp, was very sick and would most likely have passed on by the time Philip held this very letter in his hands. The next day, devastated, my grandfather volunteered along with one other Marine to charge a German machine gun nest. A suicide mission, really, but my grandfather was successful. Although his fellow volunteer was cut down by German fire, my grandfather took three German bullets in the cartridge belt, and he lived to celebrate the end of the war in November. My great-grandfather recovered from his illness, and father and son were reunited in Madelia the following July.

I remember being fascinated by the fact that soldiers actually ran towards people who were shooting at them, trying to kill them. I imagined my grandfather's cartridge belt to be like a great big belt buckle, a shield, and I imagined the dents where the German bullets had bounced off.

I did not, however, imagine the bodies of the German soldiers who had died there that day. Not until I was much older did I try to complete that picture, an attempt to understand the anatomy of courage and the reality of war. Was this when my fascination with war began? Or did I learn military history later, only to remember that my grandfather was there?