Forever Hero
Nial Ogle, my Great Grandpa, fought many hard battles during his lifetime. From what I recall of his life was that he was a brave and intelligent man. I remember when he had skin cancer and I asked “how do they get rid of it?” He told me “they take a big chunk of skin and cut it out with a knife.” He was always fascinated by the most gruesome things, and since he loved to read, he knew just about anything. When Nial was in tenth grade, sixteen years old, his dad left him, his mom, his grandpa, and his six sisters to run off with his secretary to California. My Grandpa didn’t look at this situation as “this mess isn’t my problem” or “I’m just a kid,” instead he dropped out of school and got a job to support his family. At the age of twenty Nial decided to join the army in WWII to continue to support his family.
He wasn’t just any Grandpa, he was a hero to his family, and he will always be a hero in my heart. He faced everything that could go wrong in his life and it all started at age sixteen. I can’t imagine providing for eight other people at such a young age. His life deserves recognition because he had so many everyday battles to fight against. His life shows that even through the hardest times, you’ve got to keep your head held high.
Nial Ogle served our country during WWII in the Tank Destroyer Unit, and while he was in basic training he fell from a thirty foot wall and broke his back. The fall caused him to be paralyzed for fourteen months from the neck down. Despite this injury, when he got out of the hospital he directly went back to fight for our country in WWII. He boarded the ship with crutches but always said “somehow those crutches disappeared on the trip across the ocean.” He later earned the Bronze Star for an act of valor. Nial Ogle would always bounce back from medical problems and injuries even when it seemed all odds were against him. He had open-heart surgery in 1977 when he was about fifty-two years old. In the thirty-five years since then he had intestinal cancer, skin cancer, multiple heart attacks, stints, many full and mini strokes, carpal tunnel, hernia, knee surgeries, torn bicep, torn rotator cuff (both arms), knee replacement, and was a diabetic for over fifty years. He also had a total of twenty-two broken bones along with many other injuries.
If you looked at my Great Grandpa’s medical history you would probably wonder, how did this guy survive? Nial Ogle was certainly not like any other man, and he was a fighter from the beginning. He would never give up, and he made sure that everything was done that needed to be done. He always had a smile on his face even in the hardest times and always tried to hide his agony and pain.
Sadly, Nial Ogle died on June 16, 2012. Nial lived to be almost ninety years old, and his legacy has lived on with his family. It seemed that even though he lived a long life that he was taken from us too sudden. The battles he faced were tough and rugged, but he overcame every obstacle that came his way. He fought Leukemia in the end, but I suppose it was his time to leave and depart from us. He was a courageous soldier and he will forever be in our hearts never to be forgotten.