Got an interesting email this weekend, from a man researching his family tree. Which happens to include Grayson Blackwell Lassiter. And he had a few questions about what I or my father might be able to tell him about the Naval Corpsman who saved my father's life on Iwo Jima.

Turns out we didn't really know much that would help him track down information on this family member. And it was a tricky call to make to my Dad, since he doesn't know about this diary. How do I explain this man emailed me about Lassiter, without mentioning why the man came to me in the first place?

The trick to it? Call when they're in the middle of Sunday dinner, so Dad doesn't have time or the inclination to ask.

Also tried a quick Google search of my own on Lassiter, to see what has come onto the web since I last looked long ago, and found this, his high school picture.

So that is the face of the man who saved my father's life, and allowed my own to exist. He looks so young. Yes, the photo was taken three years or so before Iwo, but still so young.

But here's the interesting part. The family member researching Lassiter mentioned Grayson was descended from a Civil War soldier.

A Confederate Civil War soldier.

My great-grandfather ran away from home to fight for the Union.

So, our family line was saved by a man whose ancestor may have faced ours on a battlefield.

Yes, I know that is highly unlikely. It was a big war. And great-grandfather ended up spending most of his time in a Confederate prison.

You know those movies about Confederate prisons that always have some underaged kid included as a prisoner?

That was us.

And by nature, a civil war is full of instances of neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother. The tapestry of American history since that conflict has many cases of old hostilities being forgotten woven into it.

I just didn't expect it in my family's history.