When I was dating my future wife she took me home to meet her parents and one of the first things I noticed at their house was a photograph of a strikingly handsome young man wearing a kreigsmarine uniform,
Turns out he was my wife's grandfather, an Austrian who served in the U-boat service. His sub was sunk and he was one of the few to survive, exiting via a torpedo tube in his survival gear. When he reached the surface the crewman who had left just before him was floating dead on the surface. Amazing that he survived. After the war he moved to Connecticut and when my mother-in-law was 5 years old he took his own life. Likely he struggled with PTSD as so many others from that time must have, and for whom there was no support or treatment other than the local VFW bar. Not being American, that means of support was not even available to him.
He shouldn't have survived that sinking, and I can't help but think how, if that unlikely miracle had not taken place, my wife and my two kids, who I love more than anything else and who mean the world to me, would not exist.