People who are gone...More about Mr. R

I spent the day driving in circles as usual. I have been thinking about the death of Mr. R. I know he had an amazing story and I can't remember it. I know I wrote it down as well. I can't find my journal from that time.
Mom died several years ago. With her went a number of really good stories. I was supposed to remember all sorts of stuff. I didn't. When she died my mind kind of went blank...
There are a couple other people whose stories I miss as well. I think I have the information in my head and when I try to write it down it is gone.
Then is my other issue. I hate to bug people. I think I'm a bit insecure. There are a couple old pluggers who fascinate me. But when you start to write stuff down they clam up.
We had a relative who made his own electric guitars and invented all sorts of stuff. He was the bane of church potlucks. Sometimes brought his own giant plate. He was a confirmed bachelor farmer, dress funny-wore converse high tops and had the most amazing comb-over I have ever seen. Then suddenly he was dead. Turns out he had a secret wife... Who would of thought.
So I did some more searching for Mr. R.
It is kind of silly. I have the family phone number memorized. I didn't realize this but someone called me from salem wanting hay. I thought I had the number but the only number that came to my mind was 501-581-xxxx. So I look it up on Google and here it is Mrs. R. She lives at a different address I think, but that number was still in my head. I could call her up and ask her this stuff. She probably doesn't remember me but she would most likely be happy to talk.
I can't do that. Not sure why. But I can't.
I did find that his obit has even been referenced by Wired Magazine in Feb of 2007.
Found the answers to his cryptogram. Which provided me a clue to his story.
One of the answers was "A beginning - august, nineteenfortythree"
In August 1943 is the 10th mountain division went into combat. They made a landing in the Aleutian islands to secure them from the Japanese. They found the island deserted. From there it appears they went on to Italy, without their special snow/maintian ski sorts of equipment and suffered heavy casualties. Basically infantry heavy fighting. Not especially what they were trained for.
I think something happened to him during the landing. I thought he told me he perhaps broke his leg with prevented him from going on into combat. This turned out to be a huge second chance for him.
Now my problem is of course, since I can't remember anything, I don't know for sure that he was a ski-trouper, I don't know if I read this in a WWII book somewhere and attributed it to him and I don't know if his family would be annoyed with me for discussing it on the internet.
I'm going to remove his name from previous post so it is not searchable. I feel like I am telling someone else's story and getting it wrong.
I resolve to write people's stories down. They should not be lost...