My Favorite Veteran by Jordan Kallus (my granddaughter)
Rufus Warren Smith, born in 1918, also known as RW to family and friends was my great grandpa. He married Jean Smith in 1940 and was working for the Civil Service as an electrician.
In May 1943, he was sent to Warrington, England, for the Civil Service to work as a technician for the 401st Air Depot. On the way to England, he had to travel by ship that was a part of a convoy. Some of the ships in the convoy were sunk by German submarines.
When he got to England, he was working at the 8th Air Force. He did the electrical wiring on the airplanes that were used in the war.
After 18 months of working in England, he was sent home to the U.S. When returning home, the U. S. got involved in the war and in 1945, he was drafted in the 25th Division of the Army as a Private 1st Class for World War II. His home base was Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and he fought in the Philippines on Luzon Island.
In June of 1945, the Japanese were firing upon them when my great grandpa pulled a friend out of the way and got shot by a Japanese machine gun. He was shot in the left eye and the bullet went out of his left ear.
After he was wounded, he was sent to a hospital in the Philippines. At the hospital, they did what they could for him before shipping him off to a hospital in Washington.
In September of 1945, he was then transported by ship to a hospital in El Paso, Texas. After many surgeries, he had a glass eye, a rebuilt ear, and the left side of his face had been reconstructed. When he was released from the hospital after 6 months, he received an Honorable Discharge, a Good Conduct Medal, a Combat Infantry Badge (which means you were a shooter in action and later upgraded to the Bronze Star for WWII Vets), and a Purple Heart for being wounded in combat.
For the rest of his life, he was a disabled veteran. He worked as an auto mechanic in his own shop in Pasadena, Texas until he retired. He died in 1993.
My granddaughter wrote this about my dad. Hasbeen
