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We lost dad 3 1/2 years ago. He'd be 93 if he were still with us.

He graduated HS in 1942 and was drafted shortly after. After basic he was assigned to work in hospitals on Army Air Corps bases where bomber crews trained. He spent time in Louisiana and New Mexico. In the Fall of 1944 he was sent to Paris TX for infantry training. My best guess was as part of the planned invasion of Japan, but dad said they were told nothing.

He completed training in December just as the Germans counter attacked at the Battle of the Bulge. His unit was on the Queen Mary within days, which had been converted to a troop ship.

He was given a Garand in France and spent the next 2 days in a boxcar headed to Belgium. Once there they took his rifle, painted a red cross on his helmet and he spent the last 5 months of the war driving this ambulance to the front and returning them to hospitals in the rear. He drove across the Rhine on a pontoon bridge while under fire.

The way the points system worked dad was one of the last to get home in April 1946. Almost a year after the war ended. The return trip took twice as long on one of the Victory ships.