I know one. He is a member of our club. He enlisted when he was about 16 or 18. Spent most of his time onboard a sub.
They have one like it in Muskegon, he to me though it one day. I can’t believe how cramped it was.
This morning reading this and looking out the window of the living room of a beautiful morning, reminded me of what a lot of young men went thru in what was WW2.....
I am recalling an older guy, that I met at a local tire shop waiting room, here in town while we were waiting to have tires put on our cars...Don't recall his name now, because this was back around 1995 or 1996.... I am sure he is gone now...
He told me about a lot of experiences he had during the war, but some of the highlights of what like was like for our young men in those days I will briefly share what he told me...
He was from Dallas Oregon.... and was 17 years old and a Senior in High School in December 1941. After hearing about the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he went down to the courthouse in town Sunday afternoon.. In a town of 2000 people, he was met with over 200 of the local boys and men at the court house, that afternoon...those there spent the night on the lawn of the courthouse, to be there at 8 AM when the office of the local recruiter opened their doors Monday morning....
Monday December 8th 1941 most of those young men were new recruits for the USArmy....The Army had recently opening a training base not far south of their town and north of Corvallis Oregon.... the Base was for training of people bound to be in Armor Units....they all were attending basic and AIT not that far from home.... after that they were shipped to Ft Hood Texas to receive their equipment, new Stewart Tanks.. trained on them a short while, and then found themselves shipped to North Africa for the invasion there in early 1942.....
90 days after leaving Oregon, they found themselves engaging Rommel at Kasserine Pass.... they suffered badly....
of the 180 boys from Dallas Oregon, that were put into that Tank Unit, that had spent the night on the court house lawn on the evening of Sunday, December 7th 1941 to join our arm forces.. many still in high school, or just recently graduated.. The Battle of Kasserine Pass, took the lives of 172 of those young men....only 8 of them survived that battle.....
of the 8 of them that survived, with the rest of the company essentially wiped out, they were shipped to other units to fill gaps as replacement for men who had lost their lives in that early battle...
of those 8 men that survived Kasserine Pass, 5 of them never made it home to Dallas Oregon... population of 2000 in 1941, and not much more by the summer of 1945....The gentlemen I had been talking with, was one of those 3 that survived WW2....
of those 180 guys who signed up the morning of Dec 8th 1941, after spending the night on the courthouse lawn... Three came home in 1945....
Dallas Oregon and this story, was repeated in 1941, with much of the same ending in 1945.. young men who left high school, or had recently graduated, answering the call of their nation.. never made it home and their remains scattered all across the globe..
We don't think much of the sacrifice of those that answered the call, and the price not only they paid, but their home town paid... to defend our freedoms and our way of life, against the tyranny World Wide, spread by Nazis, and Imperial Japan.....
We should remember their answering a call.. and the support they had and paid by their community, and their families...
Less we NEVER EVER forget.......
