My father's first cousin (Guiher Gene Greenwood) was 17 about to turn 18 in January 1942, the day after the Pearl harbor attack, he and all of the senior boys at the Winterset High school walked the 2 blocks to the Winterset post Office and enlisted for the draft. He actually joined the Army Air Corp after high school and wound his way through Flight school and OCS. He did his first B-17 bomber mission for the 100th Bomb Group (Heavy) as a co-pilot in late January 1945. He did 27 missions before the war ended in April 45. He stayed for 32 years in the Air Force and retired in 1945.
My father was 2 years younger and tried to enlist in 1943 but he had too many health issues and he could not get in. Unfortunately, they are all gone. I don't know any WWII survivors today. I knew 40 or 50 in my small town growing up. Now, none are left. The last one was a B-17 gunner who walked up to the Post Office the same day my dad's first cousin did the same walk. My step grandfather had been in the Navy between 1920 and 1922. H re-joined the Navy in September 1942 and stayed for the duration. He was a Corvette crewman in the Atlantic chasing submarines and then he was transferred to the Pacific. He took a boat load of Marines into Iwo Jima and later took them back to the rear after they were wounded. He was on his way to a new assignment in California when the Air Force dropped the atomic bombs. As soon as he hit California they discharged him. He returned to his life as a police officer and retired from that in the middle 1960's.
kwg
