Chapter 1 - Uncle Sam Wanted Me

It may seem that I was callous in my attitude. I hated to see my mother cry, and knew why she was crying. She had just gotten my draft notice out of the mail box. Uncle Sam already had her oldest son and now was getting number two. I really did feel bad about having to leave all the farm work on daddy and mother and a nine year old brother, but I was elated over the idea of getting into the army, preferably the Army Air Corps.

It delighted me so, that I put that old mule in high year to get everything possible done on that farm in the next thirty days, because Uncle Sam had pointed his finger straight at me and said "I Want You". My Army experiences I will try to cover in some detail in the next few pages. Those next thirty days were about as slow to pass as any days I have ever known. I worked from sun-up until sundown, as hard as I ever did, while constantly wondering what was ahead, in the completely new life that I would be going into.

My brother Robert went into the Air Force in Oct. or Nov. before I went in the army the following May. He was probably a lot wiser about the ways of the world than I, since he was two years older and had worked away from the farm a lot more, I'm not sure where he was stationed when I went in! but then again that is his story, and I won't try to tell it for him.

His war story alone would make a very large book, and it will be a pity if it is never recorded. I don't suppose it ever will be since he is reluctant to talk about some of it until this day. I will just state that my brother, Robert, flew on the B 17 Bomber called the Flying Fortress. He was a waist gunner, and on their eleventh mission they were shot up badly, and had to bail out over Normandy France. The tail gunner was killed, the other nine got down, and eight of them were captured. Robert landed his chute in a tree and hurt his back when he cut himself down. The Germans missed him because he pulled a tree top over him for camouflage. A French farmer found him the next morning and carried him to his house, put him in bed, and they nursed him for six weeks. when he was able to get about, he joined the free French who kept him hid out until after D day, when he was rescued by some British troops who got him back to England. He was missing in action for six months.

You can determine from the last paragraph why in no way I would attempt to tell Robert's war experiences, although there would no doubt be some very interesting episodes and frightening things to tell about. Some day maybe I can get him to give me a detailed interview and permission to write it, but I wouldn't hold my breath until this happens.

I've kind of gotten sidetracked from telling my story. That April day that I got my notice giving me 15 days to report for an examination, about thirty of us were transported to Fort McCelland at Anniston, Ala by Greyhound Bus. About five or six were from Reform, and five or six from Gordo, the rest of them were from Tuscaloosa mostly from the Cottondale area. I think all but about five passed the physical, and the rest of us were inducted into the Army that day, and were given a ten or fifteen day leave to get things in order to go in. I didn't feel like I needed this much time but I reasoned that Uncle Sam knew best, but at this time I was beginning to realize that going into the Army might not be such a glamorous thing after all. I had never had to get naked in a room full of men before, and had never seen boys drink beer and cut up the way this bus load of boys did. I certainly wasn't a sissy, but I was terribly inexperienced and naive, for an almost nineteen year old boy, but I had no second thoughts about backing out, since the possibility of that was nonexistent.

Those fifteen days were very hard to live through, my mind was in an almost constant turmoil, torn between having to say good-bye to the only life I had ever known, even if a lot of it had not been very pleasant. Thinking and wondering about all the things that lay ahead, I would wonder why I had not studied harder and learned more in school, in order to be better prepared to face army life. This really did prove to be a handicap, since in high school I had spent four years taking Vocational Agriculture, mostly because it was easy and I liked the teacher. How much better off I would have been if I had taken two years of algebra, and two years of Geometry instead. I really enjoyed L.J. Howell's classes in agriculture but didn't learn very much that was practical, since I never became a farmer. This high school teacher, whom everyone referred to as Professor Howell, made a lasting impression on me in many ways. He always said "I don't teach Vocational Agriculture, I teach boys how to be men". He almost never used a text book-he taught by demonstration and example. He was the first person that I ever heard say "The only big mistake one can ever make is to make the same mistake twice". He was always giving us little gems of wisdom. He thought a lot of me and I of him, and I've carried his memory with me longer than any other teacher I've ever had before or since.

I forgot to tell you about the old gentleman that I met and worked with on a job that I had in Aliceville. His name was Benjamin Franklin Lyles and he was about the most colorful and interesting old fellow that I had ever met. He was older than my daddy and was a carpenter by trade, but for a man of his day and age was really well educated and well read. we had so many long conversations on the job, and I learned so much talking and listening to him. He never seemed to tire of my questions and was able to answer the biggest part of them. The old gentleman told me that he was going to  write a history of Reform Ala and he did many years later.

At this point in my life probably the most traumatic experience I had was graduating from high school. There were many mixed emotions-relief at getting it over with sadness that a part of my life was ending, and I would miss so many of my friends and never see some of them again. There were twenty-three kids in my class, eight boys and fifteen girls. I had a crush on at least three or four of the girls, but I'm sure that none of them ever knew about it, since I was a very timid person. That still did not keep me from day-dreaming about them, holding them in my arms and whispering sweet nothings. In real life this never happened, but I was a great day-dreamer. I was also very fond of reading and read everything I could get my hands on, which was not much since we could not afford a daily paper, which I would have dearly loved. I read the same old books several times. One thing I never daydreamed about was sitting here and writing this so called story of my life. In my day dreams I was going to be very rich and famous and be able to buy new cars and trucks, anytime I needed them, which was about as rich as I could imagine anyone to be.