Norman 'Bud' Goeken enlisted in the U.S. Army on August 20, 1942 to go to Radio Mechanic Signal Corps School in Kansas City for nine months. On May 10, 1943 he was inducted into the Army at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas and sent to Camp Kohler north of Sacramento, California for basic training. After a month, he caught the measles and then had to start training all over again. After basic training, he went to Camp Davis California to Signal Corps School for 23 weeks. He took leave in December and returned home to Kansas for Christmas by train. In February of 1944, he left California on a troop train headed for the war in Europe. The train stopped in WaKeeney, Kansas where he sent a letter home. The troops left Brooklyn, New York February 11, 1944 on a refitted English Luxury Liner protected by a battleship convoy and headed for England arriving on February 23, 1944. He joined the 3118 Signal Service Group attached to General Eisenhower's Supreme Headquarters radio transmitters and receivers on a tennis court where they worked and lived. Buzz Bombs would go over so they dug fox holes. After D-Day, the U.S. Armed Forces moved into France. He left Dover, England on a pontoon boat with trucks and all the equipment with the English Army and WAC personnel and landed on Omaha Beach. From there they drove the trucks off the beach to Versailles, France to an old military camp. The transmitter sight was set up out in the country where they used radio telegraph to communicate with the various armies and back to the USA. He went to Reims, France and set up transmitters after the Battle of the Bulge. On May 7, 1945 German Army officers came into Reims and surrendered. The Signal Corp center was used for the first initial peace treaty between the Germans and the Allied Forces. Shortly after that, he flew to Frankfurt, Germany where he was assigned to the U.S. Occupational Force doing the same transmitter work. At one time he was assigned to set up communication facilities in Moscow but the Russians did not approve. On December 6, 1945, he departed Germany on the Rhine River through Antwerp, Belgium on a Liberty Boat the S/S Irvin MacDowell. On December 20, 1945 he arrived in Boston and was welcomed back home with a steak dinner and night in a hotel room. The next day he took a train to Dallas, Texas to the separation center at Camp Fannin, Texas. He was honorably discharged on Christmas Day, December 25, 1945 and caught a bus back to Norton County, Kansas. He received the EAME Campaign Medal with 3 Bronze Stars, the Good Conduct Medal and the World War II Victory Medal. He married Faye Best on August 17, 1947 in Lenora, Kansas and they moved to Colby, Kansas in November of 1948 where he worked for the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company for 33 years.