My Dad entered the service in 1942 with basic training at Camp Robinson in Little Rock Arkansas, then advanced training with his unit at Ft. Carson Colorado. Upon completion of this training his company was sent to Ft. Dix NY for overseas travel to North Africa where his unit set up a major supply depot at Oran Algeria. Dad was in North Africa from March of 1943 to August of 1944 at which time his unit was shipped out for the invasion of southern France. Once in France his company set up supply depots throughout the French country side and traveling in a northward direction they went into Belgium right after the Battle of the Bulge and ended up in Antwerp, where he was when V - J Day came around.

Dad's battle field experience was that of a supply sergeant in the rear making sure that the vital and not so vital supplies used in the front lines made it to where they were going. One of my memories of Dad's stories was when his unit was traveling thru the Ardennes forest after the Battle of the Bulge. He noticed that the tops of some of the trees were cut and shaped in the form of a spear. This was done by the German troops to impale gliders and paratroopers.

After the war Dad returned to our home town of Longford, Kansas, where on March 28, 1948, he married my mom, Patricia C. Kail, also of Longford. He started his own bulk fuel delivery system; tried his hand at farming for a while; but then became the postmaster for the town, a job he stayed at for 20 years. When Dad retired he kept busy by mowing yards, cemeteries and for a while in the late 70's he mowed the Eisenhower Library Center's grounds.

Dad was one of the first group of men from Clay County to enlist in 1942 after Pearl Harbor and he didn't have too. Dad was pushing 40 years old when he enlisted, old enough to be excluded but he did it anyway. Whether it was an act of patriotism or the sense of adventure I am glad and proud of what my dad did during the war.