Here's what he looked like.
I also learned today that he was a soldier in his youth, which I'd never known. We found a picture of him in uniform at Ft. Oglethorpe, undated. His uniform included a 1911 Campaign Hat. I was told he'd been rejected for enlistment in WWII because he was a welder, and needed more at home -- he worked on the nuclear program at Oak Ridge in that capacity. It turns out, he must have been trying to reenlist.
6 comments:
Bet you would LOVE that car!
Complete change of subject. I am not making a general announcement at my own site, but many of my regulars come to this site as well. I will be posting lightly or not at all for a few days, for reasons that the Maggie's Farm people will understand if they have followed the recent comments at my site. The admonition not to feed the dog from the table may come to mind. Turning invisible is likely my best superpower at present.
Thank you.
My paternal Grandfather was a clerk and chandler at Oak Ridge during WWII.
LittleRed1
One of my grandfathers had a similar story. He served in the US Army before WWII, then got out and picked up a skilled trade and opened his own shop. When WWII broke out, he re-enlisted and tried to become a fighter pilot, but they found out about his trade and so he did that for the military for the duration of the war. He was in uniform, but he was never shipped overseas.
Funny how little we know about our grandparents, often. Part I suppose is that they were of a generation that just didn't see the need to talk much about themselves. Part that they'd seen things that they figured we needn't be exposed to. Part that when we're little we don't think to ask, and when we're older, they're gone or can't talk about it anymore.
I wish I could learn more about what my grandfather did with the Kuomintang warlord he was affiliated with, but he's gone as is my grandmother, and even my aunts and uncles know very little. One thing I do know is that there were people who had been in service with/under him who would visit him from time to time, and seemed to hold him in quite high regard.
Good point, douglas. The grandfather I mentioned above was in one of the last horse-mounted cavalry units in the US Army. Preoccupied with my own life, I never thought to ask him what that was like until after he passed away and, suddenly, there were all these things I wanted to talk to him about.
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