As a boy, my dad wanted to follow his brothers who were enlisting the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. But he was only 15 years old and had to wait 3 years. In 1944 he signed up and left the small Arkansas town of Springdale for boot camp in Tyler, Texas. A year later he shipped out of New York Harbor for France. There he joined Patton's 5th Army, 3rd Battalion, 106th Division, 422nd Regiment, Company D, and the 4th Infantry's Heavy Weapons Platoon. He was 19. The year was 1945. They marched from France through Belgium pushing the Nazi Army all the way back to Berlin. There they waited, much to Gen. Patton's consternation, for the Russian Army to meet them at the future site of the Berlin Wall. Mission accomplished, Dad shipped out to Puerto Rico to begin jungle warfare training in preparation for the invasion of Japan. Thankfully the Japanese surrender allowed him to finish his tour of duty guarding the Panama Canal. He returned home in 1946, a 20 year old combat veteran and future minister.