CHAPTER 1
Still in America

Before I joined the Army I was classified as Limited Service for having poor eye sight. Eye tests taken at the Induction Center in Detroit stated I definitely had to wear glasses. Okay, so I’m a Limited Service fellow with poor eye sight. But my eye sight was good enough to see a very pretty girl in Detroit named Grace Turner. Both of us had decided being Limited Service the Army wouldn’t be needing me for a while, so we’d get married. My fiancé was working for General Motors in Detroit as a secretary to two big shots, and would tell me when we could get married.
It wasn’t quite six months later I received notice to report to an Induction Center in another section of Detroit. I went as a civilian and when I left the Center I was classified as an Army infantry soldier, with limited eye sight without glasses.
There must have been an officer who saw my preparation papers as I didn’t enter the Army right away. I was given papers to have my eyes tested and later received GI glasses. They were so thick and heavy I didn’t wear them right away. I carried a case in my pants pocket with the GI glasses and continued wearing regular civilian glasses.
During a February snow storm in Detroit I was ordered to report to Camp McCoy in Wisconsin as a Limited Service soldier. I’d be leaving a snow-covered town. I didn’t know the weatherman makes more snow in Wisconsin than he does for Detroit.
Our barracks in the camp looked like some farm barns. There were two floors to the building. The main entrance was of course the front of the building. There was a small door in back of the building with a small stair leading down from the second floor. Each floor had a small stove. We mostly used wood for fuel. All the GIs in the building on both floors believed the person who ordered the stoves wasn’t very smart. Lots of times we went to bed and lay beneath one thick woolen blanket with our GI cloths on, and some of us even wore our GI overcoat, too.
After being in camp for a week, we all were given paper forms to fill out. I distinctly remember a question. “Why are you in Camp McCoy?” I also remember a lot of answers were the same. “Because the train and bus brought me.”
Another question “What War time service would you prefer?” Since I had five years as secretary for the Corps of Engineers, I asked if I could be assigned to the Corps. A month later I was classified as a Secretary-Court Reporter for the Infantry. Right away I typed a letter to Senator Vantenberg of Michigan. Dad knew him as the senator often stopped at Dad’s gas station in Newaygo, Michigan.
A month later a sergeant stopped in my barracks and said a Major in Headquarters wanted to see me. I thought it might be something good.
I saluted the Major and told him my name. He told me to sit in a chair, and then he looked at me. “Did you get permission to write to the Senator?” He asked.