On To Camp Shelby
"After I finished high school, I went to a trade school and learned to weld and got a job in the shipyard in Mobile. I worked there about 10 or 11 months."

"I got tired of getting mail from the Draft Board in Brandon, so I went to the Air Base in Jackson to get in the Air Corp. I filled out all the papers, and I heard the Captain in the other room ask the driver if the trucks were ready to go to Camp Shelby. He said we were all going that came in that day, so I decided if I had to go to Camp Shelby, I would wait and be drafted. The day I got called to be in Brandon, we had to load one guy on the bus, he was so drunk, or pretending to be. When we got to Camp Shelby, in Hattiesburg, he layed down on the gravel road and started kicking like he was a sick horse. When a soldier came by and told him to get up, he stood at attention, and said yes sir, Captain. It must have worked, for they sent him back home."

"They said we all had a choice of service we wanted to be in...I thought they would put us where they needed us. So, I said I would take what was open. I ended up in the Army Air Corp, Fourth Corps Area on April 22, 1943 as a Private. A Captain R.U. Christ, FD, was over me."

His three brothers would get drafted as well - Carey, Truett, and Ches. Carey had a kidney taken out after basic training, and didn't serve. Truett got sick while at Camp Shelby, and went home. Ches would serve in field artillery in the Army, in Africa, Italy, and France, and was instrumental in the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. He met Dad once while on leave in Rome during the war.