It's Christmas Eve, 1944, and Frank Gartz just took the test to determine what his classification in the Army Air Corps would be. Pilot? Navigator? Bombardier? Gunner? Read on to find out about the tests he describes that will determine his fate. He's now in California—Santa Ana Army Air Base, to be exact, and this next week he'll be on pins and needles, waiting.
One hundred fifty years ago today, President Abraham Lincoln stood before a crowd of ten to twenty thousand people, gathered in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where the bloodiest battle of the Civil War had raged the previous July. Fifty thousand had died.
On November 11th, 1943, when Veterans Day was called Armistice Day, my grandmother sat down to write her youngest son, my Uncle Frank. She had received two anxious, confessional letters from him, telling her how he got into an argument with a sergeant and was now paying the price in demerits and restrictions.
Frank was no troublemaker. Oh, sure, he was a mischievous kid in high school, fun-loving, and an occasional prankster, but everyone who knew Frank found him warm and charming. In this letter Frank describes an altercation that ensues between him and a sergeant who accuses Frank of not performing his duty. Frank knows he's not at fault and argues back. Well, in the military, that doesn't fly. See what happens.
Letter 11-10-43 Dear Mom We had some more snow here last night and the campus looks beautiful. I’m feeling fine and just wrote out an application for a pass again, but I don’t think I can get it. We had [...]