2nd Lt. Richard Carl Nethaway, drafted in the Selective Service drawing in July 1941, sworn in at Leavenworth Kansas, 15 July 1941. Yeah, it was before Pearl. That did come along later that year.
I’m going to tell you a little about my part in WWII. It was a small part. Although most GI’s said that. Everybody had a small part. A small slice of it that was maybe inconsequential. Maybe not. Me, I flew airplanes. Transport airplanes. In China-Burma-India. The ‘Hump’.
There were lots of other jobs to do in WWII. You could go across North Africa, up to Italy. You could be an armorer, mechanic or cook or a sailor deep in the bowels of an aircraft carrier. Under attack, the decks above would be on fire, explosions every minute. Sheer terror. You fight fires, close watertight bulkheads, secure munitions, Hold a sailor’s hand as his life slowly ebbs out in a pool of blood. You could be on a submarine with depth charges death rattling your small fragile encased world of light and oxygen fathoms below water’s surface. I could have been one of those guys in the Normandy invasion, seasick, landing with bullets whizzing past, seeking to enter my body and end my life in agony. Then the hedgerow fighting, man-to-man, day upon day. Cold. Wet. Never dry. Never clean. Months. How can you not stand in awe of these men?
But like I said, I flew airplanes, had hot meals, slept in barracks.
For what it’s worth, let me tell you what I did.
To be continued -
