When it came to World War II, my father was not much of a nostalgic. If it weren’t for some yellowed papers and old photographs, there would be almost no record of his three and half years in the U.S. Army.
The credit for preserving his military record really goes to his future wife and my mother; Lt. Mary J. Lynch. Stored safely in her dresser were three envelopes filled with letters, photographs and official correspondence collected from their years in the Army from 1942-1946.
It is hard to say whether the stack of papers is what was important to her or just what survived the years. Some are literally marching orders while others are just memos written in military jargon. All of them are carbon copies of course.
A typical memorandum comes from the 12th General Hospital and it instructs the nurses to “pack your trunk lockers at once for shipment. Do not put anything in your trunk locker that you will need in the future as no one knows when this will be available to you. Pack in it everything not to be carried in your bedroll or on your person. Keep in your possession your gas mask and helmet.”
Two single documents that tell the whole story are their military separation papers or officially the Army Separation Qualification Record. My father’s states that: “Lt. William Carroll attended OCS (Officer Candidate School) at Fort Dix and was assigned to a Signal Air Warning Battalion. His unit was sent overseas to Oran in 1943 with heavy radar. The unit went through all North Africa campaigns, then through Italy and took part in the invasion of Southern France on D-Day. Unit moved to N. France and into Germany and was near Munich on V-E Day and returned to U.S. in Oct. 1945.”
The author of my mother’s separation papers was even more brief. “Lt. Mary Lynch was trained at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, IL. She served as a general duty nurse in the Mediterranean, North Africa, and Rome-Arno campaigns.”
For all of the traveling and hardships and excitement, their entire military career was summarized into a paragraph by a clerk who probably typed thousands of similar carbon copy documents.
My favorite documents are the V-Mail letters that my father wrote to my mother as they traveled about North Africa and Italy. Working around the censors, the letters are written almost in code. “We are about 150 miles north of where I last saw you,” he says. “It looks like we are shipping out to one of two places and one of them is where you are now” and so on. Apparently no vital military secrets were divulged but they did keep in touch and marry after the war.
For those of us who never served in the military, it is easy to think of the military in large numbers and snippets from history books and TV news.
For those who did serve our country, I am sure it was much more of a personal experience full of memories both good and bad. They have their own letters and orders and separation papers that tell their story.
For the men and women in each one of those stories, we extend our thanks and appreciation as we celebrate Veterans Day.
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