i went in December. that was kinda stupid.

Do we have any supple Red Reporter farm hands ready to take his place as the youngest active member?

9snicker)

He grew up on a farm in western central Ohio. Got married in Sept. of 1929, in Oct. thestock market crashed and the great depression descended upon America.He and my mom moved in with his parents where we cut corn for a dollar a day. Mom canned tomatoes to sell for a nickle a jar.

He joined the Army Air corp in 1941 (after Pearl Harbor) at age 32 and taught hand to hand combat training to new recruits. He got the job because his drill sergeant (during basic training)was a sadistic bastard who kept picking on a scrawny 17 year old Jewish recruit from New Jersey..Dad figured that this DI was a prejudiced coward. After a rather brutal interaction where the DI berated the young recruit and physical abused him, Dad had seen enough. He quietly asked the Sarg "Why don’t you pick on some one your own size Sarg…(Dad was 5’8’ and about 155lbs, but deceptively strong from years on the farm) the DI was about 6’ 1’, 185…needles to say the DI turned his attention to my father and in the ensuing ‘training event’ it took about 4 guys to the old man off the DI after he’d kicked the living shit out of him. Dad was then assigned to quarters.

Next day he was called into the Captain’s office and was surprised to find a 1 star General there as well. The General asked why Dad had done what he did the previous day and Dad replied that the DI had gone beyond what he thought were the appropriate bounds of proper Army Air Corp training behavior and that he thought that guy was a coward and antisemitic as well (Dad was a small town Lutheran, who’d never met a Roman Catholic let alone a Jew) . The General asked him if would have challenged the DI if the recruit had been Italian, or Irish, or Roman Catholic…. Dad responded tha he was only attempting to to the right thing and only cared that the recruit was a member of his unit, yes he would have done it and would do it again cause it had to be done by someone.

The general turned to the captain and said" How is it that this man beat the hell out of your hand to hand combat instructor?" Before he could answer he turned my father and told him" You broke rank rules and I don’t like that at all, but I know the guy you took on and I think he’s a sadistic bastard…so you’ve got a choice" Either go to the brig for 10 days or take a promotion to Master Sgt. and take this guy’s job" dad chose the latter.
 wwho had been in my Father’s platoon, when I asked my Father about he just walked away and iced me. My mother later confirmed the story.