Veteran

Here is a picture of a young eastern North Carolina farmboy. His 10th grade picture, 16 years old. Six years later he would be present at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked. Just a young Army grunt, he would drive an AV fuel truck through a military base full of exploding bombs, dying men, crashing planes and sinking ships trying to get our fighters off the ground to combat the enemy.
He would fight island to island through the jungles and swamps of the South Pacific theater for the next four years. As a combat engineer he would build landing strips and roads within rifle and mortar range of the enemy. His friends would be killed and wounded. He would learn to fight to survive. He would do things no young country boy should have to.
He (several times) told me he was only scared once... "That was when they bombed Pearl Harbor, I got over it as soon as I got home in '45"
He came home, he got married, he had five kids... Good kids. He farmed, he had a civil service job, he hunted and fished, gardened and led a good life. If you had asked him, I'm sure he would have denied being a hero. He did what was necessary, what was asked of him. He was only one of thousands, millions of Americans who did what they had to do... He was my father.