I was born in Amarillo, Texas, on May 31, 1924. I was an only child, and my father, he worked for the Texaco for better than 35 years. I had that background when I was growing up. I went to grade school and high school and all of that stuff there in Amarillo and graduated. Then I had one year of college at the junior college there in Amarillo before I was drafted. I was drafted. I did try to join the Navy, but for some strange reason—I was 18 years old---and I couldn’t even pass the physical, they said. I turned around and 2 or 3 months later I was drafted, and I didn’t have any problem passing the Army physical at all. It’s kind of strange, but those things happened back during the war. They inducted me and send me to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. One of the funny things I remember at that time—going through the line, they asked me if I could type, and I said, “Yes, I could type,” because I was studying journalism, and I was going to be a newspaper reporter. They jerked me out of the line and put me to work in processing inductees that were coming through Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I’d go back to the barracks at night, and all of these buddies that I came over with, they were learning how to march and learning how to handle guns and all of this sort of stuff. I thought I was missing out on everything. I really got kind of perturbed about it, but oh, we were there about 2 or 3 weeks, I guess, and then they shipped off to basic training camp. I found out later I didn’t miss a thing, just some hard work.
