I was inducted into the Army on September 12, 1942, and began my basic training at Bowman Field in Louisville, Kentucky. After basic, I was shipped to brand-new Alliance Army Airfield in the northwestern corner of Nebraska.
Because I had been a milk truck driver in Wisconsin, I was initially assigned to the motor pool—driving trucks and working on them. But I wanted to become an airplane mechanic and was assigned to mechanics’ school near Gulfport Army Airfield in Mississippi.
Every place we looked—every room in every building—were signs: YOU TOO CAN BE A CREW CHIEF. Most of us thought, ‘Yeah, you, too, can be a crew chief, but I can’t; that’s shooting pretty doggone high.’ But I did it.
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