Pearl Harbor and the Draft (Part 3 of Strangecreek Saga)

It was the summer of 1939, after my Sophmore year at high school, when two buddies and I decided that joining the Navy would be a great adventure. Back then you could sign up with friends or family and be stationed together in the service. Since we were all under 21, we needed parental permission to join. Don and Tony lived in town, so they were able to get the required signatures the next day, and they were gone. My Mom lived some miles away and I wouldn't have been able to get a signature until the weekend. They didn't know they couldn't wait a few days for me, and since they were gone, I decided not to enlist. I imagined them traveling the world in the Navy and having a girl in every port.

After starting back to school in my Junior year, I wasn't sure what I would do with my life when Mr. Long hired me for the engineering training. I was working for the survey team when I heard about Pearl Harbor. I'll never forget the day. It was a Sunday, and since I didn't have to work, I was walking down to the YMCA. I had to cross the river and there were a half dozen young men standing on the bridge talking. One of them was my buddy Donald McCloud's older brother. He asked me if I had heard the news. I hadn't.

He then told me about the bombing and I knew Don and Tony had been stationed on the Arizona. I later found out that Don was on board when the bomb struck and went down with the ship, so his name is on the memorial. Tony had been on shore leave and was wounded heading back to the ship, and died two weeks later. If I had enlisted with them, I, too, would have been on the Arizona. It was a spooky feeling that I could have shared their fate. That was December of '41.

In January of '42 the first big draft call came and I got my draft notice. I was 22 at the time, and all the single boys in town were sent the notices. Half the men of Monaville were called. (At that time they only drafted single men.) We had to report to the courthouse in Logan for the bus trip to the state armory in Huntington. Four busloads left Logan with about 200 young men, raring to go to war. We didn't bring anything with us, all would be provided. I had said good-bye to my family and my sisters had cried and my mother said a prayer. (My brother Walsh had already left for the service.) I, however, was caught up in the excitement of the adventure ahead. I look back and think how stupid we were to be excited about going off to war, but there was an energy that infused us all.

At the armory, we stripped to our boxer shorts and fell into a line for check-ups. They checked your vision, heart, hernias, physical scars and took x-rays. We all bunked in the armory on cots and we were slated to move out in the morning, to make way for the next wave of draftees.

Early the next morning I heard my name called over the loudspeaker, to report to a designated area. When I arrived, I was told that I had been labeled 4F because I had scars on my lungs, which had showed on the x-rays. I was being sent back home. I was given a bus pass home and couldn't go back to tell my buddies what had happened.

The bus ride home seemed so much longer. There were several other men who didn't make it, but they had missing fingers or an eye, and you could see why they were rejected - no one talked. I was disappointed. 4F was what they gave criminals, because they were not to serve. I didn't even call home to say I was coming. I just walked in and said I had scars on my lungs, and left it at that. I knew I had gotten rhematic fever when I was young, but I had no idea that it had scarred my lungs. I was embarrassed to say I was 4F, because no one could see anything wrong with me and thought I was a criminal. I was teased about not serving my country.

I returned to the Island Creek Coal Company and joined the new safety division team that was forming. I worked exclusively at mine#22 helping to install a misting water spray system to cut down on rock dust and prevent fires. I could read prints and so I was chosen to lay the lines.

Seven months later, in July of 1942, my brother Virgil was killed in a mine cave in. He was part of a crew that installed the wooden timbers to keep the tunnels safe. My brother Audrey came home from Connecticut to attend the funeral. He convinced me to come to Connecticut, as the defense contractor he worked for was looking for help. So I took the train North and got a job at New Departure making ball bearings. Because I was now working for a defense contractor, my rating was changed to 2B. A 2B label made you someone important to the war effort back home, and therefore not eleigble for the draft. I liked no longer being a 4F, it was one of the reasons Audrey had talked me into coming this far from home. (In '43 an accident occured at mine #22, where I used to work, and the bodies were not recovered so they had to close the mine and seal it off - per state law. I wondered if fate had protected me from death once again.)

It was the fall of '43, when the need for more troops caused those of us with 2F labels to be turned into 1As, and the drafting of married men started. I was now being drafted in Connecticut. I told the draft office that I had gone through draft registration in West Virginia and they were able to confirm my 4F staus in WV, but they kept me at 2B in Connecticut. My brother Audrey, however, was drafted into the Army and was sent to Germany.

Since most able bodied men had been drafted, I decided that it was my job to entertain the womanfolk back home. To that end, I started to frequent the dance halls in the area that were attainable by bus, as I had no car. One fateful night, I met Mary Elizabeth Stifel. She reminded me of my brother Bert's wife, Iola. I felt at home with her at once. It was the start of a life long love that is still growing some 60 plus years later. I had traveled from Stragecreek, WV to Connecticut and found my destiny in a pair of smiling brown eyes under an arched brow. But that's a whole nother story!