Good story, Lee. My Dad and his best bud, Carl "Red" Smith, tried to enlist after Pearl Harbor. They were tool and die makers at Atlantic Steel Company. When the recruiters found what their jobs were, they were told to go back to work, as that was where they were needed. Then they thought they'd get around that by going to Philadelphia to work in the shipyards. Nope, they were told, stay where you are. The Feds sent Dad to Georgia Tech at night for two years. He never told me what he worked on, but it must have been important to someone. Toward the end of the war, the union called a strike for some reason. Uh Uh... thy were locked in the plant until the union agreed to end the strike, after seversl weeks. Mom and I would go down on Sunday and visit Dad. The men slept on Army cots, with those scratchy wool blankets.

When I was in the Philippines on a SEATO exercize, I met two Australian Army photographers, Sgts. Brian LeStrange and "Bones". He went by that name, and I never learned his real name. Except for their Aussie accents, they could have been "good ol' boys" from anywhere in the South. I swapped a Marine fatigue cap for Brian's Aussie bush hat, which I still have. We all went everywhere in a five ton truck, singing "Waltzing Matilda". Boys from diferent states in the South, during the WBTS, met men from other places in the world, and learned to get along. We need to remember that today. Stan