October 14, 1944

A couple of months ago I stumbled upon a packet of letters that my Dad wrote to my Mom during WWII.  Dad was drafted in the middle of the war.  At first, no one wanted him because of his bad eyesight.  But as the war progressed, he was put into service.  In spite of his bad eyesight, he scored at the top of the enlisted men for marksmanship.  Evidently, growing up at York and hunting helped him develop some useful wartime skills.   He told me once that they gave him an IQ test and he tested at 130.  The Army Air Corps found a place for him in a unit keeping track of troop movements. The unit used primitive computers with punch cards.  As his time in the service progressed, he was soon supervising the work of other men in the unit.   I can see why he was valuable.  He was slow and deliberate, but I doubt if he missed many mistakes.  The unit received a commendation for their accurate work. Here is a the first page of one of the letters.  If you click on it, you should be able to see the entire image.