My Father in the US Army

Since tomorrow is Father's Day I am posting some pictures of my Father in the US Army. They would have been taken in 1941 when he was 23 years old. In the lower group picture he is standing at the left. I previously posted about when he was in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the late 1930s.

My Father joined the army in NY state in December 1940 and later was in North and South Carolina in training. While in South Carolina a family on a nearby farm invited some of the soldiers while they had some days off. The farm had some mules and my Father was going to show off to the other guys how he could run and vault onto the mule's back from behind like he used to do with the mules they had back home on his family farm. Unfortunately this mule was larger and he didn't make it all the way on. The mule kicked up his hind legs and shot my Father up in the air. Then he landed on the hard packed ground behind the mule.

He ended up in the army hospital with a broken wrist. Unfortunately the xrays did not show up the break in his wrist so they were making him exercise it. It became more swollen and painful. It worsened to the point that he was in the army hospital for 6 months. Finally they xrayed from a different angle and saw that his wrist was broken.

While my Father was still in the army hospital at Fort Dix, New Jersey, there was the attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941 and the US declared war the next day. My Father was given an honorable discharge from the army for medical reasons on March 21, 1942 since his wrist had not healed up properly. When my Father told this story he always said "A mule kicked me out of the army."