Drafted

Teddy Stone McAnally received his draft notice on December 26, 1952.

On February 9, 1953, Dad took me to the Nuway Drive-In in Fairmount and bought me a hamburger.  He said he was leaving for the army the next day and asked me if I would miss him.  I said no.  He was a little surprised but realized it was the talk of a 5 year old boy who was probably masking his feeling.  I think I realized as soon as I said it, it was the wrong thing to say.  I leaned over and with tears in my eyes I hugged him.

Dad did not want to go to Korea.  He didn’t even want to be in the army.  He tried to avoid the draft by telling the draft board that he was my legal guardian.  The draft board called my mother and she told them that he was not my legal guardian, that she was and that I was only living with my grandparents, his parents, out of necessity for the time being.  

Dad made the best of his time in the army and was some what successful as far as those types of things go.  He was a little older than most draftees at the time, around 25, but he was just as homesick and frightened, according to the letters he wrote home, as any younger draftee would have been.

He wrote many letters home; almost one each day, and usually included me in the introduction.  My grandmother kept each letter.  Before she died she gave all the letters to Dad, who organized them in chronological order, put them in a shoe box and upon his death instructed that the letters be given to me. 

The task of copying, putting on a blog, deciding whether to edit them, and reading over 365 letters is a daunting one, but for those joining me in this endeavor it provides an insight to a time long gone, both social and personal.  

It is also a chance for me to gain some insight into what turned that 25 year old boy into the man I knew later in life.