A Happy Halloween and a Story

Happy Halloween! I have another post I’m writing but I had to share this story with you guys. It kind of goes with my last post below.

Yesterday morning one of my old managers from the department store I worked at before I got my current job stopped in my office. He’s a retired Army guy and stops in from time to time to say hi. Well yesterday he had something really neat to show me. After his dad passed away last year he was cleaning his house out and found his grandfathers WWI dog tag. I hadn’t ever seen one before and it was really neat. They were round back then and looked a lot like a silver coin.

As we talked about this neat find he of course got into telling me stories about his grandfather and the one I just had to share.

His grandfather we’ll call him Jim served in the 35th Infantry Division in the Army during WWI. Now since he was fluent in French the made him a messenger. He would take the orders from his commander and run them to the French commander and so forth. He also was in charge of taking commands to different officers throughout the front lines. One day he almost changed history. They had a Field Artillery Captain that was horrible with math and was giving the wrong coordinates for the big guns. So every time they fired they were hitting US lines instead of enemy lines. Jim’s Commander told him to go and give the Field Artillery Captain a choice of two different orders. Either he correct his coordinates and shoot at the right people or Jim had orders to shoot him. Well naturally the Field Artillery Captain chose the first choice. Now what was the name of that Field Artillery Captain that was so bad at math???? Harry Truman later to be known as Harry S. Truman during his presidency.

Now granted this is just the story that has been passed down from Jim to his family and there’s no way in proving that he ever had that encounter with Harry Truman, but there is plenty of proof that they served together in the same Infantry Division during WWI.

I’m such a history nut and enjoyed that story so much I thought the rest of you would as well.

Hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween!!!