William May....my Dad the Veteran
My father, like many others from the depression, grew up poor. My Grandfather, Thomas May, had died when dad was young. Dad grew up with his three other brothers and they worked to earn money to support their Mom and the family. During Prohibition, Dad's brothers who had worked at a local Brewery, were fired due to the closure of the Brewery. They earned money by driving trucks of illegal alcohol to secret bars in East Saint Louis. Dad was young and his job was to "ride shotgun." He would sit in the truck with one of his brothers and hold the shotgun just in case they were stopped. Poverty led to my father having a limited education. Worse, helping his brothers smuggle alcohol led to limited job skills. Then in 1942, America went to War. As Dad told me, "I didn't know how to do very much. They were looking for guys who could shoot people and that was one thing I knew how to do." So Dad joined the Army and was in the invasion force that landed on Okinawa wit...