Jacquelyn Williams and Katrina Graham

00:01 I'm Katrina Graham and I'm 43 years old and it's March 13th, 2020 and where in Las Cruces New Mexico here in a miss you and I am interviewing and Jacqueline Williams who's my mother.

00:16 My name is Jacqueline Williams. I'm usually called Jackie. I'm 69 years old. Today is March 13th, 2020. We are at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Am I being interviewed by Katrina Williams Graham? Who is my daughter?

00:35 Oh my dad passed away a year and a half ago or so and in the time since dad passed away. I've done a lot of thinking about the things I knew about Dad and the things I didn't know about Dad and one of the biggest things that I

00:53 That I didn't know about Dad and I didn't ask about that a lot was about his earlier life when you know, all of the things that happened before me because you know, we were the most important thing. So, but all that get that came before us that probably made huge impacts on your life and Dad's life and one of those was how you guys met and married and Vietnam. So I wanted to ask you a little bit about that today.

01:20 Well, you know I there was a huge cultural change when I first started her college, which was Nineteen sixty-eight. We had we kids have been very impacted by the John Kennedy days and many of the things around civil rights etcetera. So there was a lot of things going on when I left for college in 1968 a lot of flower children a lot of civil unrest etcetera and I'm Gary had Siri had a sort of Rocky adolescents because his family had a lot of financial challenges and he ended up in a naval Reserve unit and went to the Tonkin Bay with the Navy in the reserves when he was probably pretty 20 when he returned home something went awry and apparently was notified that his reserve unit was being changed and he was supposed to report it to a different reserve unit, but you didn't get the letter from his mother so I ended up drafted into the army.

02:20 Age 24 did basic training and eventually he was offered the option of either going to Vietnam as an infantry enlisted person or going to flight school and I remember him saying he decided he'd go to flight school because that kept him out of the way before you would have to go to the wharf it's so when the helicopter flight school at Fort Wolters and it turned out he was on natural enjoyed being a pilot beyond anything he had ever done. So he went for his first tour in Vietnam be around 1966 or 1967 cuz I know he flew in the Tet Offensive he's described that before and it was a very heavy battle. So his first tour in Vietnam, he flew thousands of hours. They got an unbelievable amount of flight time are in very heavy combat. He flew gunship gunship.

03:20 Early models I heard him refer to these is old be models and they would run out of ammunition in the door Gunners would carry bags of rocks to throw for example was a really loose battle scenario a lot of times later. He flew some other models of helicopters during that tour. He eventually was shot down enough times that he had a really bad crash ended up with some crushed bones in his face. Awesome Burns and things. He was Medevac to Japan. He he had everything repaired and then he resumed active-duty going to Fort Wolters Texas as a pack officer at the helicopter School in Fort Wolters, which is near Fort Worth. And that's where I met him. They used to have these Tac officers. We attack officers oversaw the folks in a flight school and then the Army flight school they graduated is warrant officer. So they all said officer training in addition to flight school and

04:20 So that was his as attack officer, which means tactical in commands. They were responsible not only for their school but also for training them to be warned officers. I met him at a party as the classes were all mail at that time. And so they recruited people to come to parties. These are displaced soldiers who were it in Texas far away from home. And so they would organize groups of five women from various colleges to go for fun. That was very dressed up parties. They would have these balls and so I had gone to a party where where one of his students actually had asked me to come through a friend because his Lieutenant didn't have a date for the for the dad that he was the lieutenant Lieutenant when I met him somewhere in his military time in Vietnam. He had taken a field commission from warrant officer to Lieutenant.

05:18 So when I met him he was the first lieutenant and so we started dating he that was in the fall. He left for Fort Benning Georgia. I believe in January and those days the military didn't have an aviation Branch. So all the Warren officers were aviators belong to other branches of the military and Gary was an infantry Branch person. So in January of 1971, he went to Fort Benning Georgia for infantry officer basic course, which was six months long.

05:53 He spent so much time on the phone with me that I made a B in my history class at University cuz I was a junior. It's at Texas Woman's University by that time. I'm majoring in nursing in our clinical Center was in Dallas. So we were living in Dallas and I he spent so much time on the phone in and then he received orders for Vietnam to return to Vietnam at the at the end of his infantry course, he when he got orders they were for Vietnam. We just what he had expected was to rotate back to Vietnam on the way. He was supposed to go learn to fly a new type of gunship the Cobra helicopter and he's going to spend all summer and Savannah Georgia and he wanted me to come of course. My father would not have allowed me to go spend the summer in Georgia and less I was married so we decided to get married and we had no idea what the whole future would be was really just about that summer and his going to Vietnam.

06:50 So how much time did you and Dad spend together?

06:56 Before you decided to get married or was this are you dating over the phone? Well, we we dated that fall and on weekends several several times, maybe 10 days before he was transferred to Georgia. Then the rest of it was on the phone. I can't imagine Dad having that much to say on the phone for hours and hours.

07:21 You know, they say the part of your brain that falls in love is the same part that develops obsessive compulsive disorder.

07:28 And that that drives the in love fortune, so it must have been cuz Dad was never much of a phone guy. As far as I knew that you recall if they on the phone for hours and hours and hours. What did you talk about? I don't even recall. I don't think it was important.

07:48 I don't think we I don't know what we talked about. How did the dick was just being together on the phone? How did Graham Grandaddy react when you said you wanted to get married? My father was always horrified if we became interested in female of the species because he felt that there's no one ever good enough for any of his children and he was particularly horrified because this was a soldier going back over to Vietnam. And in fact, whenever Gary at the at the end of his flight school, we went we travel to Phoenix to see his folks over is in August and we separated at Sky Harbor. He went to Vietnam and I went back $2 for my senior year at College. I was so busy that I didn't fret a lot but my dad got an ulcer and he tracked all of that horrible news from Vietnam the body counts in the you know, all of those things had to be treated for an ulcer during that time that was kind of Vietnam because he did have time to worry about it. So he did worry a lot about it.

08:49 I would think the worrying would just come for me. It would just come it would always be there and did Dad ever talk about that first crash with a big crash that brought him home from his first tour. Did he talk about how that happened where he was how long they got shot down.

09:07 Are you did talk about that crash? That's Christ had an unusual experience with it in that they hit the ground very hard in their aircraft caught fire and he recalls standing outside the aircraft. Someone was standing beside him and he could see himself in the whole crew in the air inside the aircraft the person that said to him said you have a choice now you can go or stay and he was horrified. He'd like I have to get the people out of that helicopter. So then he found himself back in his CD was able to get out his tool that cuts the seatbelt and they were able to get everyone out of the aircraft at that time. Even though everyone was injured everyone lives through that crash, but he recalls having the opportunity possibly to not stay on Earth.

09:55 Interesting, you told me once dad never thought he was going to die during Vietnam. That was his mentality.

10:08 I have to admit he didn't care. I mean as a young troop. He didn't know what he knew later in his life. So he was more careless about the concept of living and dying because young people don't.

10:25 Grass death is final early in their lives. So he took many chances and the pilot that his his last tour in Vietnam after he was married. He specifically said he was very cautious. He often launched his Rockets from a very high distance because he didn't want to be down close enough to be shot down because he wanted to come home to his wife. And so as a younger pilot though, he took many. Do you know what a types of risks he took out they were haters. I don't know but he got a bunch of Oak Leaf clusters to go with his flying his stop his service medals during a very daring as were many of them that many of them were very very young and many of them were unmarried and so he is very daring and him and I just remember him saying there was a job to be done.

11:17 They were very dedicated and you know, he always felt like a night flying his gunships because they were the protectors, you know, they were the heroes they swept in and you know that cleared the area for people they flew escort and protected at transport Medevac and all of those things. And so he he he always he felt like that he would always excited to be back up in the air always feeling protective and sealing powerful with his rockets and machine guns and all of those pieces. Did you get an opportunity to meet any of the men that he served with during that first or did they have any of them serve with him in the second? I don't actually know how that works. But no, the Vietnam was unusual in that people went to the combat zone alone and return the lawn rather than moving around in units. So there were many people the helicopter.

12:17 Small enough that there were many people that he knew it in the in the profession there when he went for his first tour and he kept track of many people that he met there and he continued to meet them at various Duty stations across time people that he had flown with in Vietnam. That's interesting because it seems to me that now in the military the unit is sort of a sacred group. They're very tight and these people keep in contact for a long time is experiences. They've had for these young men who in Vietnam who didn't have that. What do you think that did for the it to their mental health when they came home? Did they have the same sort of support?

13:01 That they have maybe now now I don't think they did, they if they were getting out of the military when they returned and a very large group of people did Gary did not but they went home back to a civilian life. We're Not only was there no one who understood with them and doing that a lot of the population was hostile toward people who had served in Vietnam and they really couldn't talk to anyone usually about it those who stayed in the military how to structure around them that understood what they're missing hidden. I think probably their psychological Health was more protected than folks who came back from Vietnam and exited from the service without any of that support and in the end those days really VA didn't offer a lot of services on the science around things, like post-traumatic stress was not well developed and so they really didn't have any way to deal with

14:01 But it happened to them except their own internal resources most of the time and the support of their families that dad had a diagnosis of PTSD. When did he get that later in his life actually after retirement, but I believe that he had some guy he had childhood trauma and that's true of lots of people who end up in the military if they've had their Penny why they're in the military many people bring trauma to the military and then trauma can build. I believe he had more problems with this after he was retired and not living inside military structures and in psychological support.

14:45 And what prompted him was it you did you encourage him to go deal with this or

14:53 Like how did Dad end up he also didn't seem to me like the kind of guy who said, you know, I think I need some help. I'm going to go down and talk to somebody interested in enough the VA service and became much more aggressive in tracking down salt who under the under the policies in the 1990s were eligible for VA health care, and I'm actually Gary had kept track of these things and he had filed a disability claim to get condition service connected at time of retirement. So that that put him on the va's windshield if he was actually pretty good about inviting him into care. I bugging him to come into care offering a range of care and assessments, but when he retired it, we were in Missouri in our control. Was that Fort Leonard Wood in the HR department at Fort Leonard did did an excellent job of retirement.

15:53 So he got connected to the VA and the part of that retirement transition. And so really that's how all that on way on and it's a part of their assessments for what health conditions they have that could be service-connected. They always look at the psychological side. So that's when he first got diagnosed because previous to that folks didn't want a diagnosis. It might impact your military service. So folks, would it pretty Great Lengths not to get diagnosed with things while on active duty cuz they didn't want their assignments curtailed or opportunities changed so Dad. Did he talk much about Vietnam with you?

16:43 Either we know when he came home or over the years. He never talked with it very much about us with us and I can remember one time when I was probably eight or nine Mark and I found a box that had a bunch of very beautiful metals and things in it and we got them all out and laid them out and when he found out he was very angry and it was and maybe it was because we were just into stuff that could have you mean he he didn't have a lot of range when it came to came to that so it could be that we had just been into his stuff but it felt very much like it was at this stuff that we were into that he was angry about he didn't want to talk about it. This was a very private we wanted to know. What were these how did you get these? Why don't you have these out somewhere where we can see them and he made it clear that day. He would did not want to talk about this and we were small so we didn't talk about it again, you know, really until I probably I was out of high school. We talked about it a little bit.

17:43 Found a bunch of old slides or he was he got out the projector from the attic and played through the slide, but even that was uncomfortable because he was very much sort of in his own. He didn't invite anybody to look at these pictures with him, but he was doing it in the living room and we were sort of Milling around all of us and in and out but and he might say this is so and so where this was here and then he said he told me one very sad and comfortable story that I was uncomfortable listening to and I think he was uncomfortable relaying and then I just left and we didn't talk about it. But now I really wish that we had done that and did she share stories from his time there with you know, it was very rare. In fact, usually what we talked about Vietnam. He would remember something funny cuz he had a good sense of humor and he's an optimistic. I do remember more stories like the a so he would remember something entertaining. He told me that a lot of their time in the wars on that if they weren't actually flying they were sleeping.

18:43 That was their escape and I think you saw that during the rest of his adult life that if he had a few minutes of downtime. He was likely to lay down and take a nap that there was there escaped and they they talked about just being bored to death because the the pilots had no other assignments usually are few assignments except for being ready to fly. So their down time is extremely boring and he didn't gamble and he didn't drink and he didn't smoke and so that gave him even less to fill his time with are numb his brain with than the folks who did participate in those things. I so he's been a lot of it. In fact, I think that's probably if he were to look back on especially the time cuz he served more than a year of the first tour. He was young and married. So he extended his time in Vietnam and stayed until he got shot down and had to be Medevac doubt, but he I think when he looks back on it, that's all he sees is slow.

19:43 And slight

19:45 I don't think there was much in between he did remember that R&R trips and he went to Hong Kong and he went to Australia and he very much value does and he would talk about those are not tripped. But there was very little that he was talked about from the war itself and when we talked about that time, it was mostly in terms of how grateful we were to have survived it right and not they're not in that situation anymore.

20:14 So after his first two are you guys met and married and then he had to go back was he reluctant? Oh, no. No, he was reluctant to leave this new family. It's forming but this was his military duty, you know that his service in the military is what he'd been trained for and up to the end of his life at age 73. I believe that the government had asked him to fly helicopter gunships back into war he would have bought

20:47 This guy has before shown up at the door at noon packed up one of the cars and left for 6 months to go to a school and say Virginia because there was one more slot in a school his unit needed and he had been tapped there for years to checkbook back.

21:06 Right here is here's my stuff.

21:09 Come visit me in Virginia. I'll be back in June.

21:15 Because his dedication to his military duty was really very profound and he seemed to really enjoy being in the military. I always felt like Dad was proud about being in the military. I don't know that he enjoyed his job very much. I wasn't even really ever sure what his job was for a long long time. But he seemed to enjoy being a part of it. He loved being a part of the military in your ride. The only job he ever really loved was flying after he got banged up enough that he could no longer be a military pilot and did things that supported military Aviation for instance M after the major crash in Fort Rucker in 1979 that finally grounded him as a military pilot. He became an aviation logistician. So when we went to Korea a he was maybe a shitload gestation and supported Aviation functions make sure as many aircraft as possible or flight ready all the time. It was actually

22:15 Station in St. Louis with Judy in Korea the three years that we live there.

22:20 When we left Korea and went to Missouri in a ROTC assignment, he did not enjoy that had not one thing to do with flying right? That's probably what I remember about you remember before he retired was that assignment in Missouri? That was some fun there in Missouri, but it was not the kind of work that he loved doing in that had to do with with helicopters and airplanes and pilots in the sort of mission. That flying says so when we were in Alabama and he had that major crash which was a fatal crash, I mean, he was very lucky to have survived that he did he fight not being able to fly after that and I don't have much Choice do it have fight for that the major thing that kept him grounded when his back was getting really bad, but and that didn't help it cuz he had back surgery before that crashed, but he had hit a gunfight in the Cobra that crashed so that it damaged.

23:20 Facial nerve and he ended up with one eye eventually. It didn't have full turning radius, which limited is peripheral vision a little bit on that side that along with enough to keep them from qualifying as a military power. And that was that was not fixable dead fix it as well as they could but that wasn't fixable and so no he couldn't fight that what he did do though, that I wanted the reasons he ended up in aviation Logistics is the command around him understood that need to stay close to Aviation. So as his next assignment and roll his assignments officer, Washington, I looked at that and you know, they start of structured things so that he could stay close to Aviation consider getting out at that point. Absolutely. Not hot.

24:10 I feel like God would have stayed in longer than he did if they had let him he would have stayed in longer. He got caught up in one of the reduction in force times when people who are eligible for retirement with tap to retire and that was in 1989. We moved to Las Cruces and sometime I don't remember exactly when the first Gulf War heated up. He was placed back on recall for five years after retirement the folks who are physically where they do return to military service are in a ready reserve and he was placed on recall for two years and we didn't know if you'd be called back to active duty. That was one of the reasons we didn't build our house until 19 start our house until 1992 because he ended up on a recall list because of the Gulf War. I feel like Dad was at home during that time for the first time in my lifetime. Dad was sort of the at home person. You had gone back to school and

25:10 And I felt very much during that time. Like he would have liked to have left.

25:16 Six kids at home was very hard for him. Yes, and for somebody who was used to managing and big groups of people and having what he said.

25:28 Be what happened is he really missed his enlisted staff Right Thurr the senior list of people actually make everything run right that he missed. He missed having a thing at home with these little and three teen children. I don't think was his favorite place to be for a long time for him. I can remember we had an argument once about a piece of paper on the floor of the kitchen and he had been telling people to pick it up for hours throughout the course of a day and how old is Shannon 8th grade? So everybody was younger than that. I was maybe in 7th and he said at one point he yelled I said somebody come pick this up and we said we walked over it to pick it up and he just didn't seem to have that mentality. He was sort of like this is what this is how this is supposed to go. You guys are supposed to listen and and we realized he'd never really spent that much time with us.

26:29 That was right after we moved here and

26:33 And with you at without you at home go to coordinate everything when you those days that you can come back to work in school. It was a big play steep learning curve for Dad. And I don't know that he was very happy for a long time. But I think you really struggled because when he got out of the military, he did not want to end up in a job. That was a pressure cooker cuz he already done that over and over many military jobs are incredibly busy and there's a high level of accountability in their lots of things that can go wrong. And so he didn't want to end up in a pressure cooker, but he also didn't want a boring job and when you look for employment after getting out of the military the things that were the most interesting and pay the most for pressure pressure cooker jobs, which he did not want to be back in and then things that weren't at that level or lower paid, but also more boring, so he really had a difficult time deciding what he wanted to do.

27:28 After being in the military, he did go back to school and worked on a master's in education.

27:37 And counseling a worked on the master didn't finish all of that, but it went back to school for several years and did did do some work and counseling did he feel and tethered after being in that structure for so long? I think that's one of the things that military folks.

27:55 Experienced during his military career every time there was a fork in the road. The military said you want to do this or this usually and he would have two or three other two choices as to what he did next because of the way they manage their assignments, but when they get out of the military suddenly the whole world is open and it's too much data made it very difficult because he had not had a full range of choices for 25 years and have been very proscribed. They knew their career path. They they had a limited number of choices at each adjunction in the career path and said the world was too big.

28:36 In a lot of ways

28:39 And then eventually it says she says he'll sort of decline. He actually began to really enjoy being being untethered and being the at-home person particularly once them a lot of you kid got to be all the way to adulthood right? You are a lot more fun after you were growing than you were when you were in high school and middle school, but he eventually really enjoyed that part of his retirement and then didn't want to try to return to working outside in the civilian world. And I thank you very much especially in the last probably 15 years before he died. He was the most available person though. He was sort of

29:22 You at least for me. He was the emergency contact for school. And he was at the last minute pick up person in the air in Port driver. It was the designated airport. Yes, and he really did enjoy all of that and like being available for that. He had a lot of Duties with our church, you know that kept him busy and communicating with a lot of other adults in and it was important work, you know, so he felt very felt very busy. His life was full during that time. So

29:57 Do you wish there was it was there anything that you would have liked to have known that you never talked to him about about those early years and maybe before what do you think you have the opportunity to ask him about what happened to him in Vietnam and how that may have affected him and I think I asked you recently if he was changed when he came back from his tour Vietnam and your answer was no how do you know? I for about 11 years. I worked with the local VA with people coming back from operating and during Freedom Iraqi freedom and getting out of the military and accessing VA Services. I'm one of the things family struggled with was how much someone changed and their first combat deployments. I met the person who was the changed person. I never knew the pre combat Soldier so he didn't change during his tour after our marriage. So that's who I knew.

30:57 We all knew a lot about the Vietnam War had been going on. I was at the end of my childhood the Vietnam War had been unrolling for several years. We knew a lot about it and it was we actually had a parallel set of experiences that we didn't talk about in any depth. I am a nurse. I worked a lot with ICU emergency room. We didn't talk about my work in-depth either.

31:26 Just as we didn't talk in great depth about Vietnam and his work in the military. I only knew part of what happened when he was at work and he only knew part of what happened when I was busy in my profession. And so when we were together, we actually enjoyed different things and we didn't do work.

31:47 You didn't talk. So why isn't that curious to know about his a lot of those things? They just seem so private and so sacred that I didn't probe didn't he ever got the opportunity to talk about those experiences? Maybe when he came back into the VA care system for several for several years and I believe that he did and we started going to the Vietnam helicopter reunions, right? And I think they did talk about a lot of those things are the he didn't go to those reunions for many many years was a long time before he could revisit a lot of those a lot of those experiences before he wanted to reveal I think before you but yeah before he was able to or really wanted to revisit them.

32:41 So now what we're left with is Mark and I went through some of the

32:47 Think that we could find online pictures of dad. We've never seen posted by other people that he had served with. Have you seen these?

32:56 Know what are you talking about? There's some picture stories related on one of the Vietnam helicopter Pilots Association websites are not having that things that we had never went. Why would he have told us I want any of these things but for me to see the picture of Dad and another man digging out their Hooch as they're building them and a nap at a barbecue and sleeping out here Chasing Classic hits the picture of Warren officer Williams catching some and you know for me as an adult now to do your dad was always just dad like his life was what I knew about my life where he was concerned except that now that he's not here. I think a lot about that. He was right.

33:52 Whether I'm from poem dips in everyone and you know, there were spiritual dance in Gary that very few people ever got to see cuz of his sense of humor or his shell that was there and that's true of military service to there's just things there that are so deep that they don't get revealed.

34:17 They're so but you know, I think we also like that about our parents and our grandparents like that. We like how they were whole people and at the time we knew we only need them in our contacts that we weren't very curious about them as whole people and then later and I realized that you wish you would know more about them as a person.

34:38 Right at the time you just live in the moment. So you don't have to do those things. Right? And I noticed that I think with my kids when occasionally, they'll see something a picture or when we cleaned out some closet once and there were some slight uniforms.

34:56 And the reason was like why do you guys have these I said, well, we you know, we used to that nice to do this and that so that's so foreign to them. Now. It doesn't hurt him. He never talked to them about that either right or would you write I've learned that this is one of the reasons this and that were advised it would be good to keep journals is because these things fade from our own Memories the daily life things fade and we have trouble recalling them. But because we would forget we did these things and are and not think that there of any interest to anyone because it was just a part of our everyday life.

35:37 You did keep journals for a while not I've never been a good Journal keeper though. I've tried but just too much work either. He didn't I think Dad a lot of it's gone now. Yes visited with sister who we hadn't seen in a very very long time and

36:05 The Gary that she knew was so foreign to me.

36:11 I agree with everything you're saying you the pre pre Soldier pre combat Soldier and put in our years in the military. We spent some vacation time around their families, but never lived near them again never showed their daily lives where he that is. One of the sacrifices military families make is that they aren't for years and years. They're not a part of the daily lives of their extended families. In fact growing up. I thought that's just what happened to you grew up and moved away from your parents and your brothers and sisters and saw them every 3 or 4 years and living in Las Cruces around so many of my brothers and sisters. My children's experience is completely different never known a day without their cousins and their aunts and uncles and their grandparents and I grew up like that where I knew all 45 of my first cousins in great detail. However, one of the things I really valued about being a military family worth

37:11 Ashley during PCS moves, we would have two or three months when our family was alone together as a family.

37:18 Before we got an embedded in a new community are in a new church group and a new set of activities. We would have this. Of time when it would just be me and your dad and us and you kids and we would travel together and have fun together and just take Anna Craig for together cares in the world between his military assignments in between schools and it was such an important in our family those besides miss those moves.

37:46 And I think I've missed experiencing it my kids getting to experience something like that. We actually have very little concentrated family time like that because we have so much family around and I knew as a kid wherever we move to it wouldn't really matter that we didn't know anybody because I had brothers and sisters and I was able to play with it would be fine as well as my kids. If we ever talked about the possibility of moving it's very stressful for them really overwhelmed.

38:20 And we always had really a nice life where we had a nice place to live. We always had adequate money and we were good many managers. We planned ahead for all these trips and things and we were always secure in lots of ways. So and a lot of that have to do with the military in the military. So

38:43 Well, Mom, thanks for coming in and talking with me today about this. I really do appreciate it. And maybe it's important for people to record a lot of their memories. Yes for the future. I'll try.

38:55 YouTube mind if I ask why

38:59 But I was just going to ask if you could tell Katrina some more details about that first of all that you attended.

39:05 Gary there

39:07 If you remember did you dance this Dad dance? Well, yeah. Well Dad did dance a little we did dance. My first impression was the first military Galah I had ever been to and so it was very fun because I everyone was very dressed up your mess all dress uniform because it was a part of the training for the warrant officer candidate to understand the social side of formal military life. So everyone was very very dressed up it had there was lots of ceremony. It was Grand glittering fun. It was it was really very very funny. I find event and everybody left that night feeling like it had a very good time.

39:55 And these were a lot strangers coming together many of the young women that attended that ball didn't know didn't really know a lot of the people that they met at that ball many marriages resulted from these interactions across time any of my classmates married someone in the military and part because of these social events that we get organized in that region and in Wartime love accelerate is a speeds accelerate and many of those men didn't want to leave the United States without a firm anchor on Solid Ground many of them were truly away from home for the first time in their lives really becoming whole people themselves young adults. And so many of my classmates ended up married to soldiers.

40:41 Remember when Carrie was wearing your what you've talked about and it was your first impression of him when you first saw him I didn't particularly like it when I first saw it.

40:53 I was a little distracted getting too comfortable. He was he was a big part of setting up this ball and I ended had gotten him this blind-date as sorta maybe without his total permission, but they told him they were there going to make sure there was somebody there like maybe you didn't realize they were really going to do it but he stepped up and enjoyed having a guest and I enjoyed starting to learn about have military life works and I'm trying to picture it and all I can picture is Mark my brother in some ways is a lot like me. All I can picture is in the public eye. And so it was it was very fun, but you left that night knowing that you guys were going to contact each other again.

41:45 Yeah, yeah.

41:49 In fact a lot of estate in town that night cuz the ball went till after midnight and so he picked me up the next morning from the hotel and we went out to breakfast and then he had to go pick up the mail and deliver it to the unit. So we did several things. I had that Saturday it was on the next day off whatever it was. And so we actually ran around there around that area mineral wells some showed me the area and we need to have a couple of meals out before before he took me back to Dallas because I come with a group that was so you know, so we spent that whole day the second day doing things. And so then he asked me for a date whenever he dropped me back off at my dorm in Dallas.

42:37 For the next weekend, so

42:44 Thank you.

42:48 Fin fun to sort of thinking about doing it's really hard for me to imagine dad.

42:56 Asking somebody for a day or

42:59 Being smooth enough to get a kiss at the end. It's just it's so foreign to me. I

43:07 But thank you very much and thank you, Mom.