Russell Long
Centennial, CO
Category: When The War Ended

I don't remember our location when the war ended, but my father was on a troop train in the Carolinas awaiting a ship to ferry him and his soldiers into the Pacific Theatre. He had been given command of the last artillery battalion that he trained at Fort Sill, OK and he was taking them to fight the Japanese.

When I came home from primary school that day, my little brother was crying in confusion because my mother was ignoring him. She was more excited than I ever knew her to be. She was on the telephone, crying, laughing, ecstatically carrying on. When I asked her the matter, she pointed to the front page of the newspaper spread open on the dining room table.

The entire page showed the oddest thing I had ever seen. There was no printing except the mast head and there was a picture of a huge mushroom-shaped cloud picture on it with some other normal clouds in the sky.

I asked my mom what it meant when I could get a word in edgewise to the telephone calls. "Honey--boys, it means the war is over! Your daddy is coming back! We are going home!

Russell Long
Centennial, CO
Category: When The War Ended

My father, the artillery battalion commander, tried to keep boredom and restlessness and vocal discontent at a minimum on the sealed troop train. They were on a station siding in the Carolinas awaiting a ship to take them to the Pacific Theatre. The Germans were defeated and these men were on the way to fight the Japanese. Somehow, (radio, rumor, loudspeaker), word got out that the war was over. Discontent from uncertain rumor was almost at a peak and the men needed to be sure it was true.

The stage was setting for a completely forbidden disobedience of orders and someone had to do it. My dad assembled all of the battalion officers in one car to pick the voluntary interloper by the chance drawing of cards. His sergeant major shuffled the deck thoroughly and the cards were spread face down on a blanket-covered table. Each officer was to draw a card and the low draw would run the forbidden errand. Since there are four deuces in a deck, bridge ranking would prevail in case of a tie. The battalion surgeon lost the draw with the deuce of clubs! But how could the surgeon leave the sealed train without detection?

My father summoned his sergeant major again and instructed him to create a most major distraction. The stage was set and a loud fake fight broke out as two men fell off the train onto the ground on the side away from the station. Pandemonium reigned as the false event ensued. A large cloud of dust arose as the men staged the two-man brawl. The men on the train put down the windows and cheered and carried on at the top of their lungs as a dust cloud and confusion reigned from the faked fisticuffs. The guards on the ground came scurrying from their posts between the station and the parked train to investigate, referee, and subdue the total dust cloud, debris, and uproar. As the guards crossed around and under the railroad cars to intervene, the surgeon jumped the train on the station side, bought a newspaper and most hurriedly returned aboard the transportation.

The highest elation ensued as the newspaper had the atomic cloud on the front with the headline: IT'S OVER!!