Ted Poe: “Born in the 1920s, he grew up in the Depression of the 1930s, poor, like more most rural American children. Fresh…”

“Born in the 1920s, he grew up in the Depression of the 1930s, poor, like more most rural American children. Fresh vegetables were grown in the family garden behind the small frame house. His mother made sandwiches for school out of homemade bread. Store-bought bread was for the rich. He grew up belonging to the Boy Scouts, playing the trumpet in the high school band, and he went to church on almost all Sundays. In 1944, this 18-year-old country boy, who had never been more than 50 miles from home, quickly found himself going through basic training at the United States Army at Camp Wolters in Camp Wolters, Texas. After that, he rode a train with hundreds of other young teenagers-- American males--to New York City for the ocean trip on a cramped Liberty ship to fight in the great World War II. While crossing the Atlantic, he witnessed another Liberty ship next to his that was sunk by a German U-boat. As a soldier in the Seventh Army, he went from France to survive the Battle of the Bulge and through the cities of Aachen, Stuttgart, Cologne, and Bonn. As a teenager, he saw the brutal concentration camps of the Nazis and saw the victims. He saw incredible numbers of other teenage Americans buried in graves throughout Europe. A solemn monument to those soldiers is at Normandy. After Germany surrendered, he was ordered back to Fort Hood, Texas. He was being reequipped for the invasion of Japan. Then Japan surrendered.…”