A Soldier’s Homecoming

Abstract

I went back to New York and visited Atlantic City with my wife. The army provided a month’s leave upon returning from overseas, so I spent the next 30 days relaxing with my family before reporting to Tuskegee as a flight instructor. To tell the truth, from the moment I set foot back in Alabama, I was ready to leave. It was then when I really started regretting that I hadn’t retired in July 1944. My knee and shoulder were still bothering me, I was becoming disinterested in what I was doing, and I didn’t feel the same exhilaration that I’d experienced in previous years. I guess one side of me also realized that I’d joined the military to make money. In college, I labored hard to get things that my classmates seemed to acquire easily. They had the best of clothes and seemingly anything else they wanted. I thought the army might help me do the same. I thought it would give me the financial boost that I needed to make the next step in life. Especially when my first son was born, I found myself wanting to be in a position to be able to provide for him. I knew I had to save more. In my view, even being an officer, the army just wasn’t allowing me to get where I wanted to be financially.