Send-Off
With “thumbs up” gestures and yells like “Keep-em flying!,” the trainloads of servicemen would pull out of North Platte after a canteen break. The workers would cheerfully wave and shout back — while trying to stifle any thoughts that perhaps some of these men would never pass that way again; their final days concerned with places named Iwo Jima, Omaha Beach or Midway. Circumstances did allow some personnel to make repeat visits while en route to new assignments. (At least one man from Ohio passed through the canteen on eight different occasions.) Some servicemen, impressed by North Platte's character, returned after the war to live there.
|
|