The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 entering the United States in World War II. Young men and women from all over were going off to war, never knowing if they would come back...or not. Frightened out of their wits, they donned the uniform and fought to defend our country.
Ten days following the attack on Pearl Harbor, there was a train coming through a quaint town of 12,000 people. The word got out that it was this little town's own National Guard. [So] Some of the people got together and baked cookies and cakes and went to the train station to give to them.
When they got there with their cakes and cookies and look in in the train windows, it turned out it wasn't any of their guys. It was the Kansas National Guard.
They stood there wondering what to do with all the food they had brought until one woman said, "Well, I'm not taking my cookies home."
Ray Wilson, a drug store clerk, stepped up to the train and gave her cookies to one of the guys. Soon all the others began doing the same thing. It wasn't long afterward that the military started moving Army troops through this little town.
That drug store clerk organized some women and decided to meet the trains as they moved through Nebraska, carrying boys to war. Over the next four and one-half years, those women met every train, sometimes up to thirty-two trains a day.
Eventually, the Union Pacific Railroad gave that station to the women serving the men; they named it North Platte Canteen.
These young men on the trains had ten minutes to run into the canteen to grab hot coffee, donuts, a sandwich, or cookies. Then they'd get back on the train...many never to return.
Six million men and women came through that station over the course of the war. One guy said, "I graduated, enlisted, and rode three days and nights. The train stopped at a place called North Platte, Nebraska. I jumped off the train, and I saw girls who could be my sister. The women reminded me of my mom. They hugged us and gave us food. We got back on the train, scared out of our mind, but for ten minutes...that fear went away."
Sitting in a foxhole with bullets blazing and death all around, someone said, "Wouldn't it be great to be in North Platte for ten minutes?"
This eighteen-year old boy had tasted the food and felt the love and kindness of those young girls and women at the Union Pacific Railroad station...and for ten minutes, he felt loved...and safe.
A young woman wondered if her grandfather had gone through North Platte when he was in the military. She makes a visit to the home, and sitting in his room...she holds his hand, and said, "Grandpa, does the name North Platte, Nebraska mean anything to you?"
The ninety-year old man, who prior to the question sat staring out the window, wondering where time had gone...his thoughts are cloudy. He suffers from dementia, but her question, like a spark, brought him back.
"North Platte...you bet it does! They gave me coffee and donuts...and they shined my shoes. You bet I remember North Platte, Nebraska.
Just as quickly as the mind drifted to that place, it now was like a dying ember. For an instant he remembered, but now the memory fades into nothing.
You ask...what is it that many years after the war would bring a ninety-year old man out of dementia? It's when you are eighteen...and scared...and going to war...and someone loves you and is kind to you.
~Written by Vada M. Wolter, taken from our book "Treasured Memories"
Thank you for reading our blog,
Vada and Joe
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