“I am 99 years old. I was born in 1923 and grew up in Pisgah, Alabama, a little town on Sand Mountain. Daddy had 400 acres of land. He farmed 30 and rented out some of the rest. I was the oldest of six kids and grew up plowing the field with our two horses, chopping cotton and picking corn. We usually raised about six bales of cotton weighing 500 pounds each. We worked all day, and there was no time for fun.

We lived on the farm during the Depression, and things didn’t change much for us. We had cows, chickens, and pigs and grew everything we ate. Dad killed two hogs a year and stored the pork in the smokehouse. We had apple trees and a peach orchard that grew the best peaches I have ever eaten.  We hung Coleman lanterns for light and rode into town in our wagon pulled by horses. 

I graduated from Pisgah High School when I was 17 years old. I had just turned 18 and started college at Jacksonville State when I was drafted into World War II. Mama cried for two days when I got the draft letter. 

The Army gave me a choice about carrying a gun. I chose not to—partly because I was a Christian and partly because my mama didn’t want me to kill anyone. Mama was a big influence on me. 

I went to Paris, Texas for four weeks of paramedic training with the 426th medical battalion. My job was to wrap fingers, elbows, and arms to stop the bleeding and save lives.  Tourniquets came in three sizes, and the wrist was the hardest part of the body to stop the bleeding.

They sent me from Texas to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey to board a ship to Normandy. Crossing the Atlantic was filled with thoughts of what I was getting into.

During the first month of the invasion of Normandy, our unit worked around the clock in shifts of eight in a medical tent set up in an 80-acre field with four cows and two horses. The horses sniffed around the tent, but the cows stayed away. 

We were behind the lines, but we saw planes fly over, and heard the guns from the battlefield. Ambulances brought the wounded to our medical tent, and we were under stress all of the time. It was terrible to have ambulances backed up with soldiers bleeding or already dead. I have been a Christian since I was seven years old, and I prayed every day in that tent that I could help save lives.

General Patton entered our tent one day and said, ‘Don’t salute me. I love every one of you.’ He leaned over and hugged the necks of patients on cots. He hugged my neck, too.

We used 2,700 tourniquets during the first four weeks of the invasion of Normandy. If a guy did okay, we sent him back to the U.S., but guts falling out was something we couldn’t fix. We put the ones who bled to death in the field behind the tent to be buried later. There are thousands of men buried in that field. 

After 40 days, we moved our medical tent from Normandy to Aachen, Germany. The paramedics were some of the first men to enter Germany, and Aachen was the first Allied factory on German soil. We went from Aachen to the hospitals we set up in Berlin. We worked around the clock helping the wounded as the war ended.

I was almost 20 when I came back to Alabama. I went back to Jacksonville State, then moved to Mobile to be in a warmer climate where it didn’t snow. I sold advertising for the Mobile Press-Register for 35 years. 

My first wife, Ruby, and I were courting in Pisgah when I was drafted. She was worried I wouldn’t come back home or that I would  marry someone else. She had me marry her before I left for the war. We were married for 54 years until she passed away from cancer. I was married for 23 years to my second wife, Evelyn. She passed away a few weeks ago. 

I retired from the paper, but kept giving back to the community. I have been in the Optimist Club for 58 years. I am in the Masons, too. Any time that I can do something for somebody else, I take advantage of life. I get involved because I have to live with what I have and help the people around me.

I turn 100 on June 3rd. The president of a bank told me he would give me $100 for my 100th birthday, and I am going to let him live up to that. I’m going to be here until I’m 105.”

Curtis

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