Remembering the Impact of Pearl Harbor, 70 Years Later

Today is the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Below you will find Buddy's account of how he remembers that infamous day's impact on his life and the lives of those around him.

~Claire


I was getting grown during the time of World War II. That started in 1941, so I was only a teenager. But it impacted my life for a long time, and everyone else’s too. It changed everything.

Adolf Hitler was making speeches in Germany when he was trying to start the war in 1939. Then they started invading France and took France over overnight. It didn't take them long to capture France and Belgium and Czechoslovakia, and just on and on and on. It affected everybody. So they started to ration everything: sugar, shoes, gasoline, tires; unless you were a preacher or a farmer you couldn't buy tires.

When the Japanese got into it and bombed Pearl Harbor, we declared war immediately almost. We heard about Pearl Harbor on the radio and Dixie [my sister]and one of her girlfriends took me, I don't know why, to Temple. I was three years younger than them, so I don't know that it affected me at that moment the way that it did them. They were right at the age where all of their boy friends were drafted immediately.

There were some who were trying to find a job and joined the National Guard just to eat, or the CCC (the Civilian Conservation Corps). They sent one of my friends to Oregon, to cut trees down in the forest. It was hard to find a job then because there was a deep depression from 1937-1939. Those were bad times. So if men didn't have jobs, they joined the National Guard, or the CCC, or they were drafted into the Army right quick. And the women at that age either went to work at all these Army camps they were building or they went to the shipyards and worked building ships, tanks, and all that. That raised us out of the depression because it gave everybody a job of one kind or another, all for the war effort.

-an excerpt from Buddy B's Interview

Faye B - Texas

The secret to a lasting successful marriage? One that can stand the test of life and time? I think that Buddy and Faye know that secret.

~Claire

Buddy and I met on a blind date. A mutual friend who was going with one my friends set us up. She got on my case saying that he was cute. She said that they couldn't go to the movies unless we came with because Buddy was the one with the car.

I said, "I don't want to go on a blind date!"

She said, "Oh, you can go just one time. It won't hurt you."

That was the way that started.

That first blind date that we went on, we were supposed to go to a traveling circus. When we got there, they were sold out, we couldn't get a ticket. So, we didn't take that. They had a Ferris wheel and things like that down on the ground. So we went out there and rode some of those things.

At the park or driving along, Buddy never said two words unless I would initiate a question or something and he would answer it. And that would be it. He wouldn't say anything else until I said something else. I kept trying to talk and got nothing from him.

When I got back, I told my girlfriend, "Well, that's the last time I go with him!"

Then, I don't know how, we heard that Buddy was sick. I'm sure it was my girlfriend that told me that because she was still going with his friend. She said, "We ought to go see him." Well, we did. We went on the bus out to his house. And he was sick on the bed and could hardly move because of his back. His mom was very gracious and invited us in. Here we trooped in there with no warning, no nothing. We stayed a little while and then we said we needed to go.

Buddy said, "Well, you're not going to ride that bus back." He gets up, put his clothes on and gets in his car even though he's been flat on his back. He drove us back down to the apartment. After that, he called me.

My friends and I lived in an apartment at that time. He would come over there and we would sit on the porch swing a lot. I had three other roommates. Well, four sometimes during that time. The girls and I made a bet of who would get married first out of the group. I said, "Well, it certainly won't be me." We were all betting on this one girl, that she would get married first. It turned out that I was the first one out of the group that got married.

We went on a honeymoon, but it was 10 years after we got married. We went to New Orleans.

We went down to Pat O'Brien's, a famous bar in New Orleans on Bourbon Street. We sat there and ordered a big hurricane for both of us to share and listened to the piano play "I Can't Stop Loving You". We would sit there until two o'clock in the morning. I loved every minute of it! I just loved listening to that woman play that piano. She could really played that piano. She was so good. I had never got a chance before to just go out and listen to music.

Then the next day we went down and got beignets. There was powdered sugar all the way from the shop to our room.

Buddy is the most sensitive, patient, loving man. He's a wonderful parent. He's just an all-around wonderful person. He's never been ugly to me. I could not have ever picked a better choice for a husband. He’s still the most patient person I know. And that takes a lot living with me. It takes a lot of patience.

I think one of the keys to a successful marriage is honesty. You need to trust one another, love one another, respect one another and be friends.