Long-sealed military files will be opened
By Harry Levins
Post-Dispatch Senior Writer
06/05/2005
Archivists are about to unseal a mother lode of military history along Page Avenue in Overland.
A ceremony Saturday at the National Personnel Records Center will mark the opening of military files that until now have been off-limits to most Americans.
Among the gems:
Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s rating in mid-1944 of Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. The report closes with these words on Patton: “A brilliant fighter and leader. Impulsive and quick-tempered. Likely to speak in public in an ill-considered fashion.”
Gen. Omar Bradley’s radiogram in 1951 to Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Tokyo, in which Bradley quotes President Harry S Truman: “Deeply regret that it becomes my duty as president and commander in chief of United States military forces to replace you . . .”
Lt. Jackie Robinson’s request in August 1944 for a discharge on medical grounds - a college football injury. He writes, “In checking with the Special Service Branch I was told there were no openings for Colored Officers in that field.”
A Pentagon recommendation in May 1959 against a request from a group of disc jockeys that the Army let Pfc. Elvis Presley leave his duty station in Germany for a convention in Miami. “Prior to his induction, it was established that he would be handled exactly as any other inductee,” the memo says. It adds that “any indication of unusual treatment would impair this highly favorable public impression. This would be particularly true of a trip to Miami at the height of the Berlin Crisis.”
Full story here:
This could become interesting! What did your daddy or mom do during the war…really
MarkB