Page 48 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2022 - Online Magazine

Terry Parr
WII and Korean War
veteran Terry Parr is
Wtypical of many in the
Greatest Generation when he
says, “I don’t have much of a
story.” However, whether behind
a rifle, on a typewriter, in a truck,
or beside a hospital bed, they all
served their country. Each one
who served has a story to tell.
Terry’s “not much of a story”
turned into a two-hour interview.
Marcus Terry Parr was born in
1925, to Grady and Anna May
Parr in Cottle County, Texas,
where his dad farmed and
ranched. Terry attended schools
first in Colleyville, and later in
Childress where he graduated
from high school in 1942.
He attended North Texas
Agricultural College in Arlington
for a year. When his older brother
was drafted, Terry’s dad needed
him on the farm, so he got Terry
deferred. The young man felt
48 Lubbock Senior Link
Not Much?
by Larry Williams
so guilty that, after
about a year and
unbeknownst to his
dad, he went to the
draft board and told
them he wanted
to be drafted. He
was inducted on
November 15, 1944.
Parr attended
basic training in
Camp Wolters,
near Mineral Wells,
Texas. “After a short leave, I took
a train to New York and was
assigned to a replacement unit.
We shipped out of New York
Harbor on April 8, 1945, on the
SS Argentina, an old, converted
luxury liner. We sailed in a
convoy in the North Atlantic.”
The farm boy remembered the
sea being very rough. “There
were big waves way above you,
and I remember standing in long
lines just to eat two meals a day.
By the time we finished the first
meal, it was time to stand in line
for the second.
“The Argentina arrived in La
Havre, France on April 13, 1945.
I didn’t know at the time that
Germany would surrender less
than a month later, on May
7. We got our duffel bags and
boarded a train. I never knew
exactly where we were. We got
to get off sometimes and go into
the countryside. I remember the
train moved very slowly, and we
always ate K-rations.”
“The train took us to a
replacement depot in Germany.”
(The Repo Depot, or “repple
depple,” was where Army units
came to pick up replacements
for men they had lost.) “Each
of us had a military occupation
number and was selected from
the depot by that number. I was
selected as a mechanic for the
Ordnance Company that was
attached to General Patton’s
Third Army. We worked on Jeeps
and troop trucks.
“I stayed with the Ordnance
Company until May 1945.
When the war was over, I
was transferred to another
Ordnance Company because I
didn’t have enough points to
go home.” (Troops were sent
home according to the number
of points they had. Points were
given for each battle star and for
each month overseas.)
“With the war over in Europe,
we were to go to the Pacific. We
finally got on a ship headed for
the Philippines and went through
the Panama Canal. While still
sailing, we heard that atomic
bombs had been dropped on
Japan in August 1945. The war
in the Pacific was over. We went
ahead to the Philippines where
we stayed a while but didn’t do