Page 38 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2023 - Online Magazine
P. 38
Harold Rogers Idalou Veteran
Remembers Germany
by Larry Williams
1954. Just 13 months later, he
was drafted into the Army. “I
was inducted along with some
other guys who were going into
other branches. I was sent to Ft.
Sam Houston in San Antonio
for eight weeks of medical
training.
“After my medical training, I
was sent to the east coast, to
New York, and was headed for
duty in Germany in July 1955.
We had some engine trouble
on our plane and had to land
in Gander, Newfoundland.
After the engine was repaired,
we flew on to Belgium, then
Frankfurt, Germany, to
arold Rogers just the ‘Dust Bowl’ years. The dirt Baumholder Army Base.” The
missed WWII. When would come in like dark, rolling
Hthe Japanese attacked clouds. You couldn’t see a few Americans were given the base
by the French in 1951. “We were
Pearl Harbor on December 7, feet in front of you. I attended
1941, he was two months shy of Idalou schools and played assigned to a medical unit of the
age 15. But it made an impact football, baseball, and tennis.
on the young man. “Two of my My favorite subject was math.
brothers served in the Navy My dad had 88 acres of land
during WWII; one was at Iwo north of town where I liked to
Jima,” he remembered. hunt jackrabbits. I graduated
from Idalou High in May 1949
Harold Dean Rogers was “the and worked on the family farm.
last of 11 children born to I tried to join the service with
William and Lula Rogers in some buddies of mine in 1952,
Panhandle, Texas. I had four but I got turned down because I
brothers and six sisters. There had a hernia.”
was a 25-year gap from the
firstborn to me, the last one. I In the summer of 1953, Harold
had nieces and nephews older met pretty young Velma Briggs
than me! I lost my sister two at the Spare-Rib Drive-in on the
months ago at age 103, so I’m east side of Lubbock. Velma,
the last one in the bunch again. who was from Floydada, was
visiting her sister who worked
“We moved to Idalou when at the drive-in. The couple hit it
I was three years old, during off and were married in January
38 Lubbock Senior Link
