Page 91 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2024 - Online Magazine

ceLeBratinG 10 YearS VeteranS
2021

arMY air corpS
eDition
wwii

“It was beautiful are
there, and the both
streams were delightfully agreeable about this
full of trout. The stage of their lives. Hopefully, it
Germans weren’t will be a long time from now, but
allowed to fish before he once again slips “the
during the war, surly bonds of earth”, it seems
so you could cut appropriate to say, “Thank you,
a pole, tie some Charles Baldwin, for your service
string on it, attach and for living an exemplary life
a fishhook from of appreciating the simple things
your escape and treasuring the important Charles at Normandy in
June 2024
kit, and catch a things.”
mess of German
brown trout.”
They would bring
them back and fry them up on their Coleman stoves. cHarLeS BaLDwin

Despite those pleasant memories, Charles remembers is now 102 and living in Granbury. He
the devastation he witnessed after the war ended. He felt visited the beaches of Normandy in June
most sorry for the “conscripted” homeless. “They had 2024 on the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
nowhere to go.” (At least 11 million people were displaced
from their home countries – about seven million of those
in Germany.) The detailed scrapbook he has kept of his
military service is a rare glimpse into the experiences of
the Greatest Generation during WWII.

In Nov. 1945, 1st Lt. Baldwin sailed out of Marseilles,
France on the USAT Geo. W. Goethals and landed at Camp
Miles Standish in Boston. Back in Artesia, he went to work
with his father again, foregoing college because of his
father’s fragile health. He separated from the Army Air
Corps but stayed in the AF Reserves, retiring a Lt. Colonel
after 20 years of service. He married his high school
sweetheart, and he and Peggy raised three wonderful
children, Rick, Judy, and Russ. The family moved to
Lamesa in 1964, where Charles managed the popular
family-owned Baldwin’s Department Store on the square
for over 30 years.

After retirement, the couple travelled in their RV to
countless state and national parks. Charles never tired of
the great outdoors, especially the mountains, and the two
often served as camp hosts. Charles fell in love with Alaska
and developed a love for the poetry of Robert Service. He
memorized many of the colorful poems and developed a
reputation for entertaining guests around a campfire with
his gift. (He once unknowingly recited the crusty “Ballad
of Salvation Bill” for the Rev. Franklin Graham.)

Peggy passed away in 2005, but love found Charles again
when he became reacquainted with an old friend. He and
Myrna have been married for ten years. Charles and his
new bride relocated to Lubbock when he was 89, and they

Lubbock Senior Link 91