Remembering a Common WW II Soldier

Eugene Floyd Cole was drafted into the United States Army in 1941. He had been born December 5, 1919, in the Meat Camp community of Watauga County, North Carolina. His father owned a sawmill and the family moved around in Watauga and Ashe Counties to harvest the timber. During the Great Depression, his father bought a five-hundred acre farm in Wilkes County, when the land prices had hit bottom, and the family moved there.

Gene did his basic training in Fort Benning, Georgia. He spent a little time in Puerto Rico, but the bulk of his service came fighting the Japanese in the Pacific. He served in places like the Philippines (especially on the southern island of Mindanao), New Guinea, Corregidor, and Guam. 

One day he was walking through a field when a little girl saw him, became frightened, and turned to run. She stepped on a mine and was blown up. He would had been headed on that exact same path. At another time, he saw his best friend shot to pieces at his side. These two incidents always bothered him.

Private Cole was given the opportunity to train for anti-aircraft. He would have loved this, but he found he didn't have the math background needed. His parents had asked him quit school in the eighth grade, so he could work full-time at the sawmill.

While on furlough, he married his girlfriend, Geneva Greene, by meeting her in York, South Carolina, because it was easier to obtain a marriage license there. The war ended about a year later. When Gene came home, he broke every trinket in the house that said, "Made in Japan." He didn't want any reminders around.

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