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The following story appears courtesy of and with thanks to Harold F Plank and James D Plank

No one could be more proud of grandparents than my brothers and I. All sorts of fun were ours on those long summer days that we spent on their Tioga County, Pennsylvania, farm. Across the field was the grave of a Civil War soldier who once had owned these one hundred acres. Up in the corner was the fish pond. Up through the woods were 鈥渢he gully鈥� and the waterfalls and all sorts of trails for little boys to wander. But better than the beautiful countryside and the farmhouse and barn was the wonderful warmth inside of a man and a lady who loved each other and loved life. As I remember growing up, I thought their life must have always been perfect. Only as we grew older did we learn that the thistles came with the roses. And only as time went on did we understand why the red, white and blue flies day and night all year through. Before Grandpa Plank settled on this farm, he had travelled around the world with thousands of other soldier boys to secure freedom for every generation that would follow. And before we grandsons would be born, their son Jim would also travel to distant shores and give his life in Vietnam. Many stories were too painful to recall. But on one of these later days, my grandfather told some of his adventures. My brother Jon put it all together, and we hope that it will always be a fitting tribute to the man who told it.
This is the story of a Tioga County, Pennsylvania, soldier during World War II. It was December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and thrust the United States into World War II. I was a senior in high school; and on January 13, when I was 18 years old, I signed up for the draft with the Tioga County Selective Service Board in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania.

Upon graduation on June 4, 1942, I continued to work on the family farm until my 19th birthday in 鈥�43, when I received notice that I had been drafted. I was to report to the Wellsboro armory on the morning of January 27 to be transported to a Wilkes Barre hospital for the examination. Meanwhile, I learned that three other fellows from my graduating class, Dick Streeter, Robert Miles, and Arnold English, had been asked to join at the same time.

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