#29 War – Some of
us never went to war.
In the previous post we looked at Drum Family Tree
members who served during WWII. We also touched on the fact that some of us
Drums never served in the military. Who can know all the why’s of that
happening? In recent years we were just born in years that fell “between” wars
so were never drafted and didn’t enlist. Some never entered military service
due to illness. I’m sure the circumstances were similar in earlier generations,
as well.
As I have so often done in previous posts, I again lament
the lack of journals, letters, news reports, or even oral history to give us a
hint about these ancestors of ours. I suppose it is possible Progenitor Philip
had some military experience in the old country before he came to this
continent. If so, those records have not yet been located. It is highly
doubtful Philip’s son, Jacob, ever served in any military capacity. He traveled
with his father to Pennsylvania when he was eight-years-old in 1738 and died at
the hands of Native Americans in 1774 at age 44.
Jacob’s son, George, of course, did, but George’s son
Philip (1787-1858) apparently did not, missing his chance to be in the War of
1812 at age 25. Philip’s son John (1826-1881) apparently did not serve either.
His chance would have been the Civil War, when he was 34. There is apparently
no military service for John’s son, Nathan A. (1868-1934) either. At age 30 he
might have been eligible for service in the Spanish American War but at 50, was
far too old for WW1. Of course, that was the war Nathan’s son, Elmer, marched
off to fight.
Elmer’s son, Harry Nathan Drum, however, could have enlisted
or been drafted during WWII. He turned 20 in 1943. Circumstances, however,
dictated that he join the line of Drums who did not go to war. During his
childhood he struggled with a number of illnesses, one of which, Rheumatic
Fever, forced him to miss at least the last two months of his 5th
grade year of school.
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| Harry’s 5th Grade Report Card showing the word “Quarantined” in the May column. Grading was different in 1933 than in today’s system. An “A” was “Admirable” (95-100) [a clear A today], E was Excellent (85-95) [generally a B today], F = Fair (75-85) [generally a C today], P = Poor (60 -75) [generally a D today], and M = Very Poor (less than 60) [generally an E or F, depending on the system, today]. |
The word “quarantined” is written in the May column in
his 5th grade report card. A report card for his 6th
grade year is missing. It may have been that he was schooled at home for that
year and a record was not kept. However, he did have a report card for the 7th
grade so he must have been able to show satisfactory progress enough to attain
that achievement.
His grades in the first grade started out with average “C’s”
but improve to “B’s” and a few “A’s” by the end of that year. He achieved
mostly “B’s” his second through fourth grades. His 5th grade marks
return to the more dismal “C’s” and even a few “D’s” as he apparently struggled
with his illness until May when he is removed from school and quarantined. This
report also noted that in October this 10-year-old was “inclined to mischief”
and “capable of doing better”. In December he was “showing improvement” and in
January the teacher marked his progress as “very commendable”.
Things really changed when he reached the 7th
grade, however. One day, half-way through the year, a year that shows he earned
the most “C’s” and “D’s” of any during his schooling, he refused to return to
school. Very little was ever said about this when I was growing up except that
he refused to return because he was, according to my mom, “being mistreated by
a teacher.” His 7th grade teacher wrote on the back of the report,
“Not eligible for promotion.”
He would have been of draft-able age beginning in August
of 1943 when he’d have reached age 20. However, to my knowledge he was never
drafted, nor did he enlist, during WWII. When the draft was re-established by President
Truman in 1948, he was either not drafted or, given the following
letter from his doctor, he received a deferment.
November 5, 1948
To Whom it may concern:
Mr. Harry Drum was examined by me this date. His past history reveals
that he was sickly till the age of 18 months with a skin condition. After this
he gives a history of contracting Rheumatic Fever and was sickly for many
years. At the present time he complains of headaches, periods of nausea, marked
perspiration of the hands, axilla, and feet. He has been unable to do any hard
work because he gets a marked palpation of the heart. He has not been
associating with people. It is noted that he kept busy by working, going home
and working about the house. Occasionally he works with one other man who he
helps about a garage.
It is my feeling that this boy has a severe psychoneurosis, associated
with a schizoid personality. His entrance into the military service would be a
great mistake. He is unable to make an adjustment to this type of living.
Very truly
(signed)
John T. Delehanty, M.D.
Markle Bank Bldg.
Hazleton, PA
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| Some of Harry’s lapel pins. |
When I first saw this letter, glued into one of Mom’s
scrapbooks, it came as a bit of a shock. My dad never exhibited such conditions
and symptoms when I knew him; in fact, just the opposite! The man I knew enjoyed
people and worked long hours doing strenuous work! He enjoyed camping, vegetable
farming, beekeeping, being a Barbershopper, and being a 32˚ Mason; holding
elected offices in both of those organizations. One of his fellow Masons still today almost always
mentions how they were Masons together, every time he sees me!
Dad looked forward to attending meetings of various
church clubs and activities; sang in the church choir; served on the church consistory;
and taught Sunday School classes for the adult men. He served on, and was elected President of the
Luzerne County 4-H Leaders’ Association, was the Beekeeping 4-H Project Leader
for the local 4-H club, enjoyed volunteering for and attending various 4-H
events, enjoyed attending Luzerne County Beekeeper Association meetings and
never shied away from an opportunity to chat and kibitz with neighbors, friends
and whomever might drop by for a visit.
It must have been Eleanor who made the difference. She often
told the story of how one Sunday morning in 1949, Harry, who was sitting beside
his mother in church at the time, elbowed Ella for attention, pointed toward
Eleanor in the choir and said, unbeknownst to Eleanor, “That’s the girl I am
going to marry.”
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| This is my favorite picture of “us kids”. |
On September 17, 1950 (age 27) he did marry 23-year-old Eleanor Esther
Shearer in the St. John’s German Reformed Church, Rev. Theodore C.
Hesson, officiating.
Together Harry and Eleanor had two sons, Nathan Harry Drum
and Ronald Clayton Drum.
Harry spent most of his career as a shipping and sales
clerk at Wagner Bros. Hardware Store in Hazleton, PA. He spent the last years of his life driving
Hazleton City bus. On a cold, snowy
February morning in 1986, Harry was preparing his bus for that day’s run. He
climbed onto the back bumper so he could reach the top sign in order to change
it. His foot slipped off the bumper and he landed with his full weight on his
left leg, shattering his knee. Although
doctors were successful in rebuilding the knee, complications from the surgery
resulted in the formation of blood clots in his lungs and he passed away on April
3rd, just six weeks from the date of his accident. He was
62-years-old. Eleanor lived 28 more years, dying from a stroke on January 17,
2014, just 20 days shy of her 87th birthday.
Neither of Harry’s sons ever served in the military,
either. Nathan came the closest to being drafted, by far, between the two of
us. Nathan was born February 2, 1954 and I followed October 8, 1957. Being born
in the ‘50’s made us both draft-age beginning in the ‘70’s, right on the tail
end of the Vietnam War.
At that time, the draft was being conducted through a lottery system. One barrel held
capsules with numbers in them, 1 through 365. Another barrel held capsules
containing a date, one for each day of the year. First a date was drawn and
then a number was drawn to be matched with it. The lower the number, the
greater the chance people born that day would be drafted. The lottery for the
birth year 1954 was held March 8, 1973. Number 1 was assigned to June 27,
number 6 was assigned to August 11, number 111 fell to November 5, and February
2 matched up with number 54. Numbers over 100 probably would not be called.
Numbers 20 and lower were almost guaranteed to be called. The chances that 54
would be called seemed fairly likely.[1]
“On the morning of my birthday I woke up in my dorm room
at Penn State when my clock radio announced that Nixon had put a moratorium on
the call-up,” recalled Nathan in 2018. Even though the lottery continued
through 1975, the draft was officially ended on January 27, 1973.[2]
The last lottery was held March 12, 1975. It covered men
born in 1956.[3] I
was born in 1957.
The closest I came to the military (which is not really
very close at all) was my involvement in a program which had the goal of
building sustainable models for 4‑H Youth Development programs on Air Force
installations. The 4-H program is a youth development education program
conducted by each of the states’ Land-grant Universities under guidelines
provided by 4‑H National Headquarters, NIFA, USDA.
The Air Force was very interested in having 4-H programs available for the
children of Air Force personnel but were concerned about the sustainability of
such programs given the high turnover of adult volunteer leadership on Air
Force installations due to deployments.
Col. John Nelson, USAF Family Advocacy Program Division
Chief, wondered if it might be possible to develop 4-H programs through a
collaboration between military and civilian youth serving agencies, something
many, both military and civilian, felt was not possible. Believing this could
be done, and therefore an answer to the problem, he decided to test the theory.
Teaming up with 4‑H national leaders from USDA and administrators from the USAF
Family Member Program, they created a 3.5-years program to test the theory.
This program asked FAP and FMP staff from nine Air Force bases around the
country to work with the 4-H staff of the counties in which the bases were
located to find ways to establish sustainable 4-H Programs on their installations.
I was given the role of national coordinator for the project.
The project proved Col. Nelson was right!
The project began in 1999 and ended in 2002. Working with
military installations and military procedures was a new world for me. Just
when I thought I had the hang of it, however, everything changed. The United States was attacked on
the morning of September 11, 2001 by members of a
terrorist group called Al‑Qaeda. As it happened, I had agreed to discuss some
aspect of the program by telephone that morning with Janet Seachris, who was at
that time the Youth Center Director for Fairchild Air Force Base, Spokane,
Washington. We agreed we’d connect “sometime after” we were both in the office
that morning. The last message she sent to me on September 10 ended saying,
“I’m in by 6:45am my time, Tues., 11 Sept. 01” I marked that in my calendar
noting that was 9:45am eastern time. I replied saying I’d send her a message
when I was in my office. I arrived that morning at 7:30am but waited to send
her anything knowing she still had a number of hours before she would be in her
office. The following are my notes written that evening about that morning.
8:48am American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the WTC* North Tower.
8:55am Drum sent the requested message to Seachris.
9:00am Drum learned of the “accident” in New York.
9:05am United Airlines Flight 175 hit the WTC South Tower.
9:10am Drum learned of the second plane and told the secretary who
brought him the news, “My God! This is terrorism!”
9:43am American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.
9:45am (approximately) Seachris arrived at her office on Fairchild AFB
(6:45am pacific time)
9:59am the WTC South Tower collapsed.
10:00am United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Somerset County,
Pennsylvania.
10:28am the WTC North Tower collapsed.
10:30am the Northern Virginia Center was closed and all personnel sent
home.
*World Trade Center
My employer at the time was Virginia Tech, administrators
of the USDA/USAF grant, and my office was at their “northern campus”; a suite
of offices in an office building known as the Northern Virginia Center, Falls
Church, Virginia. By 10:30am much of the D.C. area was in traffic gridlock.
Almost all telephone service, regular and cell, was jammed/overloaded. I was
unable to contact my wife, Phyllis, so I decided it would be better to be at
our Alexandria apartment then in Falls Church when she got home. I decided to
head home, a 10 – 15 mile trip depending on the route taken. One of my
colleagues said “you might as well just stay here for a while. You’ll never get
to Alexandria now.” “I’m going to try,” I replied. “Good luck!” he said as I
left.
As it turned out, most of the traffic was trying to move
west, away from the city. I was trying to go south. I actually made it back to
the apartment faster than my normal commute time! Phyllis worked in an office
beside Union Station, which is across the city from Virginia, near the Capitol.
From her office she could see the smoke rising from the Pentagon.
The streets were in gridlock. Busses, metro trains, all
unavailable. Phyllis, and a colleague also from Virginia, decided to walk home.
Reaching the Potomac River, they were able to then catch a cab and she finally
made it back to the apartment sometime late that afternoon/early evening.
What I did not know was that by then colleagues from the
various bases and 4-H offices across the country involved in the program were
sending me messages expressing their concern for me and our fellow national level
colleagues. The next morning, I replied.
When I got up this morning, I looked out the window and the sun was
shining brightly. I even heard a bird chirping. It was then that I knew that
the world was still there, that we had to go forward no matter what. So here I
am at my desk in Falls Church ready to continue our efforts to improve the
lives of our children.
After reassuring everyone that all of our military
colleagues at the national level were safe, I added that for them, since their
offices were not in the Pentagon but in an office building in Crystal City, as
far as working conditions were concerned,
…the worst of it is the heavy smoke that still hangs in the air
throughout the area. Indeed, my wife and I could pick up the odor at our
apartment, which is some distance [approximately 5-6 miles] from the Pentagon area, this morning.
Among the many thankful responses that message brought,
was this one from Donna Shock, who was, at that time, the Family and Work Life
Consultant at Eielson AFB, Fairbanks, Alaska.
I am glad to hear you and yours are well. Believe it or not, the
tragedy of yesterday has affected us here in Alaska greatly. On a personal
note, I have two extended family members that are missing in NYC today, one a
Long Island firefighter and one a Manhattan police officer. My mom is keeping
me posted but it does not look good.
It was a difficult time for so many. It still is.
Harry’s grandson, Philip, was born August 10, 1995, in
Bangor, Maine. When he reached his 18th
birthday anniversary, his uncle Nathan gave him the Pennsylvania Long Rifle,
leather pouch, and powder horn reputed to have once been George Drum’s, carried
by him during his service in the American Revolutionary War.
 |
| Approximately 5’ long. They don’t call ‘em “long” for nothing! |
Return to the Drums of Drums, PA on July 29, 2019 to
discover Coal. Our next post is entitled: The
Miners.
[1]
Rosenbaum, David E., “Draft Numbers Chosen for 1973,” The New York Times,
Feb. 3, 1972
[2]
Glass, Andrew, “U.S. Military Draft Ends, Jan. 27, 1973”, Politico, Jan.
27, 2012 https://www.politico.com/story/2012/01/us-military-draft-ends-jan-27-1973-072085
accessed 3/9/2018
[3]
The Vietnam Lotteries, Selective Service System, https://www.sss.gov/About/History-And-Records/lotter1
accessed 3/9/2018
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