In his famous 1865 New York Tribune editorial Horace Greeley said, “Go West, young man.” Not quite a century later I took his advice and went. In September 1942, I joined a cadre of officers and nom-coms to form the 102nd Infantry Division (the Ozark) at Camp Maxey, Paris, Texas. That was when Paris was on the edge of the forests, and was the last outpost before the Red River and Hugo Oklahoma. Paris, Texas became famous decades later in the film. I immediately identified with Texas.

During my pre-Depression, growing-up, days on a Mississippi farm, Texas was a nostalgic notion where cowboys hung out and oil wells exploded when a hole was punched in its black soil. Sam Houston and Davy Crockett were in the mind of every adventurous boy. The Alamo substituted in my imagination for a crushed Confederacy. He put me off in Texas, a state I dearly love was a line from Jimmy Rodgers