The Union County journal. [volume] (Marysville, Ohio) 1875-1951, 1947-03-31
YOUTH. 21, KILLED AS HIS AUTOMOBILE UPSETS
Newsweek Magazine Picks Union
County!s Board to Tell Story of Drott

~ &%I O% ID
/, town draft boards catapulted in
to war: Always, the were persons.
To R. w. Bigler, chairman of
the Union County board, they
were youngsters who stopped by
now land then at the Dayton
Power & Light CO., where he is
district manager, to pay their
fathers bills. Murel Stevens, vice
chairman, used to chat with them
whenever they dropped around
his billiard parlor to shoot pool.
They drove cars which their fam
lilies had bought from August
Vollrath, board secretary, who
owns the Buick-Pontiac agency
in Marysville, the county seat.
While at school, they may have
spent part of their vacation
working on the farm of R. w.
Zim m man, board member.
After graduation, many had got
ten jobs at o, NJ. Scott&Sons,
one of the largest mail-order seed
companies in the world, wher
Charles Mills, the local appeals
agent, is vice president.
And, when the draft board fin
ally decided to send them Greet
ings" it was another board mem
ber, c. 0. Shoup, who delivered
the letters, for Shoup is the
rural mail carrier.
To the Last Man
This week, for the first time
in more than six years, members
of the Union County board, like
those of 6,442 other local boards
in the United States, could lean
back and relax. Since October
l940, they had been working two
or three nights every week, from
7:30 or 7:45 in the evening we'll
into the morning, sometimes un-
til 2 or 2:30. But although Selec-
tive Service wasn't officially
scheduled to end until March 81,
Union County had drafted its last
man back in August.
Now, the records that Clerk
Lee Wilkins had accumulated
were carefully stacked in four
old filing cabinets in the boards
dimly lit Second-floor office on
Sixth and Main Streets, MaryS-
vile, while Wilkins awaited word
from Washington on where to
send them. With the Mediterra-
mean aboil, Congress was already
discussing a proposal for local
boards to keep the records, just
| in case.
Approximately 100000 Ame-
ricans were drafted into the SER
vice during the war. Of this num-
! ber l,795 came from Union coun-
! ty. Another 248 Union County
men joined the service as volun-
teers; still others went off with
the National Guard. All told, of
Union County's 20,009 men, wo-
men and children, more than
2,l00 served in the war. Last
week, they were all back, except
for the hundred-odd who had re-
enlisted and the sc who lay in
graves from Two Jima to Ger
many.
No one had anticipated that so
many would serve and fight and
die when the first registrantS
poured into the Marysville office
on Oct. Is, 1910. The United
States was still at peace. Most of
the 2,053 men-every man be-
tween the ages of Fl and 36 in
Union county-who signed up for
the draft on that day believed
they were facing, at the very
most, twelve months of peace
time training.
In November, the first three
men were inducted. The induc-
ton was an experimental one. All
three volunteered for it. They lit
tie realized they were volunteer
ing to swat out four yarS of COM
bat.
When Pearl Harbor came, the
boards work really began. No
longer was the United States Ar
my either lark or a nuisance,
And the board began to learn
things about its neighbors it had
never suspected. Not that Union
County wasn't super charged
with patriotism. In this war, as
in every conflict since the Civil
war, the young men were eager
to serve their country.
Sons and Fathers
But in many cases their pa
rents were even more eager to
keep thm at home. AS Mills put
it later: '"The most striking thing
we learned was that with Ameri-
can parents, their affection for
their kids comes first. Patriotism
is second"