New Month -- New Column -- June 2008

My current project involves documenting my experiences during World War II. What was the war like for non-combatants like me?

My non-combatant status came from my having more guts than my buddies. Or was it just luck?

I was drafted before the start of World War II. At the time, I was a junior at the University of California in Berkeley -- and surrounded by men who wanted no part of the war. Neither did I.

However, the draft board had different ideas. The Board was made up of local citizens who had no regard for a man's education. On the other hand, I was dumb enough to register for the Board citing East Los Angeles as my home. Berkeley professors went out of their way to defer students. East Los Angeles members preferred to defer aircraft workers.

I was fair game. I got my draft notice the month I finished my classes at Berkeley.

Although I majored in chemistry, I didn't even know how to build a Lincoln Log bridge. They dumped me into the Combat Engineer pothole.

For those unfamiliar with the Combat Engineers, they were the poor souls that ventured ahead of the Infantry in order to build bridges for others to cross. During the war, many were shot.

How did I escape from the Combatant Engineers? How did I ever warrant non-combatant status? How did I avoid the fate of an untalented grunt? I'll explain that in subsequent chapters. Suffice to say, "Fools blunder in where angels fear to tread."

However, I did live through it. Many of my basic-training comrades did not.

Henry Lefevre
Author of "A Spoonful of Humor"