Page 122 - Anthology

Harry Truman is my hero. My unit was on the ships returning to the states for training to go to Japan
when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which lead to the end of the war. I had
enough points that I could be discharged; I’d had enough, so I decided to return home.

After the war I went back to school at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. I was accepted
back as a junior because of all my training and schooling while on active duty. I was teaching and I
graduated from Transylvania. I enjoyed teaching so much that I went back and got an undergraduate
degree in education from Transylvania. I took a teaching job in Cynthiana, Harrison County, Kentucky. I
went on to get a master’s degree from the University of Kentucky.

The Korean War loomed; my education completed, and my previous service set me up for a direct
commission as a medical service corps officer. I was sent to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, for officer basic
training. On one of the demonstrations they had a helicopter come in and land right on a dime that
someone had placed on the ground in front of the stands. Well, naturally that impressed me so much.
After basic I returned to Camp Atterbury, Indiana, for ground duty with an ambulance company. But I got
into helicopter school and went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for about a year of training on how to fly
helicopters. The war in Korea ended while I was in flight school, so I didn’t have to go to Korea for the
war, but I did go over later and served as a Captain on a helicopter ambulance team. I did this type work
until I became a field grade officer (Major).

2 Lieutenant Cecil H. Grimes
nd
th
1
57 Helicopter Ambulance Detachment Salzburg, Austria, 1954