Floyd Vernon Moore, an 88 year old disabled veteran, doesn’t
mind sharing memories about growing up with five brothers and three sisters on
their family farm near Robbins, NC.
He doesn’t mind sharing stories about his 30-year career as
a Greensboro mail carrier. He tells how
anxious he is to get back on the golf course and test his brand new knee. He even talks about appreciating his pastor
at Lawndale Baptist Church.
But when asked about his WW II story, Moore draws a few
lines. “I will tell you about going in,
and I’ll tell you about getting out, but that’s all,” Moore asserted
firmly. I was resigned to take what I
could get, so Moore began with his, “going in, and getting out,” military story.
“I graduated high school in May, 1943. Three months later, I was invited into the
Army. My letter read, “Your neighbors
have chosen you to report to Ft. Bragg.”
After less than a year of training in OK and KS, I was in England,
assigned to the 310TH Field Artillery BN of the 79th INF
DIV.”
PFC VERNON MOORE -- 1943
Vernon wasn’t the first, or the last of the Moore brothers
to be invited to serve their country.
In June, 1942, George Winton Moore, left for the Army. Also assigned to the 79TH INF DIV.,
Winton Moore was wounded in action. He brought
home shrapnel which was never completely removed. He died a few years after the war, in a VA
hospital, from “far advanced tuberculosis.”
According to Vernon Moore, “the family always thought he died from lead
poisoning from the embedded
shrapnel.”
In September, 1942, another Moore brother, James Harding
Moore, left home to become a paratrooper and chemical warfare specialist with the
82ND Airborne. During the
Battle of the Bulge, he was killed while attacking an enemy machine gun nest.
If you are keeping score, as Mrs. Vanda Moore surely was –
three of her six sons had left for the Army in just a few weeks over one year. A year later, those three sons had picked up
purple hearts – one posthumously.
A younger Moore brother, Henry Coleman Moore, left the
family farm later and served with the Navy during the Korean War.
Given these threads, it is surprising that Vernon Moore had
the patience to continue our conversation with his “getting out” part. A large photograph on the living room mantle
made me think he might continue – it was of him and his family, taken at
Normandy’s Utah Beach.
“We went ashore after D-Day with our 105mm howitzers, and
started shelling German targets a few miles inland. I was wounded along the way. I didn’t know it at the time, but my platoon
sergeant put in for me a purple heart. What
bothered me the most was an intestinal bug I picked up. That put me in the hospital at Reims, France
for several weeks.
They almost sent me home, but when I got better they put me
in a rear echelon military police outfit that escorted German and Italian
prisoners of war. We had lots of them,
so that kept me busy until after the war ended.” Moore is not hesitant to mention that God had
a plan for him, or he would not have made it home.
Mission completed – Vernon Moore told about getting in, and
getting out, and a few extras. Like many
of his WW II peers, he is under-appreciated, under-recognized, and thanks to paperwork
snafus and lost records, he is under-awarded.
While he doesn’t care to talk about WW II, he would not have the cause
forgotten.
After the war, Vernon Moore attended Kings Business College
in Greensboro. He married the daughter
of a Robbins textile mill family of five daughters and one son. Next year, Dorothy and Vernon Moore will
celebrate their 66th anniversary.
They have three children and two grands -- all of whom live in the
Greensboro area. Dorothy Moore retired
from Greensboro City Schools, after 40 years of service.
DOROTHY & VERNON MOORE -- 2013
Vernon Moore will have to scramble to come up with an
appropriate anniversary celebration.
They have toured England, Europe, Hawaii, Alaska, and many Caribbean
Islands.
I commended them on their hard-working yard man. Dorothy Moore quickly exclaimed, “He is not a
yard man – he is our wonderful next door neighbor! He mows our yard twice a week and will not
take a penny for it.”
As does the Moore neighbor -- appreciate a WW II veteran
today. They are a national treasure –
and slipping away all too soon.
