The Paris News

DETROIT — A member of The Greatest Generation, Donald Vickers, 85, of Detroit was 16 years old when he joined the U.S. Army at the beginning of World War II.

Along with hundreds of veterans at schools throughout the Red River Valley, he will be honored this Veterans Day by Detroit students and share about his experiences serving his country over a span of almost 32 years during which time he fought in World War II, the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam Conflict and was posted for three days in the early ’60s off the coast of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

An affable gentleman, he often chuckles about his war experiences, but his eyes tear at times when he recalls the horrors of war.

Born and raised in the Linden Community just north of Blossom, Vickers was a junior at Blossom High School when he and several friends ventured off to Vernon, Texas in the summer of 1942 to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal program initiated by President Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression.

“A friend of mine talked me into joining the Army,” he said. “We went to the Vernon Post Office to join but they said I had to get my parent’s permission.”

Upon returning to Blossom with a permission paper in hand he noticed a town drunk leaning against a post.

“I had this paper rolled up in my hand and this guy was hanging on a post drunk,” Vickers recalled Sunday from his Detroit residence. “This young boy offered him a drink if he would sign the paper and he did — looked almost like my dad’s signature.

“My dad didn’t like it but he didn’t say too much,” Vickers added.

After returning to Vernon, Vickers was sent first to Camp Waters in Mineral Wells and then off to Camp Shelby in Hattisburg, Miss., for 27 weeks of basic training.

“It wasn’t like now — just jump in and stay a little while,” Vickers said. “We were trained in hand to hand warfare.”

Army pay then was $21 a month, but he received an extra $5 a pay period after receiving “a little ole’ rifle patch,” Vickers said.

Following several more weeks of tactical training, he was allowed a five-day leave.

“I came home to see my mother and father and all my other relatives,” he said. Two older brothers were already in the service and his two sisters were in Blossom.

After leave, Vickers was transferred to Camp Shanks in New York where thousands of soldiers were loaded on ships headed for Europe.

“I didn’t even know there was an ocean,” Vickers said. “Why shoot, I hadn’t been to Paris, Texas many times in my life.”

He described the voyage.

“As far as you could see there was a circle of ships,” the soldier remembered. “It took us 31 days to get overseas.”

His ship was torpedoed along the way and soldiers were transferred to other ships.

“The first ship that came along was full and only took our officers with them,” Vickers chuckled. “The next ship that came along was a brand new hospital ship and only had a few doctors on it so we got to ride in style.”

From England he shipped to Northern Africa for several weeks before returning to England where he participated in D-Day.

“The only reason I am here today is I wasn’t in that first increment; we were the third or fourth.”

Assigned to a tank destroyer battalion, Vickers reached Normandy via landing craft.

On a march through France, fighting Germans all the way, Vickers received the first of several wounds he would receive during combat.

“We got out to do maintenance and they hit me in the back,” Vickers said. “The Germans were using wooden bullets. I went to a hospital tent where they just pulled it out, bandaged it and said, ‘get back there and go to fighting.’”

The highly decorated soldier said America was lucky to win the war.

“Here we were young boys not knowing where we were or what the terrain of the country was,” he said. “Our soldiers today are in that same situation in Iraq and Afghanistan because you are lost and don’t know where you are.”

Vickers spent three months at Camp Lucky Strike before proceeding into Germany, crossing the Sauer River.

“It took us four days to cross that river; it was shallow but you had guns on the other side you could see through,” he said.

His company was on its way to free Jews from a concentration camp when his battalion stayed back to guard a railroad tunnel.

“We captured a ‘screaming mama,’” Vickers said. “You talk about a weapon; there was an engine on this end and another on the other and that gun was in the middle.”

The train engineer happened to be a black American.

“He came up to us, speaking English,” Vickers said. A World War I veteran, the man had married a German woman and returned to Germany in 1939 to visit her relatives and was not allowed to leave the country.

“He was sure glad to be captured,” Vickers chuckled.

Vickers second battle scar came from shrapnel. He volunteered to go on a night scouting mission into a German village. The scouts entered by crossing a large ditch, using ladders to climb down one side and up the other.

“I was up there on a sidewalk and heard shooting and bullets coming right at me,” Vickers said. “I started running and when I got to that ditch I just jumped it.”

The soldier spent 21 days in the hospital before returning to the front lines.

“We didn’t pay those wounds no attention, we just kept going to get it over with,” he said.

Vickers received a third battle scar when his tank was hit while crossing the Blue Danube River between Austria and Germany.

“They hit it and knocked it over. A tank can take a lick now, and if you know how to hold on you can ride the buggy,” Vickers said. He spent two weeks in the hospital and left with a plate in his head.

When the war ended in May 1945, Vickers was near the Inns River in Austria with Russian forces on the other side, trapping thousands of Germans.

“Those Germans surrendered and came across that river throwing weapons and everything else in that river to get to us,” Vickers said. “They didn’t want to be captured by the Russians.”

Following World War II, Vickers married Mary Jo Bivins of Detroit.

“I knew her five days before we married, and we lived together 63 years until August of 2008,” he said. The couple raised five children. Vickers now has 10 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and 1 great-great-grandchild.

The soldier made the Army a career.

“After the war my choices were stay in the army where you know you have a pay day coming every month or get out and go to plowing with those old mules,” he said.

He retired a First Class Sergeant, returned to Detroit and spent about 12 years with the 410 Water District.

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