Memorial Day, 2012: I came from the greatest generation. | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    Memorial Day will be a time of reflection for many who lost loved ones. I served a short time on active duty with the Army and then a six year commitment with National Guard. My good luck was that I served between the Korean War and The Vietnam War. But the war that most affected my life was World War II.

    I can remember at six years old hearing the report of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and then a few months later a group of Army men showed up at our General Store. My dad had a telephone that tied into the Washington NC office and that may have been the catalyst of their arrival.

    They asked my Dad, Jesse Cayton, if they could put an Observation Post in our front yard beside the store. Without hesitation he said yes. Then they asked my mother, Hallene Cayton if she would be the chief observer. Without hesitation she said yes.

    The 12 x 12 building was built with no insulation and a tar-paper shed room and no compensation to my Dad. We were at war.

    The telephone was a crank phone on the wall that was converted to reach Norfolk Va. for reporting all visible aircraft that we could see. Hallene was to recruit volunteers to man the post 24-7. Many times the volunteers did not show up and she would take their shift day or night. This was to be a temporary assignment but it lasted until the end of the war. Hallene almost ruined her health from lack of sleep.

    She carried me to class with her to learn the silhouettes of all flying aircraft. By age seven I could identify all that flew and I felt that I was in the Army.

    Because we had the only phone for several miles around us many of the young men from Blounts Creek would give our phone number when filling out their contact information on entering active duty by way of the Draft. MIA and death messages came to Western Union in Washington NC. The office would call our number and deliver the message by phone and then hold the hard-copy for pick-up in town. Mother would go to the families, sometimes in the middle of the night and deliver the message. Usually she stayed until morning or spent a long time with the family to help them through it.

    Tires, shoes, sugar, lard and many food products were rationed and required a Ration Stamp to purchase. To conserve material most product came to us in bulk like one hundred pound bags of beans, one hundred pound bags of sugar and fifty pound stands of lard. We would get up at 5:00 am in the morning to weigh and package so the store could open at 7:00am until 9:00pm to distribute products according to the customer's Ration Stamp.

    We saved tin foil and bought savings stamps at ten and twenty five cents and war bonds at twenty five dollars to support the war effort. Red Cross donation boxes were placed in every public place and the collection box was always passed at the movie theater. We were at war.

    There was no television so our visuals of the war were news-reels at the theater. Life magazine had photos and I remember the cartoons in the news paper from Bill Malden. But most of all I remember waiting for letters from my cousins and friends from Blounts Creek letting us know they were alright.

    I remember the death message for Kenneth Paul my mother's best friend's brother and the MIA message for Cleave Cox who later turned up alive but badly wounded and the return of my older friend Red Chandler and Cousin Bunk Jones who had fought across the Philippine Islands.

    I guess I really remember that we were all together for a common cause. We had been attacked and we were Americans out to save our United States. We (all of us) were at war.