Carolyn Bridgforth was born in February 1923 in Aberdeen, Mississippi. It was wonderful growing up there. No crime, drugs, violence, and guns. It was during the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] and people did not have money or use for guns. They were a one car family, so she walked everywhere. She was one of eight children. Her mother would feed tramps from the back porch. They had a big house, big porch, and plenty of food. Few people owned their homes. There were no drivers licenses then. They skated everywhere. There were not many cars. Her father raised cotton. The Blacks [Annotator's Note: African-Americans] worked in the fields. They did not have machinery. He had 90 families working for him. He owned a lot of land. The Depression really did not affect them. Her father had made a good bit of money before. Her mother always said to not throw anything away because somebody could always use it. She was very generous and took food to people. She was raising a big family. Bridgforth did not help her mother much because she had plenty of Black help in the kitchen. As a child, she did not think about the Depression, it had always been there. She remembers some friends having to move because they could not pay their rent. Bridgforth took it as part of life. World War 2 ended the Depression. Everything went to war. Shoes, coffee, sugar, and baby milk were rationed. Soldiers were everywhere and they had to wear their uniforms all the time. People revered the soldiers and invited them to their homes. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer backs Bridgforth up in the storyline.] Her brothers were going to farm for their father but that changed. Her older brother went into the Air Corps. Her younger brother was 4F [Annotator's Note: Selective Service classification indicating that the individual is not fit or available for service in the Armed Forces; due to medical or dental reasons mostly]. He was deaf in one ear. They let him go back to farming because the farms were needed. Her father died in 1943. The younger brother ran the farm during the war. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Bridgforth if she recalls where she was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] Bridgforth was in her college dormitory and heard it on the radio. It was hard to believe. It changed her world. She knew her boyfriend would be going into the service. He went in as a Second Lieutenant in June [Annotator's Note: June 1942]. They got married in August. He was sent to Fort McClellan, Alabama [Annotator's Note: originally Camp McClellan, Anniston, Alabama] for basic training. They moved into a college dormitory. There was one big bathroom and one big shower. The men would shower at night and the women in the daytime. Once she was in the shower and somebody came in, she saw a man's legs. She stayed in the shower until he left.

[Annotator's Note: Carolyn Bridgforth and her boyfriend decided to move up their wedding after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] They had planned to marry in Aberdeen [Annotator's Note: Aberdeen, Mississippi]. He could not get a leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] so they thought they would get married anyway. He was stationed at Fort McClellan [Annotator's Note: originally Camp McClellan, Anniston, Alabama] and living near Anniston. He was on bivouac [Annotator's Note: a bivouac is a temporary campsite] and got out on a Saturday. They were married on Sunday. On Monday, they moved into the college dormitory. Her mother had brought her wedding dress in the car and it had gotten wrinkled. She took it to a dry cleaning place and asked to use their iron. There was a little, Black [Annotator's Note: African-American] girl there and her mother asked her to go with them to hold the train of the dress while they walked to the hotel. She then asked the little girl to the wedding the next day. The little girl went with them and then asked if she could go down the aisle. Bridgforth said no, and she did not go. Her brother gave her away at the wedding. He was a Colonel in the Air Force and was at the Greenwood Airbase [Annotator's Note: Greenwood Army Airfield, now Greenwood-Leflore Airport in Greenwood, Mississippi]. Her father was very ill and died a year later. Her family liked her husband. Her husband told this story: Bridgforth was going to dances in college and he saw her. He wanted to know who she was and made friends with her brother. Her brother came home and said he had met the nicest boy named Stewart Bridgforth. There were few cars back then. The Mississippi State [Annotator's Note: Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science in Starkville, Mississippi] boys would ask girls to the dance but had no way to get them. They would get a mother to take them all and bring them home. It was a different world. It was during the Big Band Era [Annotator's Note: big band; type of musical ensemble of jazz music; 1930s to 1940s]. She still loves that music.

Carolyn Bridgforth was going to be a dietician. There were very few jobs available to women. She did not finish her schooling because she married at 19. Her husband was 21. She had a child at 20. In 1942 they moved from Fort McClellan [Annotator's Note: originally Camp McClellan, Anniston, Alabama] to Camp Benning [Annotator's Note: Fort Benning, Columbus, Georgia] for more training [Annotator's Note: for her husband]. Her husband was then moved to Camp Blanding, Florida [Annotator's Note: now Camp Blanding Joint Training Center, Clay County, Florida] replacement camp. D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] had not occurred yet and the United States had not fought on the European continent. They were sweating it out as replacements would be need after D-Day. She was relieved he did not go for D-Day. He immediately got orders to New Jersey. He was not attached to any Division. He got there [Annotator's Note: to Europe] the middle of August [Annotator's Note: August 1944], a totally green lieutenant thrust into the middle of battle. Some of his platoon said he looked like yesterday's lieutenant and some others said he looked like the lieutenant from the day before. That frightened him. Saying goodbye, Bridgforth did not know what was ahead, or how long they would be apart. The full scope had not dawned on her. When he left, she went back to Aberdeen [Annotator's Note: Aberdeen, Mississippi] where she was raised. She had been staying with his parents in Pickens [Annotator's Note: Pickens, Mississippi]. He took a train to New York and she went to live with her mother. Her father had died. All of her friends' husbands or boyfriends had gone to war. They formed a "G.I. Wives Club" [Annotator's Note: government issue; also, a slang term for an American soldier]. They got together once a month and had a party. They decided to have a "tacky" party, dressed as tacky as they could be. They took pictures and she sent them to her husband. He got mad and told her not to do that ever again. She thought it was funny. He liked getting photos though, so she would send pictures of their child. He missed the first year of walking and talking. Her friends were in the same boat as her, so she did not think that much about the situation. They did not really get sad. Until she saw the newsreel or listened to the radio, she did not realize how desperate the fighting was. He could not write about that. His letters were mostly love letters. She never thought he was not coming back. It was a miracle he did. He was a platoon leader of a rifle company and that is one of the worst, dangerous positions one could be in. She does not recall any friends getting telegrams. Her sister was living in Washington [Annotator's Note: Washington, D.C.] and sent her a telegram. Bridgforth asked her to never do that that again because it scared her.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Carolyn Bridgforth what the letters exchanged with her husband while he was at war were like.] Mostly, she would tell him what she was doing and what their son was doing. She sent a lot of packages of food. He said that was the highlight of his day. They would all share their packages. She would send cookies and sometimes chocolate. He asked her to wrap the chocolate in wax paper because it melted. They had a code that did not really work. After D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], the 2nd Division [Annotator's Note: 2nd Infantry Division] was sent to clear Brest [Annotator's Note: Brest, France, 22 August 1944], submarine base of the Germans. Before they went across France, they had to get the Germans out of that peninsula. A friend of his mother's had died of breast cancer. He told her to remember what the friend died of, and that is where he would be. That was about the extent of it. Her husband did house-to-house fighting in Brest. All of the farms were enclosed in tall hedges [Annotator's Note: hedgerows] they could not see over. They had a hard time getting through. They got the idea of putting a bulldozer on the front of a tank to push through. Her husband could not describe that in his letters due to the censors, but she read about it. She kept a scrapbook of what she read during the war. He could not convey when he was coming home. Towards the end he could write that the end was coming. He wrote that he heard his unit was going to pass through the United States on the way to the Pacific. She knew that was a death warrant and that he would never survive it. The atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan on 6 and 9 August 1945] was like a reprieve from death. She was ecstatic that they would not have to go to Japan. It would have been total disaster for both the Japanese and the Americans.

Carolyn Bridgforth met her husband at Camp Shelby [Annotator's Note: Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg, Mississippi] when he came home from the war. When he walked up, it was like he was in a dream. He had come from a terrible, miserable year fighting in snow. He could not shape reality. He had to sleep on the floor. He had nightmares. None of the soldiers had post traumatic stress [Annotator's Note: often referred to as PTSD]. This generation came through the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] and were hard working. They were not spoiled liked today's soldiers are. Her husband said his best fighters were ones who grew up on farms. He did have nightmares. She would shake him and then go back to sleep. It did not last that long. Once he got back to living, the nightmares ceased. He would not talk about the war. He did not want to talk about it. Later when his children were grown, he would say a little bit. When he left Brest [Annotator's Note: Brest, France], he went to Belgium and Germany. They were going strong and then the snow started in November [Annotator's Note: November 1944]. They were headed toward the Roer River. They were in Germany and then the Germans counter-attacked at the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. Her husband sent a runner to the kitchen outfit. The runner returned and said that they were speaking German back there. They were surrounded on three sides. The Germans were wearing American uniforms and turning around the signs on the roads. He did not tell her these things. Bridgforth says that she guesses she did not want to know what he had been through. She had read about it, so she did not ask. She knew what he had been through. She had one letter he had told her to save. She calls it the premonition letter. The Germans were wanting to take out Antwerp, Belgium. There were two towns in the crosshairs of that road [Annotator's Note: unable to identify]. His outfit took those towns and cleared them of Germans with very hard fighting. The retreating Germans had to go through there again. The 38th Infantry [Annotator's Note: 38th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division] was in there but had to give it up. At the end of January [Annotator's Note: January 1945], they had to take those. That is when he wrote the premonition letter. He knew what a hard fight it was before; he was did not think he would make it the second time. He only told her to save it. He told her later that was why. She did not see any real adjustments having to be made by her husband after he returned from the war. Her brother had not gone overseas. He had gone in the Air Corps at the very beginning of the war. He had advanced quickly and was a Colonel. He was the commander of Greenwood [Annotator's Note: Greenwood Army Airfield, now Greenwood-Leflore Airport in Greenwood, Mississippi], Greenville [Annotator's Note: Greenville Air Force Base, Greenville, Mississippi], and Columbus [Annotator's Note: Columbus Air Force Base, Greenville, Mississippi]. He never left. Her "G.I. Wives Club" [Annotator's Note: see clip titled "G.I. Wives Club"] no longer got together. She and her husband moved in with his parents while their house was being built. He came back in 1945 and they built their house in 1951.

Carolyn Bridgforth's most memorable experience of World War 2 was the atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan on 6 and 9 August 1945]. That was her happiest because she knew her husband was going to Japan and would never make it back. It was not hard to raise her son without him. Her brother helped her. She had friends and her mother, a lot of support. During rationing, she did not miss anything in particular. She felt more patriotic then. Everything had gone to war. Women worked in factories for the first time. They had never worked before. She did not want to work because she was raising a child. Two of her friends went to work in the munitions plant in Aberdeen [Annotator's Note: Aberdeen, Mississippi] and lived with her. They were proud of their work and of making money. The only jobs before the war were nurse or schoolteacher. World War 2 ought to be taught in school. It is kind of forgotten but should not be. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Bridgforth if she thinks The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana is important for teaching future generations about the war.] It is very important for teaching future generations to know what can happen. The Holocaust showed how evil man's nature could be. They did not believe it at first because the Germans were civilized. It told us how evil man can be. [Annotator's Note: Bridgforth goes through some papers.] A young girl at Mississippi State [Annotator's Note: Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science in Starkville, Mississippi] interviewed Bridgforth about World War 2 [Annotator's Note: Bridgforth looks for it while the interviewer asks if she has anything else to add]. She has a vivid memory of soldiers everywhere. Everywhere she went the streets were full of soldiers in uniform. They were looked up to, unlike soldiers today. They were well-behaved, unlike soldiers today. It was a different world.