Clark Wackerman was born in March 1926 in Brighton, New York, the oldest of three children. His father worked as a commercial artist and his mother was a kindergarten teacher. He graduated from Brighton High School in 1943. While in school he played three sports. After his graduation, Wackerman enrolled at UR [Annotator's Note: the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York]. He completed his freshman year in December 1943 then joined the ASTP program [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program; generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers]. Everyone he knew was poor during the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945]. He always had money in his pocket, though, as he was paid for picking apples and cherries. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], Wackerman was working as a paperboy in Rochester. He was sent out to sell extras proclaiming the news. He didn't know much about Pearl Harbor or war at that time; his only knowledge of war came from World War 1 films he saw. The feeling among his friends and family was that the war with the Japanese would not last very long. While Wackerman was in high school his father became an air raid warden and Wackerman and his siblings began to participate in scrap metal drives. He does not remember too much about gas rationing because his family only had one car and did not drive it very much. Wackerman joined the Army while in college because he had been denied entry into the Navy's V-12 Program [Annotator's Note: V-12 US Navy College Training Program, 1943 to 1946] because of his poor eyesight. Wackerman was accepted into the Army Specialized Training Program and enrolled in classes at Harvard [Annotator's Note: Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts]. This was the first time Wackerman had been away from home, and he made many lifelong friends. The ASTP was disbanded in June 1944. Wackerman was sent to Fort Dix [Annotator's Note: Fort Dix, New Jersey] and placed on active duty. When he arrived, an officer demanded all of the men from the ASTP remove the lamp of knowledge insignia from their uniforms saying, "get those flaming piss pots off of your shoulders." Wackerman was in great physical shape and was able to past tests with great ease. Shortly after, Wackerman was sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina for field artillery training. Wackerman learned the ins and outs of communications and coding. He had to take 25 words per minute in Morse code [Annotator's Note: Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters]. Wackerman played baseball for the Fort Bragg team but quit because it was taking too much of his weekends and interrupting his training. He was also trained on a 105 [Annotator's Note: M2A1 105mm howitzer; standard light field howitzer] which he enjoyed shooting. This was also an interesting time in the Army because it was his first learning experience that was not academic in nature. He became an "ass kisser" at this time, or an acting corporal. In November 1944, he applied for Infantry OCS [Annotator's Note: Officer Cadet School] and was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia. He enjoyed the regimentation of officer training. The toughest part for Wackerman was learning to handle the M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] and machine guns as he had been trained to only use a carbine [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic carbine] while in basic training. Wackerman graduated on 1 March 1945, just days before his 19th birthday. While at Fort Benning, Wackerman was billeted with a Black [Annotator's Note: African-American] man. He says this was the first time he had ever been around a Black person as there were not many in his hometown. The two became fast friends and had respect for each other. Wackerman experienced racism for the first time when he and the Black man went into Columbus, Georgia on liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. They were all very embarrassed.

After graduating from Officer Cadet School [Annotator's Note: at Fort Benning, Georgia], Clark Wackerman was sent to the infantry replacement training center at Camp Blanding, Florida to instruct new recruits through basic training. After training one group of recruits for four months, Wackerman was sent to Fort Roberts, California to begin landing exercises in preparation for transport to the Pacific. When asked about his reactions to VE-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945] and VJ-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945], Wackerman recalls having a stronger reaction to the death of President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] as he was the only president he had ever known. His death was a great shock. In September 1945, Wackerman shipped out of Seattle [Annotator's Note: Seattle, Washington] aboard the USS General S.D. Sturgis (AP-137) bound for occupation duty in Japan. The journey over there took place in good style. He and eight other officers were assigned to well-furnished staterooms. Many of the officers and enlisted men he was with, having lost relatives in the war, went over with bitter attitudes towards the Japanese. Wackerman had no opinion of the Japanese upon his arrival because he had not had any close friends or relatives die in the war. Unable to enter Yokohama Bay [Annotator's Note: Yokohama Bay, Japan], the General Sturgis found port at Nagoya [Annotator's Note: Nagoya, Japan], and Wackerman continued to Himeji [Annotator's Note: Himeji, Japan] where he slept in a barn while awaiting assignment. Wackerman was assigned to Headquarters Company, 33rd Infantry Division and was sent by train to Maizuru [Annotator's Note: Maizuru, Japan], home of the former Japanese Naval Academy. There, he was made a battalion communications officer. Two Navy demolitions experts were attached to his outfit and spent three months laying wire into the mountains above Maizuru to destroy munitions and gun emplacements. Wackerman contracted hepatitis [Annotator's Note: inflammatory condition of the liver] and was sent to a hospital in Kyoto [Annotator's Note: Kyoto, Japan] for six weeks. While he was hospitalized, the 33rd Infantry Division was sent back to the United States. Upon his release, Wackerman was transferred to the 4th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division in Osaka [Annotator's Note: Osaka, Japan] where he continued to serve as a communications officer. In Osaka, Wackerman oversaw spraying the insecticide DDT [Annotator's Note: Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane; developed as an insecticide] around the city to prevent the spread of typhus [Annotator's Note: also known as typhus or typhoid fever, a group of infectious diseases]. After this, and without much to do, Wackerman's colonel asked him to start a baseball club. Just as it was beginning to be realized, Wackerman was transferred to 8th Army Headquarters and assigned to an engineering battalion. Having little engineering experience, he was transferred to a Quartermaster Company and placed in charge of finding and furnishing houses around Osaka and other cities in Japan for high-ranking officers and their families. He was given a jeep and an interpreter. Since he had a lot of time on his hands, Wackerman played baseball with the 8th Army Chicks. The group was made up of several professional baseball players, but most of them were uneducated, slept with anyone and everyone, used bad language, and drank like fish. He decided he never wanted to be a professional player. He eventually quit the team because the Army threatened to take his jeep away if he continued to play baseball. On weekends he went up in the mountains and stayed at a fancy hotel. He received orders to return home in April 1946. He returned to Japan 15 years later with his wife. All of the Japanese people he encountered, both civilians and military members, were very friendly and gracious to him and the other G.I.s [Annotator's Note: government issue; also, a slang term for an American soldier]. MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] was a god to them and was keeping them fed. Everyone smoked. Japanese would pick up the butts and attempt to smoke them out of a pipe. Wackerman lived in a silk factory. While in Maizuru, Wackerman and some other officers visited a Geisha house [Annotator's Note: Geisha, also known as geiko or geigi are a class of female Japanese performance artists and entertainers trained in traditional Japanese performing arts styles, such as dance, music and singing, as well as being proficient conversationalists and hosts] and learned to speak Japanese while the Geishas danced.

After 13 months in occupied Japan, Clark Wackerman was able to return home. The return home was much worse than the journey to Japan. Wackerman crossed the Pacific [Annotator's Note: Pacific Ocean] on the Bardstown Victory. The ship was a filthy mess. They also encountered two typhoons. He was sick the whole time. While approaching San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California], the ship ran aground on the Farallon Islands and had to be towed into San Francisco Bay. Reporters swarmed the docks when the returning GIs [Annotator's Note: government issue; also, a slang term for an American soldier] exited the ship. Wackerman boarded a train to Fort Dix [Annotator's Note: Fort Dix, New Jersey] and joined the inactive reserve with the promise of a promotion to first lieutenant. The promotion never came and in 1950, just after the start of the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953], Wackerman was called up for a physical. After delaying reporting as long as possible and being threatened with a court martial, Wackerman reported before being told he would not be activated and sent overseas. Wackerman was discharged shortly after in 1952 or 1953. After he returned to the United States after World War 2, he picked up baseball and football. Wackerman took advantage of the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] and attended the U of R [Annotator's Note: University of Rochester in Rochester, New York] where he played football. His worst memory of World War 2 came while destroying the munitions around Maizuru [Annotator's Note: Maizuru, Japan]. A Japanese work crew would load barges full of live munitions and dump them in a huge bay. They were warned not to smoke around the munitions, but the warning went unheeded as one barge blew up in the middle of the bay. Wackerman and his men went to help recover bodies at the scene. The sight of body parts stayed with him for years. Wackerman served in World War 2 because he wanted to. It was the thing to do, and everyone was anxious to get in. He felt sorry for the guys that could not get into the military. The war changed his life by encouraging him to travel. He had never been away from home before. He did not think of his service too much after the war because he was too busy living his life and raising a family. It was not until the Honor Flight program [Annotator's Note: conducted by non-profit organizations dedicated to transporting military veterans to visit Washington D.C. at no cost to the veterans] and the Gary Sinise [Annotator's Note: Gary Alan Sinise, American actor, director, musician, producer, philanthropist] program [Annotator's Note: Soaring Valor; a program sponsored by the Gary Sinise Foundation that transports World War 2 veterans to New Orleans, Louisiana to visit The National WWII Museum]. He was reunited with guys he was in service with and remembered the good times. He did it once but would not want to do it again. He believes World War 2 does not mean much to America today. He thought it was a terrific idea to have a high school kid assigned to him when he visited New Orleans so they could have a first-hand education about World War 2. He believes the kids learned a great deal. He believes the generations that came after World War 2 should be appreciative of the men who sacrificed their lives for the country. He hopes that future generations are thankful for what they have today. His father was a veteran of World War 1. Wackerman did not realize the sacrifice his father went through until he had his own experience.