George Wesley McGee was born in April 1925 in Bridgeport, Nebraska. When McGee was nine years old the family moved to Colby, Kansas. His sister Mary was two years older than him. In Nebraska McGee's father was a candy and tobacco salesman but was forced to find a different career once the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945] happened. When the family moved to Kansas his father bought into part ownership of a hardware store which eventually went bankrupt. His father did odd jobs for a time, then became a county clerk. His father was a World War 1 Army veteran in the 89th Infantry Division, 355th Infantry Regiment. McGee found that his time spent in Europe in World War 2 he was retracing his father's footsteps, both men having spent a significant amount of time in Verdun [Annotator's Note: Verdun, France] during their service. The only difference was that his father was in trenches, whereas he spent his time in foxholes. His father's service did not influence him in joining the Army, originally McGee wanted to be in the Navy. The Navy refused McGee due to his poor eyesight, as did the Army Air Corps. The Army drafted McGee and he went to the reception center in Denver [Annotator's Note: Denver, Colorado]. Growing up he did a lot of hunting, so he was a good marksman, but he was put into the medical corps with no gun. McGee's father won land in Wyoming by lottery, which the family had to live on for one year to keep. This town in Wyoming became known as Veteran, Wyoming because it was chiefly populated and built up by World War 1 veterans. McGee either walked or used his bicycle to get around as a child. He was a sophomore in high school when Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] was attacked. He was too young to enlist when the attack happened. When the Navy turned McGee away in 1943, he decided to just wait until he was drafted. He was given the choice of the Army, Navy, or the Marines, and he chose Army. He went to Camp Carson in Colorado Springs [Annotator's Note: now Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colorado] for basic training. This was McGee's first extended time away from home. He was assigned to the Evacuation Hospital unit [Annotator's Note: 109th Evacuation Hospital], but most of his basic training was standard. He was allowed to shoot some of the firearms but was not expected to carry one. McGee received some medical training at this time as well.

George Wesley McGee was sent to Tennessee for maneuvers [Annotator's Note: series of seven large scale training exercises in Middle Tennessee, 1942 to 1944]. In Tennessee, McGee was made the mail clerk for his entire unit [Annotator's Note: 109th Evacuation Hospital]. Every day in the field he had to find the APO, Army Post Offices, to send and retrieve mail. This often left him and other mail clerks wandering around the front and into danger. His basic training at Camp Carson [Annotator's Note: now Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colorado] lasted about three months, and his maneuvers training in Tennessee at Camp Forrest [Annotator's Note: in Tullahoma, Tennessee] lasted about another three months. He was furloughed [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] during training. In these maneuvers they set up a field hospital as a training exercise where they treated people who got injured in accidents. From Tennessee they went to Camp Kilmer [Annotator's Note: in Central New Jersey] and then to Europe. They left in April 1944. McGee celebrated his 19th birthday while en route to Europe. They sailed on the RMS Aquitania, a sistership of the RMS Lusitania. The ship zigzagged across the ocean [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver]. They landed in Scotland and then went to England where they stayed until after D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. While waiting, they set up their evacuation hospital in southern England. The hospital was run by 260 enlisted men, 40 nurses, 25 doctors, and 10 officers. Their mobile hospital consisted of 20 ward tents, which held 20 to 40 patients each; the hospital could hold up to 400 patients. It was comparable to a MASH [Annotator's Note: Mobile Army Surgical Hospital] unit, but McGee's hospital moved every 10 to 12 days. The evacuation hospitals leapfrogged each other as the front lines moved. The hospitals set up anywhere from 100 yards to 3 miles from the front. These hospitals had their own power from generators and their own clean water via lister bags [Annotator's Note: a canvas water bag used to purify drinking water]. The only lights in the hospital were in the operating room. Maintaining darkness was crucial to prevent air raids at night. Germans adhered to the rules of war more strictly than the Japanese did in the Pacific Theater at the behest of Tojo [Annotator's Note: Hideki Tojo (Tōjō); former Imperial Japanese Army General and prime minister of Japan], avoiding attacking hospital units. McGee's unit landed at Utah Beach [Annotator's Note: Utah Beach, Normandy, France] after the D-Day Invasion. He suggested camping on the beach, but his first sergeant told the unit to keep moving, this being the correct decision as the Luftwaffe [Annotator's Note: German Air Force] later strafed that beach.

The first time George Wesley McGee and the 109th Evacuation Hospital set up their temporary hospital was near Saint-Lo [Annotator's Note: Saint-Lo (Saint-Lô), France]. The evacuation hospital followed the Third Army throughout Europe, through the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] and ended up in Czechoslovakia on VE-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945]. McGee was a mail clerk his entire time in Europe. During the Battle of the Bulge the Army began pulling people away from their jobs because they needed more soldiers in the infantry. McGee's evacuation hospital was set up in Verdun [Annotator's Note: Verdun, France] and Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium]. One day while McGee was traveling via jeep, an explosion caused the vehicle to crash. After the crash, McGee could not remember his unit or even his own name. He was picked up by his unit sometime later. He went to a surgeon who informed him that he had torn ligaments and tendons in his knee. He was in a cast for about 10 days, with his knee not fully healing for about three months. At the end of the war his unit ended up in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia [Annotator's Note: Pilsen (Plzeň), Czechoslovakia, (Czech Republic)] where they set up the hospital to treat wounded servicemen. They stayed there three or four months, when the unit started being broken up and sent home based on points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home]. McGee and a few other soldiers from the 109th Evacuation Hospital were sent to the 67th Evacuation Hospital in Nuremberg [Annotator's Note: Nuremberg, Germany]. While stationed in Nuremberg, he and two other soldiers got a seven-day furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] to London [Annotator's Note: London, England], which excluded travel time. They managed to spend 12 days in Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] before being kicked out by MPs [Annotator's Note: military police] because their passes were not for Paris. By the time they actually went to London and came back, the hospital had moved to Reims, France. From Reims they took a 40-and-eight [Annotator's Note: 40 and eight refers to European railroad boxcars which could accommodate 40 standing men or eight standing horses] train to Marseille [Annotator's Note: Marseille, France]. From Marseille they embarked on a former Italian cruise liner ship going home. They spent Christmas of 1945 at sea.

George Wesley McGee had no desire to stay in the Army on his return to the United States. They arrived in New York and then he was shipped to Camp Chaffee in Arkansas [Annotator's Note: now Fort Chaffee Joint Maneuver Training Center in Fort Smith, Arkansas]. He was offered a promotion to reenlist, which he turned down. He was also asked to join the reserves, which he also refused. McGee used 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] to go to vocational school to become a watch repairman. After a few years he went back to school to become a repairman for aeronautical instruments. He moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee for work for three or four years. After his mother died, he wanted to move closer to home and be with his father, so he got a job in instrumentation with Martin Marietta [Annotator's Note: Martin Marietta Materials, Incorporated] building missiles in Denver [Annotator's Note: Denver, Colorado]. Once the demand for missiles slowed down, he left to work at IBM [Annotator's Note: International Business Machines] in Boulder, Colorado. He was a component engineer for IBM for 25 years after attending night school to earn his Bachelor's in Engineering. He took classes at four different colleges and universities for his degree in engineering. McGee retired from IBM in 1989. After retirement he did some small jobs in instrumentation as side projects to keep busy.

George Wesley McGee's service means more to him today than it did when he was first discharged. At the time, he just wanted to get started on making a life for himself outside of his World War 2 service. McGee was part of veteran's groups who would talk about their time a lot, which he grew tired of as well. More recently he has taken a more active part in celebrations of veterans. His most memorable experience in World War 2 was staying alive throughout the dangers of the war. In one instance, when the 109th Evacuation Hospital was setting up their facilities, a lieutenant got the wrong directions and they were set up in the middle of a battlefield, with artillery firing over them both ways. He worked with great people in his time at the 109th Evacuation Hospital. But nonetheless, he was also very happy to be discharged. In the Army he was able to see Brussels [Annotator's Note: Brussels, Belgium] and Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] when, as a child, he thought he would never be able to visit those places. While on occupation duty in Nuremberg [Annotator's Note: Nuremberg, Germany] after the war, he and some other soldiers were given a furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] to London [Annotator's Note: London, England]. They took a taxi tour of the entire city. Their driver recommended them a restaurant to get a steak, it was one of the best meals that McGee remembers having. Later on in Europe McGee read in a newspaper that that particular cafe had been selling horse meat under an assumed name. He sees the militarization of the United States as a good and a bad thing. The strong military that the United States has discourages nations from attacking it, but it should not be needed, and people should seek peace instead.