John Lillibridge was born in 1924 in Dover, Oklahoma. He grew up and attended school in Dover, graduating from high school in 1942. His father had a service station, garage, and gasoline distribution station. He had three sisters, one of whom was his twin. His mother was a schoolteacher for s short time, but mostly stayed home with her children. For fun, he went swimming with his friends, played sports, and hunted. He heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] while listening to his car radio. In the spring of 1943, he attempted to apply for the Air Corps, but they would not take him because he had high blood pressure. When his dad passed away, Lillibridge signed up for the draft. He was sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for basic training. The military realized that he knew how to use a typewriter, so they sent him to a company that trained company clerks. He became ill during a bivouac [Annotator's Note: a bivouac is a temporary campsite] and had to go into a hospital for a few days. After he graduated, he was assigned to the XXIII Corps Artillery at Camp Bowie, Texas. He was assigned to the communications squad and then shifted over to work with airplane pilots. He was sent to intelligence school in Pennsylvania where he learned about photo interpretation. He did very little training overall. His battery moved to Fort McPherson in Atlanta, Georgia before heading overseas in November 1944.

John Lillibridge was sent overseas to Europe with a XXIII Corps artillery unit as a topography interpreter. His ship docked in Ireland, and then he boarded a train to England. His unit settled in and trained for some time. Around February 1945, he and a major went to France to find a place for the unit to stay. As he went through France, he could see the destruction of war everywhere. His unit moved from France and to Freiburg, Germany where they stayed in a bank that the unit had taken over after the fighting had stopped. He never heard a shot fired while he was in Europe. Lillibridge dealt with the numbers aspect of getting POWs [Annotator’s Note: prisoners of war] sent home. He did not interact with any of the POWs. He stayed in Germany until late April 1946. He was sent to Headquarters of the 3rd Infantry Division to get a tally of the POWs in February 1945. He worked out of a nice hotel. His work was boring. For fun, he played softball and dated German girls. He was discharged as a technician third class. He had no interest in continuing in the service, but there was a recruiter that asked him to join the Reserves. He was able to make some extra money by being part of the Reserves.

After John Lillibridge was discharged from the Army, he had no intention of returning to military life even though he had joined the Reserves. He spent four years in college using 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 ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps]. He was a distinguished military graduate and volunteered for active duty after his graduation. He graduated in mechanical engineering with the Corps of Engineers. He was stationed in Japan for his first assignment, and boarded a Navy ammo ship to Korea as a second lieutenant in August 1950. He was assigned to the 11th Engineer Combat Battalion. He stayed until November 1951. He worked as a platoon leader, building bridges or blowing them up. His main missions were to keep roads open for transport. His unit did run into some combat, but Lillibridge felt he did not see very much combat while in Korea. He had some close calls with mines and boobytraps. While in Korea, he worked day and night as opposed to while he was in Germany during World War 2. There were no black troops in the unit until a year after he was in Korea when President Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] integrated the Army. Lillibridge once picked up a mine thinking it was disabled, but it was not. He would have been blown up if it was not for mud stuck in the device to set off the mine. His wife wrote to him while he served in Korea. Lillibridge was able to take leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and go to Japan. He slept and got a haircut. He ate rice with Koreans regularly. He slept in a school or in a tent. The weather conditions were very cold which made working conditions difficult. One time, he had to blow up the ice so his unit could install a bridge. [Annotator’s Note: someone says “Goodbye” in the background at 0:33:07.000.]

After John Lillibridge returned to the United States from Korea in November 1951, he remained in the regular Army, and assigned as an engineer instructor at Fort Belvoir [Annotator’s Note: Fairfax, Virginia]. [Annotator’s Note: There are people talking in the background at 0:34:45.000.] He moved his wife to Alexandria [Annotator’s Note: Alexandria, Virginia] and stayed there for over a year until he was transferred to Denison, Texas to build equipment on the Air Force base with the Army Corps of Engineers. He ran a group of civilians. He then went to engineering school at Texas A&M [Annotator’s Note: Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas]. He continued his Army service as an engineer in Germany, Mineral Point, Texas, West Point [Annotator's Note: United States Military Academy in West Point, New York], and Fort Leavenworth [Annotator’s Note: Leavenworth, Kansas]. He was then sent to Vietnam as an advisor to the Vietnamese Army chief of engineer corps in 1965. He stayed there for almost a year, but felt like he did not accomplish very much. He was supposed to be designing a hospital, but the Vietnamese wanted to design an officer’s club instead. The weather conditions were hot and rainy. He was responsible for Vietnamese captains that specialized in engineering. When he came back to the United States, he was transferred to the Chief of Engineers office in Washington D.C., then to Fort Benning [Annotator’s Note: Fort Benning, Georgia]. Many of the troops returning from Vietnam had very low morale and were ready to separate from the service. He was then sent to headquarters in Hawaii where he worked in a staff office. The Vietnam War had a different feeling than World War 2 and the Korean War. He spent three years in North Dakota before he retired from service in 1973 as a colonel. He enjoyed his service in North Dakota and thought the people were nice. He found a job working for Eastern Airlines.

John Lillibridge’s most memorable experience in World War 2 was VE-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945] in Germany. He served in World War 2 because he was patriotic and felt compelled to fight. He became more worldly by serving in the military. He would not have considered serving in the military if he did not serve in World War 2. He is one of eight million people that served the United Stated during World War 2. Lillibridge believes there should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and that we should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations because it gives people a better look at history and it is one of biggest events that has ever happened to America.