Lysander "Ben" Neighbors was born in February 1922 in Avinger, Texas and grew up in different locations. They moved to California and his father got a job with the US Indian Service [Annotator's Note: Bureau of Indian Affairs or BIA]. Neighbors has an older sister and a younger sister. His father was transferred to an Indian [Annotator's Note: Native American] school in Keams Canyon, Arizona. His father resigned, and they moved to Texas to farm. Neighbors began first grade while only five years old. He caught diphtheria [Annotator's Note: bacterial disease causing inflammation of the mucous membranes], which was deadly. His mother took care of and cured him.

When Lysander "Ben" Neighbors graduated from high school, he joined the military a year or so later, before the war had started. He could not get a job that paid well, so he enlisted in the Army in 1940. He did basic training at Fort Bliss, Texas. He did not find it difficult, but it was hot. He was assigned to an ordnance unit and worked with small arms, which was basically anything smaller than artillery. His third month-long detail was as a mail orderly. He would pick up mail from the post office and bring it back to base to distribute it. When a letter from General Hap Arnold [Annotator's Note: General of the Army and General of the Air Force Henry Harley Arnold] called for men to join the Air Force, Neighbors wrote a letter directly to Arnold to volunteer. He was quickly transferred from the Army into the Air Force and assigned to March Field, California.

Lysander "Ben" Neighbors transferred from the Army to the Army Air Force, but his captain did not want to sign the papers. The transfer did eventually go through, and he was sent to March Field, California and then to mechanics school in Denver, Colorado for three months. When he finished that schooling, he was sent to March Field near Los Angeles [Annotator's Note: Los Angeles, California] by train. That is where he heard the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Neighbors was in the 14th Fighter Group at the time. He was then sent to Hamilton Field near San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] and worked on the guns on fighter planes. He would remove the guns, clean and maintain them, and put them back into the planes. He also did some schooling in Lansing, Michigan. He made the second highest grade the school had ever seen. When hew as sent back to California, he was assigned to teach others. His group was then sent overseas to England. They were supplied with old P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] instead of P-38s [Annotator's Note: Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft]. They were also assigned new pilots, some of whom had never flown a P-47. They were based out of Duxford [Annotator's Note: Duxford, England], six miles south of Cambridge [Annotator's Note: Cambridge, England].

Lysander "Ben" Neighbors [Annotator's Note: stationed in Duxford, England with the 14th Fighter Group] serviced P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] which escorted bomber aircraft. Eventually, around the time of D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], the P-47s were replaced by P-51s [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft]. It was a much better plane for the job, as they did not burn as much gas and could fly longer and higher. The P-47s were given to the 9th Air Force. Neighbors had been in the military since before the war, so had more than enough 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] to go home. He was still in England when the war in Europe ended, and was back in the United States when the war against Japan ended. Neighbors was discharged from Fort Bliss [Annotator's Note: near El Paso, Texas] and returned to Roswell, New Mexico for a few weeks. He 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] for some schooling. He got married in September 1945. He does not believe people today understand what his generation sacrificed.