Neil Cox was born in Florala, Alabama in September 1925. He had two brothers and one sister. They lived on a farm. They did not have running water or electricity. The Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] affected their family. His father was in the grocery business. During the Depression, his father fed a lot of people and did not get paid for it. His mother was a schoolteacher and then a stay-at-home mother. Cox’s first job was picking up bugs for the agriculture department. He got paid 15 cents an hour. He went to Covington County High School and played football. He got a scholarship to Alabama [Annotator’s Note: the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama], but Uncle Sam [Annotator’s Note: the personification of the United States federal government, typically depicted as an older gentleman sporting a star-spangled top hat and red bow tie] called at the same time. Cox was out having an ice cream when it was announced over the radio that Pearl Harbor had been bombed by Japan [Annotator's Note: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He did not know where Pearl Harbor was and thought the war with Japan would be over in a couple of weeks. He had two friends who signed up for the Marines. [Annotator’s Note: Cox talks about the battles his friends saw.] Cox was in the 11th grade when Pearl Harbor happened. He went down to Panama City [Annotator’s Note: Panama City, Florida] to help at a shipyard during the summer. He worked at the shipyard until he got his diploma, then he went to the University of Alabama. He joined the athletic program. They trained next to soldiers.

Neil Cox thought he was blessed because he was raised on a farm. He grew up working hard and shooting guns. One soldier had his face blown off during training. He enjoyed using the M1 rifle [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand]. He would write to his girlfriend. He had 17 weeks of boot camp, then he got a week of leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. They were sent to New Jersey for embarkation. It took eight to 10 days to cross the ocean. They changed direction every three minutes [Annotator's Note: zig-zagging, a naval anti-submarine maneuver]. Scotland was beautiful. They went across the Channel [Annotator’s Note: English Channel] on a landing craft. They were loaded onto a train and then onto trucks as they went through France. On Christmas Day 1944, they were hiding out in a cellar with their machine gun. They were in Strasbourg [Annotator’s Note: Strasbourg, France]. The Germans did not attack that night. It was quiet. A lot of his best friends in the service came from New York.

Neil Cox was an ammo [Annotator’s Note: ammunition] carrier. His job was to go back and get the ammo they needed. A machine gun takes a lot of ammunition. It was loud when their gun was firing and the Germans were firing. The shells going off all around them were loud. His unit did not have any casualties in the first combat zone. They got to know each other and take care of each other. The SS soldiers [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization; abbreviated SS] had SS on their uniforms. They were hard fighters. They acted like they were on drugs. They kept coming as they were being shot down. He wrote his mother while he was overseas. He did not write about the war. They had V-mail [Annotator's Note: Victory Mail; postal system put into place during the war to drastically reduce the space needed to transport mail]. They were in a hard battle against the Germans. They were hitting the tanks. The tanks would catch on fire. Cox could hear the men in the tanks screaming.

Neil Cox could hear a guy screaming out on the battlefield. They were firing their rifles at the Germans. The young man was begging for someone to come kill him because he was suffering. Cox and his friend decided they were going to go get the guy. His leg was barely hanging on. They had to drag him across the ground to their foxhole. When they got him back, the medics took him to an ambulance. His sergeant told him they put him in for a Bronze Star [Annotator's Note: the Bronze Star Medal is the fourth-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy]. This was in February 1945. It was cold. They reached the Rhine River after they got some time off in reserve. The Germans were still shelling them. They were in a French farmhouse. Cox went upstairs and found a bed. After he was asleep, a shell hit the wall of the house right next to him. He was blown against the other wall but he did not get hurt. He ran down to the basement. They went peacefully across the Rhine River. Then they got into tanks and chased the Germans. They had the Germans on the run and they kept running. The SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization; abbreviated SS] wanted to get up into the Alps to keep fighting. Cox would play the piano for the others if they could find one during the quiet days. If the Germans heard, they would start shelling. The Stars and Stripes [Annotator's Note: United States military newspaper] had an article about Cox playing the piano.

Neil Cox made it through the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s]. It took them a whole day to make it to the top. They had moved for three days and three nights. Cox almost fell asleep in the doorway of a German house. He took one pistol off a guy in Germany. He captured a German soldier. They rounded up a bunch of German soldiers in a valley and had their guns surrounding them. The Germans built a bonfire. The Germans started to sing about home. Right in the middle of combat, he did not have time to think. He did not have any real terrifying moments. He always thought he would make it. They liberated a champagne warehouse. He did not drink, but some of the others did. He remembers hearing the war was over and it was just another day. They went to a concentration camp when they made it to Austria. They talked to the soldiers that were there and asked them if they needed help. There were thousands of them. Some could hardly move, and some were dead. They knew they had to stop the Germans and it was a pleasure to kill them. Cox has been to Anne Frank’s home [Annotator’s Note: in Amsterdam, the Netherlands]. He did not have much time overseas, so he did not get to go home right away. He went to a university to pass the time. That is where he met his wife.

Neil Cox remembers the Germans would take hostages from the school his wife went to. They would take all the Jewish girls first. They would take them down to a wall in the center of the university and shoot them. This affected his wife badly. Cox studied pre-med when he got home, then he decided to change to engineering. After he finished school, his professor told him to join the reserves. He and his wife had one child at the time. He heard on the radio that the North Koreans invaded South Korea. Cox was called up the next day. Cox went on to serve in the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. He was promoted to first lieutenant. He was in an engineer battalion. They were backing up the Marines on the first flank. It was not like anything he did when he served in France. He stayed with the Corps of Engineers until he retired in 1982, then he went to work for himself. He taught from Japan to Germany. He thinks the museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] is important. Every citizen should know about the war. He was in the 36th Infantry Division, 143rd Regiment, 2nd Battalion, Company H. He left a lot of good friends in France.