Paul Wilson was born in December 1925 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He has five sisters and one brother. He grew up in Oklahoma City. When he was 12 years old, they moved into low-income housing. It was across the street from a park. He got involved in playing tennis. They had very little money. The family did not do much together. When he was 16 years old, he worked at a dairy. He would work 12 hours a day. He made one dollar a day. He bought a bicycle with the money. They moved to north Oklahoma City where he went to high school. He then worked at a motel in the evenings to make money. He can still remember his first tennis racket. He paid 35 cents for it. When he was a junior in high school, he knew he was going to be drafted at 18 years old. He had an uncle that worked in oil fields in Wyoming. He decided to go out there and work instead of finishing his senior year of high school. He learned to gamble on the drilling rig. He had about 500 dollars saved. He moved back to Oklahoma City and moved in with a friend. This was in 1943. He was drafted in January 1944. He had turned 18 years old in December 1943.

Paul Wilson went to Fort Sill, [Annotator's Note: in Lawton, Oklahoma]. He had 50 cents left of the 500 dollars he had saved. He went into the service there. He went to Fort McClellan, [Annotator's Note: in Anniston, Alabama] for boot camp. For 50 dollars more a month [Annotator's Note: in pay] he could go to jump school to be a paratrooper. He volunteered to be a paratrooper. He was sent to school in Fort Benning, Georgia in 1944. After he finished jump school he immediately was sent overseas to England as a paratrooper replacement. They put him with an infantry regiment [Annotator's Note: Company A, 193rd Glider Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division]. He took a glider ride in England. In late December 1944, the Germans counter-attacked [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter-Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. He flew into France on 25 December 1944. They were there until they went into Belgium. They went into Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium] with Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.]. They had to go by trucks because they could not jump due to the cold weather. On 7 January 1945, they attacked Deadman's Ridge [Annotator's Note: later nickname for a fortified ridge line that followed the Bastogne-Marche Highway west of Bastogne, Belgium]. Patton thought the Germans had pulled back. Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] had brought in reinforcements and Tiger tanks [Annotator's Note: German Mark VI main battle tank; known as the Tiger]. They had machine guns set up on the ridge. The Germans waited for them to get about halfway up the ridge before they opened fire. Wilson hid behind a mound of dirt. When the mound started getting hit by 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] he knew he had to move. A bullet grazed his nose as he dove into a shell hole. They had to retreat because they had no cover. He stayed in the hole for hours. He would use his bayonet to poke his helmet up and he would hear the bullets hit the ground around it. One of his friends had been hit in the spine. After a while it got quiet, and he was able to run back. When the 88s hit the snow, it turns a grey color. The snow was almost solid grey around him. He found one friend who had been wounded. He helped carry him back to the aid station. There were only four guys left in their platoon. They could still hear the 88s. Wilson and a friend caught a ride into Bastogne. They spent the night in town. The next day they got a ride from an ambulance back to the front. After that, the Germans started back toward Germany. The American troops followed them. They ran out of food. He did not change his clothes. He was a lead scout, and he found some dark black bread under where the Germans had slept. The bread gave him a lot of energy.

The Germans opened up fire on Paul Wilson and his unit [Annotator's Note: Company A, 193rd Glider Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division, during the Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter-Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. They had to make sure the elevation of the ground was higher than they were [Annotator's Note: at Deadman's Ridge, later nickname for a fortified ridge line that followed the Bastogne-Marche Highway west of Bastogne, Belgium, 7 January 1945]. A first lieutenant was killed right next to him. Some Germans were captured. A couple of guys said they were going to take them back to a prisoner of war camp. There was no camp. A few minutes later Wilson heard gunshots. The men returned and said the Germans tried to run so they had to shoot them. The Germans were as bad as the Japanese when it came to war. It was in the middle of January [Annotator's Note: 1945]. They finally got some good food. They were starving before this. His feet were partially frozen a couple of times. To keep their feet from freezing they would sleep two men in a foxhole. They would take their boots off, keep their socks on and put their feet in each other's armpits. They were rushed into the Bulge, and they did not have the proper clothing. This is why there were a lot of casualties from trench foot [Annotator's Note: immersion foot syndrome]. His feet were so swollen they had to cut his boots off. He was evacuated to a hospital in England. When he was under the fire of the 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery], he made God all kinds of promises. On his first pass [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] outside of the hospital, he forgot about all the promises. He was 19 years old. He wanted alcohol, women, and dancing. He did not have any money because his outfit was still in the Bulge. He was there with some Air Corps guys who gave him some money.

24 March 1945, Paul Wilson's unit [Annotator's Note: with Company A, 193rd Glider Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division] made the Rhine [Annotator's Note: Rhine River, Germany] jump into Germany. It was called the Varsity jump [Annotator's Note: Operation Varsity, 24 March 1945, Wesel, Germany]. He was on his way back to join them as this happened [Annotator's Note: after being hospitalized during the the Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter-Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. He joined them in Germany shortly after it. He had guard duty on the Rhine River. The war ended in May [Annotator's Note: May 1945]. They lived in apartments in the town. The 17th Airborne had the highest casualties of all the Airborne divisions. The 17th Airborne Division has been forgotten. He joined the 13th Airborne Division before he went home. He played tennis in France almost every day. He was discharged in 1946. He went to school at Oklahoma City University [Annotator's Note: in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma]. He used the GI 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]. He made the varsity tennis team. He was a voice major. He sang on television. After about three years he decided, he did not want to teach music. Later he got his real estate license. He met his wife at a restaurant downtown. In 1952, he got married. They had three sons and a daughter. Through his wife, he learned what a real family was. His sons all lettered in basketball. He played golf with his sons. His sons are self-employed. His wife will be 88 years old, and he will be 90 years old [Annotator's Note: at the time of this interview]. When he was 32 years old, he became a believer in Christ [Annotator's Note: Jesus Christ]. He closed his commercial real estate business so he could retire. When he was 85 years old, he ranked 12th in the nation in singles for tennis.

Paul Wilson had moved to north Oklahoma City [Annotator's Note: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma] when Pearl Harbor happened [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He had just started high school. He heard about it on the radio. He knew they would be going to war. He tried to join the Army when he was 17 years old. His parents would not sign the papers. After the war with Germany started, he wanted to join in. He wanted to go for America. When he was at Fort McClellan [Annotator's Note: in Anniston, Alabama] there were some guys there that could not read or write, but they could fire a rifle really well. When he was nine years old his father had a cow. He had to learn how to milk it at a young age. Boot camp was tough, but he grew up working for everything he had. He did not think it was too tough. He remembers jump school more than he does boot camp. The 25 feet [Annotator's Note: training height] was hard because he had nothing holding him. When they jumped at 250 feet, he had a parachute. He still remembers his first jump. When they landed they had to collapse downward. In his next jump, he hit the ground hard. The parachutes were huge, and he could not control them.

Paul Wilson joined the 17th Airborne [Annotator's Note: Company A, 193rd Glider Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division] in England. They had real pride in their outfit. They thought they were tougher than anyone. They had the eagle's claw as their emblem or symbol. They went into combat at the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter-Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. In May [Annotator's Note: May 1945] the war had ended. Some of the guys joined the 82nd Airborne [Annotator's Note: 82nd Airborne Division] and went to the Pacific. They are not well known because they were not in combat before the Bulge. They had the most casualties for the number of combat days they had. Later in Germany, he was put in the 194th [Annotator's Note: 194th Glider Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division]. He has only been in contact with one other member of the 17th Airborne. He wants people to remember the 17th Airborne because they had so many casualties. There were high casualties at the Varsity jump as well [Annotator's Note: Operation Varsity, 24 March 1945, Wesel, Germany]. They only had one combat jump. He saw a movie about the 17th Airborne. After he watched the movie, he wanted to find out more. A man from Florida told him about the publication, "Thunder from Heaven" [Annotator's Note: "Thunder from Heaven: Story of the 17th Airborne Division 1943-1945" by Don Raymond Pay]. It was about the men who were in the 17th Airborne. He contacted the historian in charge of it and asked him questions about some of the guys. He sent in some descriptions about some combat moments, and he wanted to be contacted by whoever remembered those moments. He never heard from anybody. When he was in England one guy's wife wanted a divorce. He waited too many years to have contact with anyone. The 17th Airborne did not have any connections with any other airborne divisions. He did not have any contact with any other divisions. At Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium] they walked out to the front lines. He remembers seeing a dead, frozen Marine on the ground and thinking it was real. In January 1945, there were 20 thousand American troops killed. Seeing men get killed will stay with him forever. The problem they had was the planning was bad. They did not have tank support when they tried to take the ridge [Annotator's Note: at Deadman's Ridge, later nickname for a fortified ridge line that followed the Bastogne-Marche Highway west of Bastogne, Belgium, 7 January 1945].

Paul Wilson is amazed that some men survived the war. The training they went through did not help them. The real heroes were the medics. There was a medic crawling on his belly to reach a man that was screaming out while they were fighting on the ridge [Annotator's Note: with Company A, 193rd Glider Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division at Deadman's Ridge, later nickname for a fortified ridge line that followed the Bastogne-Marche Highway west of Bastogne, Belgium, 7 January 1945]. They lost a lot of medics. He was hiding from snipers and the medic was still moving trying to get to people. He wishes he would have stayed in contact with some of the guys. He shut the memories out. Two guys from his outfit called him when they were in Oklahoma City [Annotator's Note: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma]. He did not go to meet them. He wanted to block it all out. He wanted to join the Army to fight the Germans and the Japanese. He learned to box when he was 13 or 14 years old. Sports were important to him. His most memorable moment was running down from the ridge and seeing his friend in shock. He took him to an aid station. There was a pile of dead paratroopers taller than his head. There were only four men left in his platoon. He can handle anything. He does not let things bother him. He realized how fortunate he was to survive the war. Any pressures now are nothing compared to what he experienced then. He became an alcoholic to block it all out. Then later in life he found religion and changed his ways.

The memory of World War 2 has faded for Paul Wilson. The breakdown of the family unit has caused this to happen along with the educational system deteriorating. America won the war and had something to be proud of. It was the last war the United States won. The Vietnam War [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975] was not great. If the United States had not won World War 2, they would be speaking mainly German. They did not have divorce in his day. The boys had to work hard. They were proud of America. The 1960s is when the United States changed. The breakdown of solid two-parent families has caused the most damage. He thinks it is wonderful to have the World War 2 museums [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana]. Boys need to grow up with a dad who is like a coach. They need to respect women as well. He grew up and worked hard for things. He was not handed anything. He appreciates things more because of that. When he was 14 years old, he had a 50-cent piece, and he was extremely excited about it. He does not respect people that think they deserve things simply because they are American. Husbands and wives are both needed for a fully functioning family. Men and women need each other. Young people are not supposed to think America is the greatest country.