Paul Henry Blackmon

Paul Henry Blackmon
Born	Paul Henry Heacock 26 August 1928 New Jersey
Nationality	American
Parents	Otto B Heacock (father) Emily Seaworthy (mother)

Paul Henry Blackmon, born Paul Henry Heacock was an American who was born in New Jersey, moved to Missouri, went into foster care, and lived on a farm throughout the great depression and WWII. He later went into the service in June 1946, served as patrol duty for a plutonium plant in Washington state, then somewhere in Albuquerque, New Mexico, discharged in December 1947.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/75356711/otto-b-heacock

https://www.ancestry.com/search/?name=Otto+B_Heacock&event=_Missouri&count=50&name_x=_psx

Before Birth

Before August 1928

Before the birth of Paul, came first Edward, then the second child, Evelyn, then Leroy, then Paul Heacock.

Childhood

26 August 1928 - Birth

Paul Henry Heacock was born 26 August 1928 in New Jersey, United States. He was born to Emily Seaworth and Otto Heacock. He lived on Main Street of the city (which was close to Newark).

1929 - The start of the Great Depression

In 1929 the Great Depression in the United States began. Due to the fact that Paul's father was minimally educated and that he lost his street conductor job, the Heacock family decided to move back to Missouri.

Between 1929 and 1930 - Moving to Missouri

When Paul was less than around two years of age, the Heacock family moved to the town of Poplar Bluff in Butler County, Missouri. Because the job situation around was poor, the Heacock family became farmers and so lived on a farm. Housing was almost non-existent.

Between 1930 and 1935

While living on the farm, since Paul was too little, he didn't work any particular job. Otto on the other-hand, was reportedly street-wise, despite not having much education, and apparently could fix and do anything on the farm. Many people also knew Otto that were in the local area. Being the entrepreneur he was, he bought what he said were apple trees and when they were going places from one place to another, he would along the way sell apple trees. Their father was a good provider in food, but it was frogs, fish, and whatnot.

Otto had become a functional alcoholic and also had a temper. A WWI veteran, he was in France and was attacked with mustard gas by the Germans, and was exposed to it in the process. How much it affected him isn't known. He barely spoke of his experiences, except for the fact that the Germans sprayed him with mustard gas.

Otto and Paul's brother, Edward, didn't get along. One day when he was 16, they got into a fist fight, and so he left home and went to Detroit, Michigan, probably never seeing each other again. It might have been around this time period or before that when their mother Emily, gave birth to fraternal-twins, Pauline and Edna, who were "different as night and day from one another". His mother was reportedly a "nice jolly fat lady".

Paul went to schools within Butler County, what he called possibly country schools. Paul personally was someone who liked to read, but up until 1940 for him there wasn't much to read for him. Their primary life concern was finding something to eat, a place to sleep, and a place to go to school.

1935 - Death of his mother

When Paul was seven years old, his mother passed away. After the passing of his mother, the Heacock family disintegrated. Paul, not being consulted, and probably on both the opinion of his father and the state authorities, was told that he was going to be put into the Missouri Foster Home Program, and so started going in and out of such as well as living with family. Paul only had two pairs of pants, a pair of shoes, and a couple of shoes as his personal belongings. Paul had a "So what?" reaction to news, there was nothing that he could really do. Sometimes Otto would pull the family back together again just for later for them to be separated again.

Evelyn, probably around this time or afterwards, married young so that she could have a place to live, marrying to an alcoholic who was in the road construction business, driving what is called a "motor patroll", was the grader. Having a great job the two lived well.

1940 to 1946 - Last foster home Paul lived in

In 1940 a couple, Laura Bill Hensen and Lloyd Arch Blackmon, on a farm decided they wanted a ten year old boy, and so moved into another foster care home along with his fraternal twin sisters Pauline and Edna.

Back when gas was 15 cents a gallon, his foster mother told him that she was at a store (this was in early fourties). A woman came into the store to see the store manager and asked:

I have a dime, how much candy can I buy for my children for Christmas?

Paul himself didn't have a particular preference in candy, anything that was sweet. On the food side, fried chicken was a delicacy, and so normally potatoes, beans, some meat.

Although Laura and Lloyd never adopted Paul, they did change his last name.

Paul remembers many shanty towns that were around. He did make friends with some of the residents but not lasting friendships. This was normally due to Paul's frequent movement from one family and one foster home to another. Paul discovered that the secret to surviving in a foster home was to be very nice to the lady and don't make waves.

Adulthood

June 1946 - Entering service in the United States Army

In June 1946 Paul entered service into the United States Army. He specifically went into the Army to go into college.

December 1947 - Discharged from service

In December 1947 Paul was discharged from service.

Between 1948 and 1955 - Going to college

In 1948 Paul went to college. In 1955 he graduated from University of Missouri with a degree in Physics and Mathematics.

Notes:

- History buffs know that the war didn't end until the peace treaty was signed in 1 January 1947. That is why he is considered a WWII veteran.

- He had five siblings that survived, no idea how many that weren't alive

- Many years after his childhood Paul went back to Poplar Bluff and found many residence saying that they knew his father Otto and that he had a son Paul.

- After Edward moved out Paul only saw his brother two or three times before he passed away.

- Paul doesn't remember much about his mother, and has one picture of her, but she was kind of shorter than he is. "A nice jolly fat lady" that he guesses was wonderful he doesn't remember.

- Left off at interview at 20:27

- Paul lived in houses with a dirt floor, that he built a one room house with a dirt floor that they lived in because he said that it costed a little over a total of five dollars, he cut the logs down, brought them together, spent the money for nails, and something else, that being his biological father.

- Generally for the fourth of july, in the county that he lived in, there was a central place where people came together, there was block ice so you can have cold things, you could dance, there was a bit of drinking. The question around the time was "are you going to the fourth?", meaning are you going to this central gathering and join in the celebration. For Paul they were fun, there were a lot of things a kid could do

- For the next seven or eight years after his mother died there was no celebration (afte the question of whether that was in his initial home) at all

- It wasn't until he got into the last foster home that there was christmas after going into foster home

- Can't remember how many foster homes, the one from 1940 to 1946 was the one that was stable.

- The last foster home, the one where they changed his name, they were great, he was an army veteran, peacetime veteran, had some kind of service disability, and he had a big pension for that period of time. They didn't have electricity, but they had everything they wanted to eat, brewed it on a stove. There was farming equipment but they had a car, they had a paper (newspaper?) every sunday, he had a radio with a battery charger windmill on top of the house. He was incapacitated, he was unable to function, Lloyd.

- The families from before, not really remember, lived with one of his aunts, one of his uncles who happened to be when he was the town policeman, the wasn't the deputy, he had some kind of a, he had a pistol and a badge. The uncle was named Ira Heacock, his wife was, she was blind since she was twelve years old from iceskating and falling, hitting something on the back of her head. By that time they were in their fifties. She went to state blind school and so was able to function, and was able to read braille, very intelligent woman. Paul remembers that since he was the town policeman, everyone knew Paul and him, and so they generally got into the movie, a movie once a week. For Paul, there was a [base] ball team, and so he got into that. Usually Paul would have a dime or two to spend on something.

- The story is is that foster mother wanted a baby, but couldn't have any children, there were no babies available, but they were able to come home with a ten year old boy. In retrospect for Paul, it wasn't all altruistic, they lived on a big farm, and she was the manager of the farm. Of course he husband, he was fairly intelligent, but he couldn't do any physical work, and Paul thinks that she wanted a farm man, and so that's why they got a ten year old boy to help.

- In any case, Paul's job on the farm was everything. There was a horse barn, the horses requried to do all the planting, and so Paul knew how to manage that. But he never learned to ride a horse, since he was afraid of horses, even to this day.

- 28:40 He could hornace, drive, plow, among other things.

- Other than his sister, who he lived with from 1940 to 46, they were in the same family until 1950

- His only job that he had was on the farm, nothing that was outside of the farm, in the town, etc,

- Paul would make friends from school, but they all drifted away. For osme reason, he was enamored with going to school and reading, and a lot of them were not interesting with going to school. He was validactorian for his small high school. Grandin Consolidated was the name of the school. It was housed at a works progress administration during the depth of the depression. The government sent out young people, they built things and were paid a certain amount per month. They needed jobs and that was basically the only things they built, trails, parks, and that sort of thing.

- Paul doesn't know why he got so much into reading. He doesn't know whether it was his mother potentially reading to him when he was little (he doesn't remember that happening). In the Blackmon household, there was always a Sunday paper. He would read the comics to his foster father since he was blind. He had his radio that he kept on.

- He read everything that was available, maybe the westerns were his preference but he isn't sure what his favorite types of things to read were. There were no classics for him. The entertainment that he had besides reading and cinema, on the farm, they had a fourth of july where they would go to town. There was always people there with a fifty pound solid block ice. They would bring it home and they would make ice cream and bake cookies and that's about it. Those kinds of things were a delicacy of the time. The sickest he ever got was too much ice cream with cookies. He went out under a tree and fell asleep. He thinks that he slept for about three hours.

- The movies that he got to watch at the theatre were all westerns. The guy who set up the movie (Paul thinks every week) charged a dime to watch, all of which were westerns.

- The games that he really came up with/really played were in high school. He played Basketball, part of the softball team. He was never really good at them, too short for basketball, baseball he was mediocre at it. In basketball him and his team got to play other highschools, but he was always on the back bench. He was probably as tall as he currently is (2023). He doesn't remember anyone specifically from those teams. He joined the teams because they were the only things he could really do, and also because he was physically strong, could lift a 100lb bail of hay. He wasn't one to sit and do anything.

- Leading up to the war, the political and economic opinion of his biological father, probably one of the dumbest guys around. He was a rabbid republican in a Democratic environment. From the stories that Paul was told, there were government distributed food and all the distribution people were democrat, compared to the fired republican. Paul doesn't remember seeing much of the government food. He didn't have a particular opinion of politics at the time. He read and heard about it in the radio and in the newspaper. As a result they weren't fond of the Japanese people.

- He remembers the Paul Harbor attack over the radio, a big thing for everything. Paul knew FDR did fireside chats but doesn't remember the speeches themselves. He was sure that they listened to them but were too long to comprehend. Over the radio they generally listened to (since it was his foster care father it was generally what he wanted to put on and they were generally not in the house instead out working). At night there was Fibber McGee and Molly. Bob Hope was also popular. So was Bing Cosby. Paul always liked to listen to music, it was the era of big bands. There'd be a big band from New York, Chicago, new Orleans, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles. They listen to a lot of them (he doesn't remember the name of the bands), and were good enough programs to listen to on the radio.

- Paul is a fan of classical music. He also likes outlaw westerns. "The kind were you play it back and get your car back and get your wife back". Paul favored a different type of music generally.

- 39:30 What mischevious things did you get into? Paul and his family were kind of isolated on their farm, two or three miles apart the houses. Generally he didn't go into Halloween, turning over the outdoor toilet building, and so didn't get involved in those things. Paul never really got into much trouble or participate in those htings

- Paul was kind of a shy kid, and so he never really got a girlfriend or anyone like that in school. There was no place to go in a small little town that he was in, with around 240 people in it. They had a bank, a post office. in 1900 it was a town of 6000 people, the largest salt mill in the world, cutting old road pine trees. Grandin was the town name.

- Paul and his original family (possibly other families as well) didn't go to chruch. They weren't of a specific denomination. His mother was a member of an orthodox Jewish family. When she married his father, she was expelled, and so Paul never knew that part of his family. He remembers one grandfather, who made his own Wisky, other than that not much. Supposedly they came up after the Civil War from Alabama to Missouri.

- 42:20 A typical day for Paul on the farm was 5:30 or 5 oclock generally they had a man called a hired man who refurnished the house, a place where they would garden, he'd have a cow, that sort of thing. They paid him a dollar a day, plus furnishing a home, a place to live, a a pig or two to grow up and then butcher. He did most of the heavy work. It was 5 o'clock or so in the morning, feed the horses, water the horses, eat breakfast. Depending on the weather whether you were working out or not, if you were cutting hay, grass clings together so it doesn't dry when you're spreading it out, so you have to wait until the dew gets absorbed into the atmosphere.

- For the attack on Pearl Harbor, it was a Sunday, they were listening to the radio, and then all the sudden the announcement came that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. Paul was angry, but undirected anger.

- Generally the opinion of the time was stay home and not get involved in the war prior to the attack. Paul isn't sure he feel this way, but didn't remember completely what his full opinion was.

- In terms of Germany and their gains early in the war, they didn't know enough about the politics of Europe (him, his family, and others assumed), so that was a blur. However the Japanese was more of a focus. Paul had studied a little Geography, and so knew more about the Pacific than he did of Europe. He isn't sure why he did. He thinks part of the reason he remembers the Pacific was because the school had some National Geographic or monthly magazines, so Peleliu and stuff, Guam, Truk. By the time those things happened he was older and understood what was happening.

- 47:10 In school, Paul was blessed and "whats the other word, the bad part of not having to study", he was able to read a book once, and he was overjavel, Validictorian in his school, editor of the yearbook, those types of things, but was a small school. There was no journalist kind of club. They had a music teacher, a retired something, they hired her as music teacher, she did a lot of stuff, plays and that sort of thing. Mrs. Greezefilter.

- 48:30

- Paul was the kind of kid who saw through the kind of boring information that was taught in history class such as dates and whatnot. He read about some of the things that happened in history.

- Instead of a reader who scanned pages, Paul was one who took more of his time and retained much more of the information.

- Paul and others around him didn't really have a reaction to the German declaration of war on the US, as it didn't really sink in what that really meant, just that it was more groups were fighting.

- They weren't confident that America could fight, as there was quite a bit of pessimism in Paull's general area.

- Paul followed the war progress throughout even within the first six months after Pearl Harbor. As he was lsitening and hearing the news he was amazed how much he didn't know, He had a map (or maps) that were smaller in size, hand-held, and so he never realized that the small looking distances on the maps were thousands of miles apart. He couldn't understand it, parts of it you could understand, but the strategy you could not.

- Paul remembers people being drafted, not what their names were. Paul's wife had a member of her high school who was entombed in the USS Arizona when it was sunk at Pearl Harbor. They have been to Pearl Harbor and seen the name of that high school kid while visiting there. He doesn't remember his name

- The name of his wife was Elma Joyce Ham.

- He didn't know his wife at the time, they were too far spread apart

- Paul personally wanted to join but not to fight. The reason that he eventually joined was in order to get the WWII GI Bill rise. They put him through graduate school, 7 years he used tax dollars.

- During the war, everything was rationed, being on the farm, they had more stuff (not necessarily getting to grow their own stuff), all the tires they wanted, they could buy all the sugar they wanted, all the gas they wanted, it was much better living under the rationing. If you had a little income, his foster father had 140 dollars a month from the pension, they were paying 15 cents a gallon, could buy a lot of gasoline for 140 dollars. They had a more of everything themselves, they could more specifically buy more of everything, they didn't suffer.

- 54:17 His foster father had a 1938 Plymouth Ford. He saved money and didn't have a heater. Paul thinks that it costed 800 dollars. He was a state sheriff. They only traveled locally in it. It was a regular passenger car of the 1938 variety and so could go a longer distance however. It would go 70-80 mph or more. You were limited at 35 mph if you beat the instructions

- The government never forced them to give up any of their farm products. The reason they weren't forced so was because they were too small. Bigger farms however had their stuff forcefully given over. Paul and his family were self-sufficient except for the things that were grown in South America.

- None of FDR's programs that were implemented had any effect on Paul at all. He was too young for the WPA. He wasn't old enough to get into the Young peoples building trails and things and parks, and so was never involved in any things like that

- Following the news throughout the war, would cause anger in him, in the way that things had happened. The Japanese philosophy of If you ain't like us then we'll just drown you or whatever.

- He doesn't remember anyone in particular that got drafted in his town, but knew that there were some. He thinks that there were two or three who were killed.

- Paul remembers the news about the Battle of Midway, but there wasn't enough detail to the public, so there wasn't that much to be known to appreciate what had happened. It was only when they made the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! that things started feeling in place for Paul. Again the distances that were involved he couldn't comprehend.

- He remembers Battle of Midway, Guadalcanal.

- His reaction to the D-Day landings was that he could appreciate the scale, and the things that could go wrong. He guesses that it was detached, given the scale of the landings. Later on, when the info became more available, he appreciated it more.

- He wasn't really a deep thinker about these kinds of news.

- The impact of the war on his daily life, they worked harder, they built a hen house for a lot of hens making a lot of eggs for the war effort. They had more material things. The war lifted them out of the last stages of the depression, therefore there was a lot more of everything. Other than that Paul never thought much about it.

- They never sold off stuff to the government and military for the war effort. They grew pigs for a while, and shipped them off to the stock yard, that was part of the war effort maybe it was not, but he didn't consider it part of the war effort. They got paid for the pigs according to their weight.

- They were canning stuff, and needed a lot of outside help generally. If any flour was available they could make their own bread, they could make their own stuff if material was available.

- His sister never went into the workforce or anything like that. She was four years younger than he was and so was in school, graduating from high school in 1950.

- He remembers the surrender of Germany and Japan and the atomic bomb. For some reason, they had access to a lot more information, and so Paul could appreciate this kind of stuff more than he could before. More papers, more radio, different types of radio, not just local AM stations, there was more variety of news.

- He enlisted into the Army because the only way he was wondering how he could go to college, he read the GI Bill, he thought that was his ticket to school, and so enlisted. While the fighting had stopped, the peace treaty hadn't been made until January 1st 1947. Therefore that put him into the category of WWII veteran.

- 6:30 He enlisted in Jefferson Barracks in Missouri, which was just outside of Saint Lewis. Collection point was Fort Levinworth. He spent his, well the collection point, then they shipped them off to Fort Lewis just outside of Washington, and then to Taccoma Washington. They then did basic training. At the end of basic training they had a meeting, "the bullet of worth those full of things"? , and they wanted volunteers, not saying for hat, other option was going to Korea as a rifleman. Paul said he deosn't want to do that, he volunteered. What he volunteered for was for a special weapons project, their job was to guard the exterior portion of the land around the atomic bomb plant that made the plutonium. General Electric ran the plant, and did their own inside the fence security. Paul and the others were about 600, a detached company of 600 people. They had their own airforce, their job was to, Paul doesn't know how many acres the government took from the farms, but they said we need you to move away, so that we can make sure we can guard the plant. Paul later learned that they had nike missile silos there, they had a whole bunch of stuff. They had a patrol airforce, no combat. They had a motorpool. The base was at the confluence of the snake and columbia rivers. Richland Washington. Paul was there for a year. Then the powers that be decided that they either didn't need that patrol or that somebody else took it over, so he went to Albuquerque. The company unit was an official military police outfit, had all the bells and whistles and that sort of thing. 600 people isn't large but was large enough that they had their own supply. Paul wasn't an MP with an armband. They crossed the columbia river, their headquarters was a farmhouse that they had taken over, the tour duty was two weeks, they had food brought in and that sort of thing. A couple of jeeps that did patrolling. It was an easy life. People woke you up in the morning, but it wasn't as stern as for other soldiers

- As for basic training, it wasn't tough at all. 1946 the army was imaging people and they would take almost anything. Pail decided to not go in the marines since that would take four years. The army said you can sign up for 18 months, 24 months, 30 months, 36 months, or 48 months. The thing that was the decision maker. If you served there for over a month, they would pay one month of schooling for every month that you stayed in the army. That was relaxed later on but he went up until September 1948, he enrolled in the University of Missouri. They paid from 48 to 55 when he graduated with a masters degree

- Paul remembers that the only shot that they fired during the war, kid asking later, "What did you do in the war daddy?", I was out on patroll, and I was a PFC, the rest in the group were recruits so I was in charge. So they went out on patroll out on the Jeep, and he had control of the carbine, they saw a coyote, and he didn't know what prompted him, but he shot at the coyote, but he was too far away so didn't kill him. He was promoted to corporal, because he knew how to repair the electrical cords, boys like to unplug it by yanking on the cable. In those days however, they weren't encapsulated in plastic. The plug and the wire were separate, and so you had to connect the wire to the iron. The supply room couldn't supply, we were wanting irons. Nobody knew how to reconnect the wires to the plug. But Paul knew, Later after that they wanted to know if he wanted to be in the supply room, the TO (Table Organization) called for a corporal to manage the supply room. They asked him if he'd take the job and he said yes and so Paul was promoted to corporal. Four or five irons reconnected got him the job and promoted, got him an easy job.

- 15:10 It wasn't his biological father that taught him that stuff, in school he was interested in repairing radios and stuff, reading things. The only person that I could conceive of was a man who went to the same school that I went to, he graduated as an electrical engineer. That was Paul's beacon, he couldn't have gone to Yale, it was too expensive. He could have probably gone to Standford, because at the time they were sucking in all the veterans. But he graduated as an electrical engineer. But that was Paul's beacon, and he enrolled as studying electrical engineering. He found out that he had a flaw in his thinking, he couldn't get into his head about DC machinery, only class he ever flunked in college. Paul said to himself well I think I understand Physics a little more than I do that particular part of electricity, and so he switched over into Physics, and he was already into math, and so when he graduated with a bachelors degree why its just natural for him to follow along. They didn't have a PhD program at that department. But he graduated with a masters degrees in physics and mathematics.

- THe name of the man who became an electrical engineer was some last name McKinney he believes the spelling is. They were power brokers in the same town.

- The town from 1890 to 1920, about 30 years, it had 6000 people in it, it had a water supply in it. It had the largest saw mill in the mill. There was that much old ruth pine trees in missouri and in that part of the world, that they had their own narrow gage railroad, and that there was pick it up and move it to wherever as they could it. They loaded it on the railroad, and drove it to the sawmill, and the sawmill had a five acre pond, the logs were unloaded, never stopped, drove on to the dike.

- When Paul got there it was closed, but the history was explained and written up. He saw the pond and that sort of thing. As the timber was depleted, the picket up the railroad and moved probably a hundred miles, within a hundred mile radius of the saw mill.

- 19:40 Paul doesn't remember almost anyone in his service. There was a guy from Lake Charles, Louisiana, that he kept track of for a while but he doesn't remember his name. He was a rabbid southernor. He would say :

Them damn n...s

- He was a true southern gentleman, but thats the only guy he remembered.

- There was one incident that was outstanding. He was transfered to Albuquerque after they closed their part down at the plutonium plant. He was put into a regular MP department. After a while, he had no training at all, he was supposed to be put into supply, but they put him out wearing the helmet and the pistol. Talking about being dumb as a stump, they assigned him to the front gate, and that was where all the traffic was. One night, they had nurses were at the hospital. Two nurses came in with two lieutenant from an airfield. The nurses had passes to get in but the two lieutenants didn't. They didn't help me a bit. What Paul was supposed to do was to call up Sergeant of the guard, say I've got a problem up here come help me. It didn't dawn on Paul to do that since he had no training, and so he told them they couldn't come in. Therefore the nurses finally just said well well just walk home, and thats what they did. The major who was in charge of the nurses, came in on glue at Paul. She convened a hearing to have one of his stripes removed. They had the meeting, Paul didn't get up, he told his lawyer Hey I'm dumb as a stump, they didn't train me anything. The upside was he kept his stripe. He would suggest the captain and his sergeant had repremand letters in their folder, because they didn't train him sufficiently. They didn't train him at all to be on that thing.

- He doesn't remember any of the names of the nurses or the lieutenants. He saw them only twice at the moment and the hearing. The hearing was a month after. The hearing had to be run by a board or someone of a higher officer rank above him, being a corporal. Paul didn't hear anything except you keep your stripe, they didn't tell hinm what happened, who did what to whom, he didn't know who got up in front of anyone to talk about it. The lawyer was these people that were supposed to be in charge of this outfit didn't do proper training, he noted it was their fault. Pau ldidn't want to be an MP he wanted to go into the "?Narcotics" area. A laywer told him later that two companies were fighting over Paul as just another blob, and the MPs won. These two companies were in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

- The MP place he was at a combination commercial and air force airport. They were in that area. They had searchlights on towers to check the boundaries of our part and their part, the civilian part.

- He got a thirty day leave after the year in service. So he went home, took him four days to ride the train from Tacoma Washington to Poplar Bluff Missouri. Beautiful scenery. He went to his foster home. He hated his father because he couldn't keep them together. He hated him until 1964, his wife had been after him over it telling him hey get over it. So he finally took the advice and forgave him, forgave me, and anyone else that wanted to be forgiven. Ever since he started being a better person.

- During his service he did letters home but not office. Most of the letters there were just I am fine, how are you? He didn't ever have any letters censored. In late 1946 everything was calm and cool. He did have a queue clearance, which was an atomic energy clearance for being there in the locality, never know what youre gonna see. He had to say that whatever I tell you I have to kill you. He was prohibited from flying out of the country for the next 20 years. He was fine by it since he didn't travel until he was a long time after that.

- The way that he met his wife, his foster family mother wanted him to teach school in 1950. Paul had just gone to Freshman, Sophmore, and gone to Junior. She wanted him to teach school for a year. To teach school, they said they'd hire him if he went to summer school to get a teachers permit. So he did, and in geography class, there was this beautiful farm girl. 9 months later they were married, first child born 53, 55, 57. Met her in geography class.

- Occassionally his father would reunite the family, Paul doesn't know how he did it but he managed to reunite the family. For example, he built this one home house, built it for 5 dollars or so, and there was a woman involved in it. Was sure it wasn't his mother. For some reason the job or something disappeared.

- Paul never reconsidered reenlisting for things like the Korean war and afterward. He hated the military, did not like it. He didn't hate it, he wouldn't voluntarily do it. He was offered a sergeant's job if he would enlist for three years, of course he turned it down.

- He had seen the Band of Brothers TV show.

- There was no bond ever in the companies he was in like in Band of Brothers. That was partly because Paul was always a loner, the only way he was successful and eating, was to tody up to the woman of the house, be nice to her, do what she wanted him to do. He got 9000 travel pictures, he's not in a single one because he was the single one taking the pictures. He had been all over the world, all seven continents, been to 47 different countries. He rode a train across Russia from Moscow to Pacific Ocean. Victoria Falls and Zimbabwe, Cape town, across Australia, across Canada. Traveled quite a bit. He even went to Antartica 21 days on a Russian ice breaker. In a tour setting, that went from Ushuaia Argentina onto Tierra del fuego over to New Zealand. That was in 2005. He had been to Europe probably 10 times, he knows about London that he could go on the underground to whever he wants to go. Vienna was his favorite city. He could live there during the summer time, it was a fantastic city. The two places he would live in that he'd like to live in are Oxford England and Vienna Austria.

- By the time that it got to "us" it [the propaganda] was pretty sparse, but they saw some of it. Farmers are pretty unable to distinguish them to.

- Paul's name is on the park in Conroe as a WWII guy, he's gonna join the VFW post since they wanted a WWII vet and so convinced him to join

- He wants people to remember that they did what they had to do and they had to do it. He wasn't a star player in it, but he was a participant that openly helped.

- Paul didn't have any celebration not even on the farm for the end of the war. He didn't drink alcohol, didn't smoke. In 1946 that seemed to be two main military activities at least on his level. Paul was basically an outsider. He didn't drink because of his grandfather?, father. They were functioning, but they certainly didn't live up to what a little more education would have done for them.

- The Greatest Generation fits pretty well, and that they should be remembered as the Greatest Generation.

Bibliography

• Paul Henry, Blackman (7 July 2023). "Interview with Paul Blackman" (Interview). Interviewed by Paul Sidle.
• "Paul H Blackman "United States Census, 1940" • FamilySearch". FamilySearch. 1940. Archived from the original on 20 August 2023. Retrieved 20 August 2023.
• "Paul Heacock, "New Jersey, Reclaim the Records, Geographic Birth Index, 1901-1929" • FamilySearch". 20 August 2023. 26 August 1928. Archived from the original on 20 August 2023. Retrieved 20 August 2023.
• "NARA - AAD - Display Full Records - Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, ca. 1938 - 1946 (Enlistment Records)". Access to Archival Databases National Archives. 26 July 1946. Archived from the original on 20 August 2023. Retrieved 20 August 2023.