Mina C. Harrison - Red Cross volunteer
Mina 1945
Mina 1965
"It's funny how Bill and I met during the war. I mean, I was assigned to a field hospital with no patients yet and
he was assigned to an army with a General Staff Headquarters and no soldiers yet. Or so I thought. He had already
met Patton but he was sworn to secrecy. Turns out he spent a lot of time
trying to track where our unit was for months and how I was doing in a front line combat field hospital.
He had trained for battle. I was a volunteer. Well, they gave me $200 a month later.
Never thought in a million years that I would end up marrying him after the war."
"So we Red Cross women were bivouacked together but we weren't deployed, eveyone was just waiting for the
invasion and we were running out of, should I say, supplies we needed and I heard no one was listening at
the Quartermaster's so I took
it upon myself to find the head of the show and give him a piece of my mind.
So after making some enquiries of my own, and believe me, every GI was a girl's best friend then, I found
out the place to go was the General Staff Headquarters. So I made my way there and found the door marked
Supply and went in to make my case. The guy at the desk out front did not want some red-haired young girl
telling him his business so I guess it got a little heated and then this door on the back wall opens and
out comes this handsome young colonel who says, "What's all the racket about?" and then we locked eyes
and that was all I could say. "Your request is duly noted, young lady." I identified myself and my unit
and left, gritting my teeth about that ass I had just met. I thought that would be the end of it. How little I
knew. But as I found out months later, he had turned to the clerk at the front desk after I walked out
and said, "I'm going to marry that woman".
When I got back to my tent my superior, for reasons not like her, was waiting for me. Before I could
get it out how I had met this complete jackass and how horribly he had treated me, she said, "You'll
be going out with Colonel Harrison tonight. He just called and wanted to meet you under better
circumstances. Be ready at 5PM."