Photo by Beth Wade

Sun City resident, veteran remembers service

Before serving as a lieutenant general in the Army and helping organize Veterans Day and Memorial Day events in Sun City, Chuck Graham said he would make, paint and arrange lead soldiers in his friends garage.

Growing up in Boise, Idaho, Graham said he would watch the Idaho Army National Guard and local Reserve Officers Training Corps train. As a high school senior he commanded an ROTC company.

Keep in mind I grew up in the thirties. When I was in grade school, problems were developing in Europe, Graham said. Those kinds of things had an influence on my thinking. I read a lot of books about the service. By then I had decided I wanted to be a soldier and going to [the U.S. Military Academy] would allow me to do so.

Once he had determined his course, Graham said he sought out an appointment to West Point.

I went to West Point in 1946, and I was going to be an engineer, but we started armored cavalry tactics my second year. I got very enamored with armored cavalry tactics, and decided that was where I wanted to spend my career, he said. This [was] right after World War II, and all of our professors, all of our tactical officers and all of our instructors had been combat commanders in [the war]. We were very fortunate having that type of experienced career officers that worked with us, trained us and prepared us for our time in the service.

Graham spent his time in the Army in tank and armored cavalry units, he said. After being commissioned as an officer in 1950, the Korean War broke out, and Graham said he spent 16 months serving there.

About 75 percent of my class served in Korea both during and after the war. It had a significant effect on all of us, he said. I left there in 1952; the war was still going on. I went back 24 years later and was amazed with what the Koreans had done because their country was in shambles in 1952. They had completely rebuilt their country.

Graham also served in Germany for seven and a half years, and one of his three children was born there, he said.

There is Korea on one side of the world, and theres Germany on the other side, Graham said. Both have definitely influenced my view of the world.

During his years of service, Graham also taught at West Point for three years, worked in Washington, D.C., on the Department of the Army staff, and was stationed at Fort Hood and in Atlanta, he said. After retiring, Graham and his wife stayed in Atlanta before moving to Sun City in 1999.

I have felt that I have been able to use a lot of the things I learned in the service when it comes to planning and how organizations function, Graham said. Thats why Ive spent time working here in our community.

Graham said he has volunteered with his church and served on a Georgetown ISD board of trustees bond committee. He has also been a member of the Kiwanis Club for more than 30 years.

Graham was chairman of the Sun City Veterans committee who planed and raised the funds to build the Georgetown-Williamson County Veterans Memorial Plaza, and serves as chairman of the veterans group who plans and conducts the Memorial Day and Veterans Day ceremonies.

Building the memorial is one of those things I am very proud of, he said.

If you believe in freedom, you need to remember, he said. You need to remember those who stood up and sacrificed their lives for your freedom and my freedom.