[Granville-Hough] 23 Oct 2009 - Service Life

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

MY SERVICE LIFE

Born 1922 in the piney woods of Sullivan’s Hollow, Smith County, MS, to
a farm family of seven sons, I learned farming and forestry and was the
second student to enroll at Miss State University in Forestry. However,
at the suggestion of two maternal uncle WW I veterans, I also applied
for an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point,
NY, but was not really interested. After I joined the Army Enlisted
Reserves at age 19 to stay in school, I did receive an appointment for
West Point but failed the physical exam at New Orleans in Jan 1943. The
Army doctors said I had arterial sclerosis and would die of heart
attack. Of course, Army doctors are always right, and it may happen any
day now!
Our Enlisted Reserves were called in for training in March 1943, after I
was age 20. I was completing training in an Infantry Heavy Weapons
Company when I was told to find the nearest Army Hospital and get
another physical exam for West Point. I passed that exam, was discharged
from the Army, and reported to West Point, where the first West Pointer
I ever met swore me back into the Army as a Cadet. I graduated in
Artillery in 1946 after the war was over. I then received basic
artillery training and married Carol Louisa Steckelberg, a student at
Oklahoma College for Women at Chickasha, OK, in 1947.
My first troop duty was in Seoul, Korea, during the last phases of
demobilization, plus removal of 5 million Japanese who had run the
country. It left
a chaotic situation. I later got better assignments to Fort Sill, Puerto
Rico, and Panama where I trained and helped integrate black and Puerto
Rican soldiers into Caucasian units. The Puerto Rican troops were the
most motivated I ever knew. When the Korean War began, I was promoted to
Captain and became a Battery Commander.
Then I got a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University
of Southern California in 1955, and was an instructor at the Fort Bliss
Air Defense Artillery School until 1958. By then we had four children.
After graduating from the Command and General Staff School at Fort
Leavenworth, KS, in 1959, I served in the Pentagon in Army Intelligence
where I received the Legion of Merit for identifying Soviet developments
to counter our ballistic missiles and space weapons. I then served a
year in Thule, Greenland, and followed this as commander of the Air
Defense Battalion for the Boston/Providence Defense. My most harrowing
experience was making a forced helicopter landing at Natick, MA, while
going from one battery to the next. My last duty was in the Defense
Intelligence Agency. Then I retired as a Lt Col in 1968 after 26 years
and became a professor at California State University, Fullerton for 23
years.
My wife developed hepatitis C from blood transfusions in El Paso, TX, and
we moved to a retirement village called Leisure World in 1975. She
stabilized somewhat but passed away in 2003.
I have been a farmer, an Army officer, a University Professor, and am now a
historian for Revolutionary War activities (and for the Sullivan
family). I never got back to Forestry, the field I left home to master.
My three surviving children wonder what I will do next, and the answer
came quite clearly in late 2006 when I was diagnosed with bone-marrow
cancer.

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OUR NEW HOUSEHOLDS:

New households are gradually being formed among great great
grand-children of James and Mary Richardson. I suggest three things to
them to do now for the future. First, contact Cousin Tom Richardson at
tomrich4 at aol.com and give him your mailing address for a copy of Uncle
Thomas F. Richardson's "Richardson, Hartley, Arender, and Related
Families." Cousin Tom has the remaining copies. This is one of the first
books ever written about Smith County people.

Second, my son, David Hough, a great grand-child, has a website on which
he makes some of my research available. There is on this website
the complete text of Beyond Memory, wherein I
tried to extend Uncle Thomas F. Richardson's book as far back as I
could, using current research materials. I suggest each new family
couple make a complete copy of Beyond Memory. I am sure one of them will
be able to add to that record from his or her own research.

Thirdly, for several years I have been writing little accounts of what
it was like to live in Smith County on a subsistence farm with no
electricity, no running water, no gasoline engines, with only mules to
furnish power. David has a list on his web site of those which I wrote
in 2005 which can be downloaded or printed out. They are simply listed
as stories.

[All the online materials can now be accessed from 

 http://granville-hough.oakapple.net/

David Hough]