A Good Man Goes To War

 "Demons Run when a Good Man goes to War"   - Steven Moffat  My father, James Edward O'Donnell, was born on July 25th, 1920 in a tiny coal town in Clearfield county, Pennsylvania. He grew into a tall, bright teenager with movie-star looks and a cutting sense of humor. In 1940 he married Betty Jane Shively and the couple moved to Johnstown to get a job at the burgeoning Bethlehem Steel plant there. Like untold others, he heard the call to defend his country and entered the U.S. Army on September 4, 1942. This was despite the fact that his wife was pregnant with my oldest sister at the time. He chose the new Army Airborne, and was assigned to the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment (13th Airborne) when it was created in December, 1942. He spent most of the next year being trained to jump out of perfectly good airplanes, how to shoot, and how to save lives as well. His regiment was bounced around from training area to training area, including Fort Benning, Fort Bragg, and, in ...