From Oklahoma to Okinawa: Wally Sloan shares his experiences as a Seabee

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Wallace Eugene Sloan (Wally) was only 15 when World War II broke out. He was a student in Fallis, Okla., where his father started oil pipelines from Cushing, Okla., which was the oil center of the nation at that time. Sloan had worked with his father, even driving teams of horses before he was 8 years old. He wanted to enlist, but his father wanted to keep him out of the service by getting him a deferment for his work on the pipelines. For two summers, Sloan (the oldest of four children) worked on large equipment in the oil fields and on the pipelines, but when he reached 18, he went to the county seat to register for the Seabees.

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