When I posted about our vacation to Colorado I mentioned that my mother and father had gone horseback riding at the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs during World War II. I thought I remembered some pictures of when my father was stationed at Camp Carson (now Fort Carson), and I found a few.
Here is a not particularly good photo of my mother on horseback.
My mother on horseback
I’m not certain this was taken at the Garden of the Gods. I seem to remember other old photos that show the location better, but I couldn’t find them on my laptop. Maybe they’re on our home computer. But the only place my parents talked about riding horses together was at the Garden of the Gods, so maybe that’s where this is.
Here’s my father at the top of Pike’s Peak, where the Manitou and Pike’s Peak Railway stops.
My father at the Pike’s Peak cog railway
There’s no question about where this one is. The Pike’s Peak elevation shown on the sign is a little lower than the 14,114 or 14,115 feet given in most sources today. Here is my mother at the same place.
My mother at Pike’s Peak
The cog railway still operates at Pike’s Peak, although they no longer use this type of engine and car.
The old steam engine
Here it is at the top.
Train at the top of the mountain
I wasn’t sure the pictures of my mother and father were at the top of the mountain until I found the photo of the engine and car at the terminus. You can see the Pike’s Peak altitude sign at the upper right in this photo. Leah and I took the cog railway to the top a few years ago. The current train stops at a structure with a snack bar and gift shop. It wasn’t there 70 years ago.
My father’s uniform includes a Sam Browne belt, which the Wikipedia article on Sam Brown belts says the Army eliminated in 1940. I don’t think the article is correct. My mother looks like she might be at least a little cool because she’s clenching her fists, but she’s not doing anything obvious like pulling her coat tighter or hunching her shoulders. So I assume the weather was perhaps cool, but not cold. My parents were married in November 1943, and after that my mother accompanied my father during his training in the western US. I am pretty sure she didn’t go out West prior to that. It would have almost certainly been pretty cold in Colorado Springs in November or later in the winter, and the 104th Infantry Division left for Europe in late August 1944, so my guess is that these pictures were taken in the summer of 1944 before my father shipped out for Europe. And here he is, wearing a Sam Browne belt, part of which we still have.
My father is wearing a garrison or side cap here with his dress uniform. This particular military headgear has a vulgar slang name that I won’t mention. My father never used that term, and I’m not sure where I heard it.
We have other pictures of my father in uniform in the 1940’s, as well as some of his actual uniforms from the 1960’s when he was in the Army Reserves. I think Army uniforms from those days are much sharper than modern uniforms, with or without Sam Brown belts.
Did you know that the US Army is going to a blue uniform? Blue, not green or tan or khaki. Blue, like the Air Force and the Navy wear. An Army website that’s full of the jingoistic jargon common in the Army today says that the blue uniform “links today’s warriors to their heritage and connects them to warriors past.” I think a blue uniform, and the jargon that accompanies it, would have disgusted my father and the soldiers he served with. I’m pretty sure they didn’t consider themselves “warriors” and I don’t think they would have felt it necessary to boost their egos by calling themselves that. I suspect that “GI” worked just fine for them. Did you know that theater missile defense systems are not meant to protect front-line soldiers? They’re intended to protect valuable assets in the rear, like supplies, air bases, and, coincidentally, generals, who typically sit well to the rear of the action. One of the very first Allied deaths in the D-Day invasion was a general. That wouldn’t happen today, so I imagine the generals need something to convince themselves and others that they’re really soldiers. I mean warriors.
Well, I don’t know where that came from, but I feel better now.
You are so lucky to have these photos of your parents at Pikes Peak. It must have been quite an adventure in that train.
When did your father land in Europe during the war? My dad was in the Army and landed in Normandy D-day +3. I think I may have already mentioned this, but just in case, my father fought behind enemy lines in Battle of the Bulge. I wonder if our fathers crossed paths in Europe during the war. I have some of my father’s records, but they are incomplete and irretrievable since a fire destroyed a military storage facility a while back.
My father probably told us when he landed, but I don’t remember. I have to go to websites that give the history of the 104th Infantry Division to find out that kind of thing. I think they landed some weeks after D-day. My father told us something about being cut off during the Battle of the Bulge and having to eat apples they found in an orchard, but I don’t remember much else. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that he died while he was writing his war memoir, and the last thing he wrote about was landing and preparing to go up to the front lines. We have virtually no information about his personal experiences during combat.
Echo Robin on the matter of having those photos, especially regarding the belt and timing.
I think the first time I ever heard the word “warriors” used contemporaneously might have been in the pilot for Battlestar Galactica (which might have been the last time I ever watched TV). I remember how much it jangled my nerves to hear it, even then in the early 70s. It still does.
Yes, that descriptor is embarassing, and it certainly would have been to the WWII generation. I can just imagine how my father and uncle would have reacted to being lumped in with all the other “warriors”. I know my uncle, who became a firefighter after the war, would have snorted at the term “hero”.
Wayne – yeah, a lot of what I hear from military and civilians DoD employees is grating. I don’t know what’s going on with things. It makes me thing we’re becoming a militaristic nation. Comparing priorities among some politicians doesn’t allay my fears.
Minnie – agreed. I think my father would have been perfectly happy to make a career of the Army back in the post-WW II years, but I think he would not have been happy to be in the modern Army. I’m sure it has always been a good example of a bureaucracy, but I just don’t think it was the kind of organization it is today.
Very nice photos. You’re lucky to have them. My sister has possession of what few old photos survived moves, remarriages and deaths.
I don’t think my father would have appreciated these changes, either. He began his military service in the Army Air Corps–he was a flight instructor during WWII.
~William’s human.
P.S. The Navy also calls those caps that same slang phrase–I know that thanks to an ex-brother-in-law!
Willam(of mass destruction)’s human – Yes, we are lucky to have the photographs. We have scanned quite a few but still have some to go. Unfortunately, with both of my parents gone now, we don’t have anyone to ask when we have questions about a photo.