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Whitmore holds a picture of himself taken in France during World War I, when he was a sergeant in the army.WWIrememberscheering warendBy JIM WICKERTimes-NewsHAWFIELDS - Even if it hadn’t happened on the day before his birthday, Goetha C. “GC” Whitmore would always have remembered Nov. 11,1918 — the day World War I ended.Whitmore, who quietly observed his 96th birthday Monday at his home in rural southeastern Alamance County, remembered hearing news of the enemyGerman army’s surrender.“I was on guard duty with my outfit in the Argonne Forest in France. We got the message to leave the front lines and return to our base,” Whitmore said, adding the good news caused “a lot ofloud cheering - the men were shooting their guns and celebrating.”It was, as he recalls, a bright, sunny day much like Sunday, which marked the 72nd anniversary of the armistice.On the day after the end of “the war to end all wars,” Whitmore, a sergeant in an infantry unit, turned 24 years of age and his mind was full of happy thoughts of returning to Alamance County and resuming a normal life.“But I had to wait about two months in France until there was room on a ship to take my outfit back” to America He said there “were a lot of men in the army in France from Alamance County and when we got back there was a big parade down Main Street in Burlington.”M*.wRob Hammonds I Times-NewsWhitmore turned 96 on Monday.Whitmore says he can’t remember the date of the homecoming parade, but he well remembers “the big crowds along the street yelling and hollering, telling us they were glad we were back home.” While Whitmore was one of the 1.4 million American soldiers who servedPlease see VET/B2
Newspaper Details
Burlington Times News
Burlington, North Carolina, US
Tue, Nov 13, 1990
Page 11
Full Page
Clipped by
Kokomo-Howard C.
IN, USA 21 May 2019
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