Frederick J. Nachman

My mother said his face turned ashen after opening the correspondence dated September 11, 1950. The letter from the local headquarters of the Fifth Army informed my father he was to “report for . . . extended active duty” for a term of “twenty-one (21) consecutive months.”

Dad had served as a 1st lieutenant from 1942 to 1945, finishing as an MP in a German POW camp in western Illinois. He was combat-exempt because of poor eyesight. Since then, he’d married and had twin sons, age 18 months, when the notice arrived. Dad with his brother supported their mother, whose husband died in 1942 and left very little money.

I laugh at Dad’s first effort to petition the Army. He stated it would be “physically impossible” for my mother “to care for the two small children alone,” also citing our “undergoing treatment for orthopedic defects.”

Isaac Wagner, the head of Dad’s employer, the accounting firm Katz, Wagner & Company, enlisted Congressman Sidney R. Yates of the North Side 9th District to assist a South Shore resident. Yates’ sister Mae was also a friend of my Grandma Cookie. Yates noted that major changes in tax laws made it important for my father to work during the upcoming tax season and promised that despite losing some firm members to the Armed Service, the company would request no additional deferments.

This may have been the deciding factor, for shortly thereafter my father was issued a 6-month delay, and on January 23, 1951, the order was revoked.