Two young men from Faulkner County were called to duty in World War II, one landing on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, the other not many days behind him. They never knew each other here, nor did they meet “over yonder,” although their battle campaigns took them along similar paths through Europe.
These two Army veterans met for the first time in mid-July at a special occasion for one of them at the Wagon Wheel Restaurant in Greenbrier.
Paul Hallum, 92, was the guest of honor at that special occasion, the recipient of several medals he never knew were owed him. Doyle Jolly, who celebrated his 95th birthday July 25, was a special guest.
It was quite by accident that Hallum received the medals. Hallum’s daughter, Sue Dixon of Greenbrier, had contacted the Veterans Administration several months ago about getting her dad some hearing aids. In order to get help paying for the hearing aids, she had to prove his military service. Dixon said that because of a house fire many years ago, much of Hallum’s paperwork relating to his military service had been destroyed, so they had no records.
However, the VA was able to verify Hallum’s military service, and he did get his hearing aids. He also received a package of medals he was not expecting. The awards included a Bronze Star with one oak leaf cluster, a Good Conduct Medal, an
American Campaign Medal, a European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with one silver service star, a World War II Victory Medal, a Combat Infantryman Badge First Award, an Honorable Service Lapel Button World War II and a Marksmanship Badge with a carbine bar.
“I was trying to verify the Purple Heart that he has at home,” Dixon said. “I’ve still not been able to verify that, but he now has all these new medals to go along with the Purple Heart and the Silver Star that he already had.”
Dixon said her father remembers getting the Purple Heart but not when or for what.
It was during this same time period that Dixon learned of another World War II veteran — Doyle Jolly — who lives in Greenbrier.
“I wanted Dad to receive his medals in a special way,” Dixon said, adding that she did not know the proper procedure for something like that. “So I called the Greenbrier mayor’s office and asked Sammy Joe (Mayor Sammy Hartwick) if he would present Dad with the medals. Sammy Joe and I went to high school together.
“He said he would be happy to do that. Then I thought it would be nice to invite Mr. Jolly to the ceremony, too. That was the first time [he and my dad] met.”
Both veterans have been on the Arkansas Honor Flight to see the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. — Hallum in 2013 and Jolly in 2014.
Both said they were glad to have served their country, but neither wanted to continue their military service.
Jolly graduated from Greenbrier High School in 1940 when he was 17.
He worked at a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Iowa and at one in Paris, Arkansas, before he was drafted. He also worked on a Works Progress Administration job, building the school at Mount Vernon before he graduated from high school.
“Uncle Sam came and got me when I was about 22,” Jolly said. “That was in September 1942.”
He and his bride, Grace, now 91, had been married only three months.
“I joined the tank battalion,” Jolly said. “I was a good driver. I could drive about anything.
“First, they made us go to school for six months. I went to radio school at Fort Knox, Kentucky.”
Remembering those first days overseas after he had finished radio school, Jolly said, with tears welling up in his eyes, “We landed at Normandy Beach on D-Day.
“After D-Day, I was on a half-track (an armed vehicle) with a radio. … I slept in a foxhole. …
“We went all the way through [Germany] till we met the Russians. I served in four battlefields … [and] was at the Battle of the Bulge.”
Jolly’s military records show he served in the Rhineland, the Ardennes (the Battle of the Bulge), Central Europe and Northern France. Among his awards are four Bronze stars, a Good Conduct Medal and badges for radio operator and sharpshooter.
He came home when the war was over in November 1945. He was discharged at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, Missouri.
“I’ve been around a long time,” Jolly said with a smile. “In five years, I’ll be 100. My tax man and my barber said they’d do it for free then.”
After the war, Jolly and his wife started farming. He bought 106 acres of farmland near Woolly Hollow that had been in the family since 1857.
The Jollys have been married for 73 years. They raised four sons and a daughter — Sandy, Jim, Hal and Don Jolly and Teresa Golden. All live nearby. The couple have 15 grandchildren and “so many great- and great-greats that we can’t keep up,” Grace said
with a laugh.
Hallum grew up at Wooster. He never went to high school.
“I went to school at Mount Ararat (also known as Cadron Ridge) at Gleason on top of the hill,” Hallum said. “It only had nine grades; the younger kids were on one side, and the older ones on the other side. My mama worked in the cafeteria.”
He finished ninth grade at Mount Ararat and then went to work in a CCC camp in South Carolina.
“They tried to teach me to be a baker and a cook,” Hallum said, smiling. “I couldn’t cook … if I had to.
“I got the call to report when I was in South Carolina,” he said. “It came late, so I was told to wait for the next call. I went to Texas to work and was drafted out of Fort Sam Houston.”
That was in February 1943, two months before his 20th birthday.
“I was in basic training for 13 weeks,” Hallum said. “Then we were sent overseas. I was an ammo bearer. I carried shells for 81mm mortars.
“We rode the barge onto Omaha Beach,” Hallum said. “We still had to wade the water to the staging area.”
Hallum said he then became a forward observer, carrying a radio with him and radioing back to the men behind him.
“He was the target for the enemy,” Dixon said. “He was strapped to the radio. He would be the first one to be hit if the enemy fired on him. Nobody wanted to be around him.”
Hallum said he was shot at “several times.”
Dixon said her father was shot once in the foot.
“He’s got a scar to prove it,” she said, adding, “I think that was when he received the Purple Heart.”
Hallum said he “wound up driving a jeep” for the remainder of the war.
Hallum’s battle campaigns include the Rhineland, the Ardennes, Central Europe and the Normandy Campaign. He was discharged from the Army in December 1945, also at Jefferson Barracks.
After the war, Hallum worked as an ironworker all over the United States. He was working in Gary, Indiana, when he was injured and lost part of a hand.
“I was in the sixth grade,” Dixon said. “My grandmother lived here (Faulkner County). My mother, sisters and I came down here one summer, and we never left.
“Dad couldn’t work much after the accident,” she said. “He quit when I was in high school.”
Hallum and his wife, Jan, have been married for 53 years. In addition to Dixon, they have three other daughters — Becky Moranz of Evansville, Indiana, Janet Smothermon of Greenbrier and Julie Perry of Alexander. The couple have 10 grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.
“He’s not happy unless he’s staying busy,” Dixon said of her father. “He’s a caretaker at two cemeteries — Oak Grove and Pleasant Valley. He digs graves.
“I never knew he was a veteran until I was in high school. He never talked about it.”
Golden said Jolly never talked much about the war, either.
Dixon and Golden said they hope their fathers will keep in touch with each other. The veterans might find some common ground about which they could talk.