After 72 years, the memories are fading a bit as Don Mueller recalls his days in the Army during World War II.
“It didn’t bother me to go,” Mueller said. “Everybody else was going. I really wanted to go.”
He was drafted, entering the service on March 13, 1943, and went through training at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, Camp Gordon in Georgia, The Citadel in South Carolina, Camp Grant in Illinois and Fort Ord in California. He was assigned to a medical detachment of the 3rd Engineers Special Brigade.
Mueller had four months of intensive instruction in field medical aid, emergency operating technique and battle maneuvers. He was sent overseas on Dec. 22, 1943, to serve in the Pacific Theater in New Guinea and the Philippines, including the invasion of Luzon.
The trip overseas took 29 days by ship. In January 1944, they landed on Goodenough Island, off the southern tip of New Guinea, which had been recently recaptured from the Japanese. Then it was on to New Guinea. From there, he served in the Philippines invasion.
Mueller recalls mortar shells being launched at the men.
“Luckily they went over our heads,” he said.
Mueller’s unit treated all kinds of injuries; soldiers with the worst injuries were evacuated. “They usually weren’t in there very long,” he said. Mueller worked during enemy air attacks, blackouts and nightly shelling. Patients were cared for in beds by day and in foxholes at night.
The medics also helped the natives with health issues.
Toward the end of 1945, Mueller’s unit was getting ready to be part of the invasion of Japan. Before that happened, however, the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the war ended.
Mueller’s unit was still sent to Japan.
“I saw a lot of places that were completely destroyed,” Mueller said.
He returned home with the rank of sergeant after 33 months of service.
“I got home on New Year’s Eve and started tending bar,” said Mueller, who worked at his father’s bar, Mueller’s Tavern, before and after the war.
His father passed the bar on to Mueller, who ran it until 1963, when he sold it and began selling and repairing televisions. He retired in 1990.
Mueller and his wife, Mary, have been married 25 years and live in Bonduel. They have two stepdaughters, seven grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
For several years the couple went to reunions of Don’s fellow soldiers all over the U.S., and also hosted a couple in Wisconsin.
“We met lots of wonderful friends,” Mary Mueller said.
Mueller has been a member of Bonduel American Legion Post 217 since 1946.
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