Posted on 07/25/2003 9:30:08 AM PDT by NFOShekky
Wallets Of WWII Soldiers Discovered At Camp Roberts National Guard Seeks Owners
POSTED: 9:27 a.m. PDT June 27, 2003 UPDATED: 10:12 a.m. PDT June 27, 2003
CAMP ROBERTS, Calif. -- Imagine finding your wallet almost 60 years after it was stolen.
William Growth, 79, is one of dozens of World War II soldiers whose wallets were found in Camp Roberts recently.
Training camp officials say at least 25 wallets have turned up in heating ducts and floor boards of old barracks since a demolition project got under way five years ago.
Most of the wallets had no money inside. But some of the mementos found include driver's licenses, family photos and letters from sweethearts.
Growth found an American Legion card and a combination to his locker. Of course, the $20 bill was missing.
Patrick McElholm was an infantryman trained at Camp Roberts during the Korean war. Back at home, a girl named Barbara Lee Nolde loved him, but a letter from her, unfolded 50 years later, revealed tension between the couple.
"This woman seemed very devoted to him yet there was this problem this issue between them and then all of sudden this whole story stops," said Staff Sgt. Tom Murotake of the California National Guard.
Camp Roberts is set to undergo a major renovation and most of the old buildings will be coming down, so even more wallets are expected to appear.
Normally they would have just bulldozed these buildings, but because of lead paint and asbestos they have to take them apart piece by piece so they're finding these small pieces of history.
Through small bits of information Murotake has tracked many of the veterans, but for others he's having a hard time finding an ending to their stories.
But there is an ending to the story of Pat and Barbara Lee, their plans for marriage died with him in Korea. Their memories were trapped in a weathered piece of leather for 50 years.
During World War II, nearly 500,000 soldiers trained at the massive installation about 200 miles north of Los Angeles.
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