Noted veteran shares upbeat war story

   “Good evening, Mr. Hargrove, I’m Susan Larson and I’m a columnist for the Gwinnett Daily Post,” I said as I sat down next to him at the head table.

   “You’re here, too?” he said. “At the bowling alley these photographers, reporters, writers, they swarm around me all the time. Can’t get away from them. Now what paper did you say you’re from?”

   “Gwinnett Daily Post,” I replied.

   “Now that’s a new one. How do all you writers hear about me?” he said. This time he winked at me and I knew he really didn’t mind all the attention. At his age, he knows it just comes with the territory, and he doesn’t waste a second of any time he can spend cutting up with somebody.

   Hargrove, a resident of Clermont, GA, was the guest speaker at the January meeting of Task Force Patriot, an outreach organization for veterans, which meets at First Baptist Church in Lilburn.

   “You know, I’m the oldest active bowler in the world and the oldest in the history of the game,” he stated, almost bouncing in his seat. “Up until recently, I bowled three times a week. But lately I cut back to once a week, you know with all the commotion with people swarming around me.”

   “Yes, I saw that in the e-mail invitation,” I said. “But I also know that’s not the reason you’ve been invited to speak tonight.”

   “No,” he said. “They asked me to come here because I’m also the oldest living World War II veteran in the world. I’m 106 years old.”

   But Hargrove’s war story isn’t about the typical kinds of battles most veterans tell.

   “When I was 12 years old I learned to play the trumpet. I got lots of encouragement from musicians who said I was good and could really go far. I looked forward to the time when I could go to Atlanta and play with the big bands,” Hargrove said.

   “When I was 41 years old, I was playing at the Druid Hills Country Club, just doing my thing, when a man approached me and said, ‘Are you Bill Hargrove? I came to see you at the request of Col. Glenn Miller. He’s starting the 3rd Army Air Force Band and he wants you in it. But you’ll have to enlist.’”

   “All this time the draft board was hot on my tail and I had a big battle to keep from being drafted,” said Hargrove, whose day job was an administrative position with Gulf Oil Corporation. “I was 41 and single and available for anything. The draft board could get me any day, but this man said if I would sign up that night, they’d mark me for that group.”

   “It was the best thing that ever happened to me. We played for troops all over the state of Florida. I enjoyed doing something for all those sad boys away from home,” he said.

   But shortly after Hargrove enlisted, the age 38 law passed. No one over that age could be drafted and anyone already serving could get a discharge. That’s when Hargrove’s big battle began.

   “Gulf Oil lost 1500 employees to the military and they really wanted me back, but I felt I hadn’t given what I really owed my country. I wanted to stay in the army,” said Hargrove.

   After about a year, Gulf Oil won out and Hargrove was traveling around the country setting up new offices by day and playing his trumpet by night.

   Having retired in 1966, he got a laugh from the audience when he quipped, “I put in 42 years of service and I’m starting my 42nd year of retirement.”

   His trumpet playing days, which included gigs at the Fox, ended in 1974, but he can still belt out a song. He concluded his presentation with a jazzed up version of “Jesus Loves Me” and a signature sound bite, “I’m delighted to be here. I’m delighted to be anywhere.”

   If you’d like to invite Hargrove to speak, you can e-mail me and I’ll forward your requests to him. I’d give you his direct address, but well, you know how he is about the media swarming all over him.

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