Generational Gratitude

By Timothy Murph

My Dad, Wade H. Murph, was a lifer in the US Army, enlisting when he was just sixteen years old. Dad was not old enough to join without parental consent, so he found an alcoholic on the street in Greeneville, Tennessee to whom he gave the only money he had, a silver dollar, to pose as his father and sign for him to join.

Dad told me that the Army gave him his life literally, as he was born into abject poverty and privation in the mountains of western North Carolina…Dad said that on the day he joined the Army and arrived at his basic training post, he slept in a bed by himself for the first time in life and was given new boots, clothes and a warm winter field jacket that belonged to him and were not old worn-out hand-me down clothes. He said he had never seen such an abundance of food available in the mess hall, where he ate three meals a day, also for the first time in his life.

Dad entered the Army with a sixth-grade education, but he quickly finished high school and received his diploma when the Army educated him while he was in basic training…By the time he retired, he had two years of college education as well.

Dad loved the Army with all his soul, and served proudly for 22 years, retiring in July 1968 at Fort Polk, Louisiana…I was born at Fort Riley, Kansas and grew up on US Army posts in the US and Germany, thanks to Dad’s service. 

He always was and continues to be my one true hero, and I will always be appreciative of his sacrifice, commitment and service to our country, and his desire to give myself and my sister a better life than he had.

God bless Dad and my fellow Veterans, both alive and resting…Happy Veterans Day…you are not forgotten! 

In July, 1968 Dad’s Army service broke the cycle of generational poverty for our family, changing the lives of myself, my children, my grandchildren and my descendants yet to come…it’s a debt that I can never repay.

Photos: Dad and me in our quarters at Fort Riley, Kansas.

Dad and me in the grass in Fort Sill Oklahoma in 1959

Dad, before we left for Panzer Kaserne in Böblingen, Germany in 1960

The joint retirement ceremony at Fort Polk, Louisiana where Dad and other soldiers retired from the Army

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