We are a patriotic country. When this nation is challenged the public responds to face the enemies of freedom and democracy.

We may fight amongst ourselves, and the current level of political rancor is great, but we still face the enemies of our land together no matter what the extremists say.

These traditions go back to the time of our founding fathers and were probably best exhibited during the dark times of World War II.

The devotion to this country may best be demonstrated by some young men and women of this area although their stories would be similar to the lives of many Americans in all parts of the country.

Take for example the story of John Falconer. In Jan. 1944 the army was returning him to Carrington from Fort Snelling. You see the 16-year-old boy had lied about his age and enlisted. When the army found out his real age they discharged him and sent him home.

Falconer had to suspect this would happen. After all the same thing had happened a year before when he had tried to enlist at the age of 15.

The youth lived with an older sister after the death of their parents. She had moved from Fargo to Carrington for a job opportunity between John’s two enlistments.

The sister, whose name is never noted in the newspaper articles, suspected he would try enlisting again. When Johnny went missing she contacted the army wondering if he had enlisted again. By the time they located him he’d had a physical and all the inoculations necessary for service.

Oddly enough by the time John Falconer turned 18 the war was nearly over.

Then there is the story of the Willman brothers of Jamestown.

Six sons of Mr. and Mrs. John Willman, again the woman’s name never makes the paper, served in three branches of the military in 1944. Three of the sons served in the army while two were in the navy and one in the marines.

The article notes that the boy’s mother was active in the local Red Cross as her part of the army effort.

But I don’t mean to make this sound like the ladies weren’t a part of the war effort.

We know that Lt. Lorraine Todd of Jamestown was serving as a navy nurse in the South Pacific. She even sent the Jamestown Sun a little souvenir of her time away from home

We don’t know if she was an artist or had the item painted but she sent a coconut, painted with a tropical scene, back to the Jamestown Sun.

Instead of packing it in a box she painted the address of the Sun on the other side of the coconut.

In the cold of January 1944 you could look at a little bit of the South Pacific in the front window of the Sun’s office. It was another sign of the efforts the everyday people were making to keep the nation free.

Not even the old timers here at the Sun recall the coconut. However, if any of the readers have knowledge about the Jamestown Sun coconut let me know.