James Gutshall considers himself among the fortunate.
At 18, he and a friend from Ooltewah, David Smith, decided to volunteer.
“We had nothing else to do,” said Gutshall, whose mother didn’t believe he’d follow through.
He did, and within a week he was off to basic training.
When he joined the U.S. Army, he was sent to the U.S. Occupation Zone of West Germany and Austria to serve in the U.S. Constabulary. A U.S. Army military occupation and security force, the Constabulary patrolled the 40,000-square-mile zone – home to 16 million Germans – as well as its 1,400 miles of international and interzonal borders, in the aftermath of World War II between 1946-1952.