Entering the Army Through Camp Upton

Babe was born on Oct. 9, 1924, so the day he wrote this postcard to his parents, he would have been 18 years old. It is the earliest correspondence I have from Babe’s service in the military. I assume there should have been intake documents, draft papers or whatnot; I haven’t found them yet.

It also makes sense that it was his earliest correspondence, from Camp Upton, which sat on what is now the site of the government’s Brookhaven National Laboratory toward the eastern side of Long Island, N.Y. The map locates the site of Camp Upton, as well as Babe’s hometown in Mount Kisco, just north of New York City in Westchester County. Read more of this post